Lesbian Life: Tell me about how you found out about Frances Faye (who’s music Genecco’s CD and live show is based on).
Terese Genecco; She was born in 1912 and in late 20s she was performing as a teenager, mostly as a piano player. She actually didn’t have a great singing voice and she was accompanying another singer who got fired by the club and they sent her out to do the show by herself. So she got started as a sort of saloon-playing nightclub entertainer. She was working in New York in the late 20s and early 30s in the prohibition era, working in speakeasies. She was married twice and got divorced never remarried. And in the late 40s or early 50s she met this really hot young blonde –she was called “The Stallion” and her name was Teri Shephard. They hit it off and Frances asked Teri to be her secretary and then she became her business manager and they ultimately moved in together and spent 31 years out in Hollywood. They were very open about being partners to people in the business and at the music venues, so people knew that they were a couple, but the general public didn’t know.How did you find out about her?
She was recommended to me by some judges at the Cabaret Competition I was involved in during 2003 back in San Francisco. I didn’t know what cabaret was then [Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue—a restaurant or nightclub] so I joined this competition just to check it out and see what it was all about...and during the process, which took about four months of rounds, I got to know the judges and they said you know you remind us of somebody and we think you should listen to her. I had never heard of Frances Faye at that point so I went online and I could only find one of her albums called “Caught in the Act”. I ordered it and when I got put it in the stereo and I fell in love with it, just went mad over it. After I won the competition, everyone said you have to do a show, you have to do a show, and I didn’t know what to do. A lot of people have themes to their cabaret shows -- they’ll do all one composer or a lyrist-composer team, or their favorite album. But, I didn’t know what to do. I was talking to my girlfriend, who was just by best friend at the time, and she said, well what do you love the most and I said, well this Frances Faye record. She said well, it’s a little tricky and because no one knows who you are and no one knows who Frances Faye is anymore and it’s kind of a geek project and not very many people will get it. The next day she called me and said, I was wrong –it that’s what you love you should do it—whatever you do you’ll do well and people will love it so put your heart into it and see what happens.It was the best thing I ever did and it turns out there are still a lot of people who know who Frances Faye was. I did a five week run at the New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco every weekend in the summer and we had a great audience and it was packed. There were a lot of people who had either seen Faye perform live in the past in San Francisco or that record was one of their favorite records as a teenager in the 50s and 60s growing up—there were a lot of closeted queens listening to Frances Faye.
Not a lot of women knew who she was, the lesbian community is not up on Frances is at all, but the gay male community loves her. So, I brought the show to New York City, and the first time we did it here we got rave reviews then brought it back the next year, when the Metropolitan room opened they had me as the second act.
