Born on this day: African American rhythm and blues nightclub chanteuse and transgender pioneer Jackie Shane (15 May 1940 – 21 February 2019). The regal and enigmatic soul diva (who often looked and sounded like a fierce hybrid of Little Richard and Eartha Kitt) originally hailed from Nashville, Tennessee but had to relocate to Canada to find acclaim and acceptance in her adopted city of Toronto, Ontario. Disillusioned with the music industry, by the early 70s Shane retired and vanished so completely off the radar she was widely assumed to be dead. Luckily, Shane lived long enough to be re-discovered and embraced by a new generation of admirers as a LGBTQ icon and for her long out-of-print recorded work to be compiled and reissued on CD. (You can listen to the 2017 album Any Other Way on Spotify – and I highly recommend you do!).
