The Velvet Mafia: the gay men who helped shape music in the 60s

In a revealing new book, the often overlooked input of queer men who helped advise, manage and steer artists in the swinging 60s is examined

The story of rock’n’roll in the 60s has been told countless times by the stars who sang the songs, spun the solos or thrashed the drums. In the UK at the time, that most often meant straight white men, as it did in the US. But the people who shaped and advised those artists – the ones who managed the stars of the classic rock age – were, by an outsized margin, gay men.

That interwoven community included Brian Epstein (who brought the world the Beatles), Kit Lambert (who co-managed the Who), Simon Napier-Bell (the Yardbirds, and a young Marc Bolan), Robert Stigwood (Cream, the Bee Gees), Billy Gaff (Rod Stewart), Ken Pitt (David Bowie), Barry Krost (Cat Stevens), as well as Tony Stratton-Smith (who formed the visionary label Charisma for bands like Genesis). In fact, it was a gay man, Larry Parnes, who svengali-d Britain’s very first rockers, from Tommy Steele to Billy Fury to Marty Wilde.