In the beginning…
When I unearthed a copy of the first Jobriath album in 1979, I purchased it with a sense of potential amusement. The artist's reputation was akin to him being a talentless hype, a Bowie-clone, the ultimate rock and roll failure. I anticipated an embarrassing pastiche of wannabe affectations, along the grooves of The Cuddly Toys, who in their day had systematically plundered and rewritten the finest moments of Marc Bolan and David Bowie.
I was gifted a surprise. I’d found a record stuffed with panache, flair and obvious talent. The song 'Inside' became one of my favourites and remains so. In those pre-internet days, the mantra surrounding Jobriath was that he was rubbish. He had barely been mentioned since the mid-seventies and had avoided making any kind of comeback. In 1987 I caught an Arena documentary on the BBC about the inhabitants of New York's notorious Chelsea Hotel, and up cropped Jobriath in a bow tie playing a song entitled 'Sunday Brunch' on a white Yamaha baby grand piano. And thus a mystery was solved.
In 1992, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys wrote to the NME enquiring of Jobriath's current activities, but after a few weeks nothing emerged, and the late Richard Smith quipped 'missing - presumed straight!'. I decided to fax Jobriath at the Chelsea but didn't receive a reply, so I wrote a letter informing him of the interest in his work. Two weeks later that missive returned covered in stamps 'Not Known At The Hotel Chelsea' -'No Forwarding Address' with 'DECEASED - RETURN TO SENDER' scrawled across the envelope. And thus a mystery was accepted as a quest.
A link provided by Richard Smith to me for Hayden Wayne, Jobriath's former touring keyboardist, brought the news that Jobriath had died in August 1983 from complications from AIDS. The first remotely famous soul to succumb to what would be a pandemic. His passing hadn't merited a mention in the music press.
Morrissey was the only known supporter of Jobriath's legacy, and it was inevitable that he and I would connect and share our mutual interest in 'the leper boy of Glam'. In 1997, on the back of a month long visit to New York, I wrote the first new feature on Jobriath in over two decades for 'Attitude', with other major pieces appearing in 'Dazed & Confused' and 'Mojo'. After another visit to New York in 2003, I wrote 'Gone Tomorrow', the story of Jobriath's brief life. It was accepted by a publisher, but the advance was never paid, so the book never appeared.
Morrissey requested that I should write the biographical essay for 'Lonely Planet Boy', his compilation of Jobriath's Elektra Records output, and when that appeared, selling in excess of 23,000 units, the book became an abandoned project.
When Hayden Wayne wanted to publish it in recent years, I refused. The book needed a complete rewrite since so much more information had emerged with the digital age. Then came lockdown. I dragged my tattered manuscript out of a box in my cellar and rewrote it from scratch. A conversation with my friend Phil King (Lush, Earl Brutus) about undertaking a tribute album is why you now are reading this.
And thus the story continues. An effort to reassess and celebrate the creativity of a lost and neglected soul.
Robert Cochrane, 2023
