![]() HERE, KABOOBIE (VISUAL AND PERFORMANCE ARTIST TROY-ANTHONY BAYLIS) CONVERSES VIA EMAIL WITH CONSTANTINA BUSH (ACTOR AND CABARET ARTIST KAMAHI DJORDAN KING). The young generation has no idea of my past.CABARET AND CROSS-DRESSING ARE AN IDIOSYNCRATIC PART OF CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS CULTURAL EXPRESSION, BEST KNOWN IN THE SHAPE OF MARY G, QUEEN OF THE KIMBERLEY (MARK BIN BAKAR). The older generation knows me for my impersonations, but the young kids latched onto this song. I’ve reached a whole other generation with my song. Little kids are singing it at slumber parties, teenagers are singing it. My Marilyn stuff on YouTube was about 500,000. It has over 20 million views on YouTube from fans who did videos. Beyond Marilyn, and all the voices I do, this song has outweighed anything I’ve ever done, believe it or not. I wrote this song called “Fashionista,” and it went global. Is there anything else that you want to promote? Well, if you are ever in New York, please let me know. I’ve been in this business now professionally for 34 years. I’m just going to say, I’m past the age of 36 when Marilyn died. How many years did it take you to learn how to do this? The only song I can do is “Skyfall,” because I heard her in an interview, and she was pregnant when she did that, and she sung it in a lower register. The audiences thought that they were just going to get Marilyn, and then they got Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, and they were blown away. My show always had voice impressions, but the first part of my show was always Marilyn Monroe. ![]() I began to get confident in myself as a performer, standing on my own two feet, doing my thing, pleasing an audience without having to be in that crutch of a Marilyn Monroe drag queen. ![]() I’ll always have a “look.” I like to call it “glamour dyke.” It was all about Jimmy James and his voice impressions, not Jimmy James in drag. The owner told me do to anything I liked. It was at midnight, no cover, and people would come out on a Monday night to see me work out new material. There was a club in New York called Pieces.įrom ‘95 to 2000, I did a workshop there. It was a slow turn around, but I had to turn the big ship around, from being an illusionist basically to then becoming myself to do the impressions. It ended for me in ‘97, so I had done it for 17 years. At some point you start to think that when you start doing it longer than Marilyn was alive, I thought, this is not going to end well. I thought that if I ever get to that level where I could drop all this drag…I look like a woman anyway! Why am I going through all of this? I walked into a store with flip flops, and the store person said, “Yes, ma’am, how can we help you?” Why am I suffering so much? If the thing is to look like a woman, then here I am! They do it like nothing they go in and out of character. I watched people like Whoopie Goldberg and Lily Tomlin perform. People didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl. The drag thing is so weird to me, because it just comes off like a woman, and I don’t know how to reconcile with that. ![]() I’m a guy doing women’s voices, so I didn’t want people to get involved or confused in all that. In drag I am only 5’5”, and in drag people think I’m a real woman, singing female voices. I took the drag out per se, because for a while people were lip-synching and stuff. What I do is voice impressions of famous voices, from Barbra Streisand to Elvis Presley, Sonny and Cher, Liza Minnelli, Eartha Kitt, Adele, so I have a really fun show. I still paint like a hooker, but I don’t really do drag. I know Ron, but I retired Marilyn in ‘97. I heard from a mutual friend, Ron Russell, that you were the best Marilyn Monroe ever. I’ve walked through enough blizzards in my life. Y ou will be performing at The Winter Rendezvous this year? Get Out! spoke with James regarding his performance and his new YouTube hit “Fashionista,” a song he wrote and recorded and which now has 20 million views. From January 18-22, the biggest gay winter party will be taking place, with skiing, skating, dancing, snowmobiling, racing, parting and just plain enjoying. Voice impersonator Jimmy James has been in the entertainment world for 34 years and will be performing Cher, Adele, Eartha Kitt and more, at the Gay Ski Weekend for the Winter Rendezvous at Stowe in Vermont. The One and Many Voices of Jimmy James at Winter Rendezvous
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