DAISY DALTON MEMORIAL

Daisy Dalton was one of the first drag queens I ever saw perform. I was sneaking into Chattanooga's Go-Go Club by age 13, and Daisy was a headliner who always tore the house down with her lip-synch rendition of Connie Vannett's The Pussycat Song, a southern drag classic which was a staple of not only Daisy's act, but even The Bitch of The South, Mr. Charlie Brown. I also recorded a dance version of it for the album GOD SHAVE THE QUEEN and thanked Daisy in the liner notes for turning me onto the song.

Augmenting her own hair with a long brown atop her head and and favoring a crushed burgundy velvet jumpsuit with boots, Daisy-kins wasn't the prettiest queen, but she had a unique fishy sass that made her animated version of the song a definitive one. And lordy, those tips flew whenever she did her trademark number! I honestly can't remember her other "hits", though she may have also done Yvonne Fair's IT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME. She was quite magic, and stood out even among the other stars of the club like Tasha Khan and Mr. Della Reese.

I got the chance to chat with her through a mutual myspace friend and thanked her profusely for her early inspiration to me. I guess she saw me as a local girl who had made it (even though Lady Bunny came to life in Atlanta after I left Chatta-boogie) so she seemed genuinely delighted to hear from me. She'd been ill for a while, and when she died a few weeks ago, her family tried to hush things up so that their son's funeral wouldn't turn into a gay bar freak show. So tonight, trumping the Oscars, Chattanooga's leading gay bar held a memorial for one of it's leading "ladies". Girl, thanks again for your magic and I hope that the local girls put on an amazing show in your honor.