By Lauren Means • Photos (submitted) Provided by Dianne Davidson
Here in Music City, you’ll find musicians in the bars, singers in the honkey tonks, and performers in the concert venues. But to find the real artists, you have to look really deep. Sometimes they’re even hidden in plain sight. Dianne Davidson is one such artist. Singer, songwriter, guitarist, performer, and producer, she does it all. She does it all and does it without the backing of a major industry label.
Davidson was born in Memphis in 1953. She grew up in a small Tennessee town named Camden where she developed her musical styling. From singing and writing songs at an early age to forming her first band, The Mad Martians, at age 11, it was clear that Davidson had music flowing through her veins.
She lived in a household that was medical and musical. She knew she would either become a musician or a physician. Davidson’s mother was her strongest advocate when she was getting started. She carted everyone to practice when she started her band and carried all the equipment.
At a young age, she sat down with her father and had a conversation about her future. He asked her “Are you any good at this?” and she said, “Daddy, you know, I think I am.” He said ok and that was the affirmation she needed from her dad to pursue her dreams full steam ahead.
When she was 17 years old, Davidson decided to chart her course in the music industry. She played in West Tennessee bars, California nightclubs, Greenwich Village listening rooms, festivals, and even Carnegie Hall.
During her early years, Davidson recorded five albums (although one was just released in 2020), toured with Linda Ronstadt and The Moody Blues, and sang backing vocals for big-name performers such as B.B. King, Jimmy Buffet, Tammy Wynette, Barry Manilow, and Leon Russell.
She was on her way to becoming a household name but her album “Breaking All The Rules” didn’t get the pickup she needed and in the mid-nineties, she called it quits. She moved to New York, took a nine-to-five job, got married and adopted a son.
What could make someone who was living out their true passion in life just give it all up? Maybe it was because in the 70s and 80s if you were gay, you kept it under wraps. If you didn’t keep it quiet, you likely didn’t have a career.
This is exactly why Davidson’s fourth recorded album, “1974,” wasn’t released until 2020. She knew who she was and she was ok with who she was — including being gay. She said she doesn’t remember thinking too much about putting the album out and how it might be received because she was just a 21-year-old who was writing about her life experiences.
In 1974, though, the industry wasn’t ok with who she was. They wanted someone marketable, meaning straight. So that album, which included a song Davidson calls a lesbian love song, was shelved. She said it burnt her heart and almost completely burnt her spirit.
Davidson had people around her tell her she had to be cautious with her personal life. Davidson acknowledged that when she came out, it was a time where it was extremely dangerous to do so. This was back in the 60s and 70s when there were raids on bars and shakedowns. She said she thought better of people and that she wasn’t expecting the kind of response she received. “I thought people would be happy for me,” she said. She found someone who made her happy and in her youthful naivety, she didn’t expect doors to be closed on her.
But closed they were.
Invisible
Davidson wasn’t the only artist to which this happened. There are many LGBTQ+ musicians who’ve done extraordinary work in the music industry that had to take a back seat due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
It’s happened so often with the women in the industry, especially the country music sector, there is now a documentary highlighting their struggles and stories. Producer Bill Brimm and director T.J. Parsell developed Outhaus Films specifically to produce the documentary “Invisible.” This film explores the lives of a group of LGBTQ+ singer-songwriters who’ve navigated southern music. “Invisible” examines their journeys and how they persevered in both private and professional lives.
Davidson was one of the artists highlighted in the documentary that started filming in March 2017. It was set to premiere in 2020 but like everything else, that was postponed.
The film finally made its debut in June 2021 at the Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival to rave reviews. It was even awarded the Audience Award for Best Documentary for T.J. Parsell.
Alongside Davidson, you hear stories from artists such as Cidny Bullens — a two-time Grammy nominee who was a member of Elton John’s band in the 70s and sang three lead vocals for the soundtrack to the film “Grease” who transitioned in 2011.
Then there is Chely Wright. She was the first out country music artist. Wright tells the story of when she had hit the end of her rope and contemplated ending her life. “I wasn’t ashamed of being gay. I was just so damn tired,” she explains in the film.
These stories, along with Davidson’s, are just a small sampling of people who had their careers ended just because of who they love.
Invisibility was the choice they made along the way. As Davidson explained, your sexuality is a pretty important thing to constantly lie about. You can’t slip up on pronouns or talk about anything personal when you are working with people intimately as a singer-songwriter.
Some people chose to live their truth and not hit it big. Others chose to suppress that part of them in exchange for a career. For people who made the choice to hide that part of themselves, it was a true feeling of being invisible.
Forging the Road
When asked how it felt to share her story, Davidson said it was a story she had not really told before and it was a viewpoint that she never explored with anyone. She kept it inside. To be able to talk about it and explore what it meant for her career and to see other people’s reactions to her story was powerful. “It was something I really needed to experience to move past,” Davidson explained. She said it brought about epiphanies that she didn’t expect to have at her age.
Davidson said she wouldn’t change coming out because it took people like her coming out when they did to pave the way for people to come out the way they can now. “We have been forging this road for a long time in a lot of different ways and I am proud to be a part of it,” said Davidson.
She said she’s exposed to a lot of different people because of her son who is now 16. She knows sometimes it’s just that someone has never been around a lesbian family before or if they had, they didn’t know it. She is very open and willing to be the one to help people rethink how they treat people.
Davidson told a story of a time, years ago, where she was having a conversation in a room full of people about marriage equality. According to Davidson, there was a woman in the room who actually didn’t realize that marriage was not allowed for all people. Davidson hopes this movie helps educate people about things they don’t know or things they thought they knew but were actually incorrect.
Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees
Her sixth studio album was “Perigon: Full Circle.” Released August 2020, it was her first new recording in over three decades. It came off the heels of her “1974” album that she finally released after filming “Invisible.”
When comparing the process of writing and recording “1974” and “Perigon,” she said the process was the same but the technicalities made it very different. “Doing this record I was able to get people to work on it and play on it without being in the same place. But making it was the same as they were both a labor of love,” said Davidson.
Davidson said she couldn’t be where she was without her listeners and supporters. She doesn’t like to use the term fans because they are more than that. She says her benefactors have kept her and her family afloat so she can pursue her passion and she will be eternally grateful for them.
She credits other musicians and her peers for helping her along. Davidson explained how they helped her cut her teeth and navigate the scene when she was first coming out and they helped her in the present day to make these new releases possible.
She now tries to repay that help by providing advice to and even co-writing with younger, out musicians. “They feel a lot freer to explore life with openness and I love that. They need to be thinking about creating their art and not about someone closing doors on them,” said Davidson.
“In the music industry, among artists, nothing matters except if you are a good player,” Davidson explained. Her hope is we can eventually get to the point where our differences don’t matter.
Davidson’s next stop is here in Tennessee at Franklin’s Inaugural Pride Festival. She said her set will be a mix of old and new music. “It’s going to be fun and I’m playing with a great band. The people involved have been incredible.”
For more information about Dianne Davidson, visit diannedavidson.com.
For more information on Franklin Pride, visit franklinpridetn.com.
