45 years ago, disco icon Sylvester performed what would ultimately become one of his most famous concerts to date at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. The performance became the basis for his 1979 live album Living Proof, and served as the debut ground for his album Stars. And soon, fans can listen to the Queen of Disco’s performance in full.
On Wednesday (June 5), Craft Recordings announced the release of Live at the Opera House, a new live album from the late legend that shares the famed concert in full. Today, fans are getting an exclusive sneak peak of what to expect with a new live cut of “Body Strong,” the exuberant disco track that Sylvester debuted during the concert alongside Martha Wash.
The new LP features more than an hour of unreleased music from the live concert, including a brief ceremony in which Sylvester receives the key to the city of San Francisco. The physical editions of the new album — available on both a 3-LP vinyl and 2-CD format — also come with recently discovered photographs from the evening, as well as brand new liner notes from Joshua Gamson, author of the biography The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco.
“That Sylvester – an androgynous, openly gay, drag-loving, African American, falsetto-singing, unapologetically flaming man-diva influenced primarily by church women, Black blues singers, drag queens, hippies, and homosexuals – would be the central diva at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House in March of 1979 was as unlikely as it was inevitable,” Gamson writes in his new liner notes. “Aside from a few thousand souls, most of us missed it. It was a lot to miss, too: a peek into the career of an ahead-of-his-time artist, a poignant moment in San Francisco and queer history, a couple of hours of collective effervescence set to music.”
Sylvester’s Live at the Opera House arrives Sept. 6th via Craft Recordings. Listen to the exclusive single “Body Strong” and check out the full tracklist of the new live album below:
Live at the Opera House tracklist:
- Overture (Grateful/You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)/Dance (Disco Heat))
- Body Strong
- Medley #1: Everything Must Change / You Are My Love
- Medley #2: Could This Be Magic / A Song For You
- Blackbird / Sylvester Day Proclamation
- Happiness
- Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?)
- Sharing Something Perfect Between Ourselves
- I (Who Have Nothing)
- You Are My Friend
- Dance (Disco Heat)
- You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
- Overture (Reprise)
- Never Can Say Goodbye
