Drag

The Tampa Bay area has been a center for drag performance for over a century, from the “female impersonators” of the 1930s Brass Rail to the “drag queens” of 1990s ElGoya/Tracks.

The Early Years

The Tampa Bay area has been a center for drag performance for over a century. As early as the 1920s and 1930s, the Brass Rail at the corner of Franklin and Jackson streets in downtown Tampa boasted that it was home to “Tampa’s Most Unusual Revue” and also “America’s Foremost Female Impersonators,” the term commonly used at the time. These explorations of gender were an extremely popular form of entertainment for straight and queer audiences alike. The Jewel Box on Tampa Street and the Brass Rail around the corner competed for national performers who traveled a circuit that included Finochio’s in San Francisco and Club Ha Ha in Hollywood. Unlike today, these female impersonators often went by male names that emphasized their ability to transform themselves from one gender into another.

This 1949 advertisement for the Brass Rail in the Tampa Tribune features appearances by Tommy Lester and Jackie Hughes. The photos were taken by Bobby Smith, a trans-masculine Tampa resident who described his visit to the Brass Rail as “my first encounter with female impersonators.”

Tommy Lester

Here Photographer Bobby Smith enjoys some conversation with “female impersonator” Tommy Lester. Bobby captioned the photo “Great time in my life” and pointed to the fluidity of gender by asking the rhetorical question,

“Which is male and which is female?”

Bobby Smith, trans-masculine photographer (right), with female impersonator Tommy Lester (left)

Bobby Smith also becomes friends with local performer known as “Rocio.” As a queer photographer, he photographed and developed the images of many such performers both in and out of drag.

1970s Drag: Logan Carter

In the 1970s, Tampa native Bobby “Logan” Carter became a star on the national circuit of female impersonators, what was then being increasingly labeled “drag.”

Logan debuted at the age of 19 on stage at Tampa’s Horny Bull, an underage juice bar and the first venue for local drag performers. The Horny Bull was managed by Chic Hodges, who would later be a promoter for El Goya.

In 1974 he won the Miss Florida title and was soon gracing major nightclubs in Miami and New York. A New York entertainment columnist later named him “the South’s number one gay performer.” By 1980s he was appearing on screen in the television series E/R, the film Repo Man, and Pat Benatar’s music video “Sex as a Weapon.”

Logan Carter wins Miss Florida “Female Impersonators” Pageant, 1974

Carter’s on-stage transformation from diva Roxanne Russell to hunky Logan mesmerized audiences. Accompanied by the music of Charles Aznavour’s “What Makes a Man, a Man,” Carter would remove all his female clothes, appear naked, and then slowly put on male drag. In 1978 it was captured on film by New York University’s Derek Calderwood in the short Gender. The film was used in classrooms to encourage conversations about the social construction of gender.

1980s: Tracks/El Goya

Joey Brooks was known as “The First Lady of Ybor” for her frequent extravagant performances at El Goya, which later became Tracks.

“In those days shows were productions”
– Joey Brooks