Album Description24 tracks. CD41 are pleased to announce the release of Tipping the Velvet, a full length CD of archive music hall tracks inspired by the acclaimed lesbian historical novel by Sarah Waters. Tipping the Velvet features original recordings made between 1915 and 1938 by several key artists, including Norah Blaney, Gwen Farrar, Cicely Courtneidge, Hetty King, Douglas Byng, Ella Shields and Vesta Tilley. As 78 rpm shellac discs claimed their corner of the entertainment market in the 1920's, lesbian and gay artists also made records, although in the wake of Oscar Wilde's earlier notoriety performers had usually to resort to novelty and caricature. Some of these sides are by male impersonators, such as King and Tilley, others by more overtly camp performers like Douglas Byng. Tracks include: Masculine Women! Feminine Men!, The Moon is Low, If I Had a Girl Like You, Piccadilly, Give Me a Million Beautiful Girls, I'm a Bird, Ukelele Lady and What Angeline Says, Goes. The CD has been edited by Andrew Simons, jazz curator at the British Library National Sound Archive. In his sleevenote he explains: ''In the Victorian era the music hall was the mass entertainment. There the heroines of Tipping the Velvet, Nan King and Kitty Butler, were social prisoners of the era, with modern conveniences such as public transport and mass media, but none of the enlightenment regarding diversity that we enjoy today. Reverse gender impersonators were no doubt an inspiration to the hidden lesbian and gay community.'' A major BBC television adaptation of the novel will be screened in three parts in September 2002. Running for 74 minutes and featuring extensive sleevenotes, the disc is a must for all students of left-field music hall, jazz, variety, and hidden social history.
