About this item
Highlights
- The jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City as Dorothy Tipton, but almost nobody knew the truth until the day he died, in Spokane in 1989.
- Author(s): Diane Wood Middlebrook
- 326 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Women
Description
About the Book
The jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City as Dorothy Tipton, but almost nobody knew the truth until the day he died. This jazz era biography evokes the rich, popular-music history of the Great Depression and reads like a detective story. 60 photos.Book Synopsis
The jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City as Dorothy Tipton, but almost nobody knew the truth until the day he died, in Spokane in 1989. Over a fifty-year performing career, Billy Tipton fooled nearly everyone, including Duke Ellington and Norma Teagarden, five successive "wives" with whom Billy lived as a man, and three children who he "fathered." As Billy Tipton herself said, "Some people might think I'm a freak or a hermaphrodite. I'm not. I'm a normal person. This has been my choice." This jazz-era biography evokes the rich popular-music history of the Great Depression and reads like a detective story.
Review Quotes
"Diane Middlebrook is now writing the life of Billy Tipton . . . It should be the paradigmatic biography of our time." Newsweek --
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