Original ‘Weather Girl’ to appear at OKC Pride

Oklahoma City will host the original Weather Girl, Martha Wash, on June 20, as one of the headliners for OKC Pride’s Friday night block party. Martha will share the stage with the legendary Taylor Dayne.

Martha is riding a wave of success with the release of her 2013 album, Something Good, which has gained critical acclaim and has been well received by her fans. Following her appearance at OKC Pride 2014, she is heading to Toronto, Canada, to perform at World Pride.

Martha said that while she is known mostly for creating dance hits, she wanted her newest album to take a different approach.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to do another dance album. I can do that kind of stuff standing on my head,’” Wash said. “I’m a little bit older now. And your thoughts change, your perceptions change, your feelings change.… I just wanted to experiment, take a chance and do something totally different that people would not necessarily expect from me.”

Wash got her start in the mid-1970s in San Francisco as a backup singer for the notoriously flamboyant Sylvester. That led to her co-backup singer, Izora Armstead, forming the duet Two Tons o’ Fun, which led to the formation of The Weather Girls. Their hit “It’s Raining Men” is still a staple. Wash and Armstead went their separate ways in the early 1990s.

Well known for her activism, as well as her voice, Wash said she came to embrace LGBT causes from the very beginning.

“I think [my interest in LGBT causes came] kind of as a byproduct of the singing career, with Sylvester being gay and being in the gay community and [the community] being such big supporters of us during the decade. Also, in school, there were some gay guys that I knew and were friends with. So it wasn’t surprising to me or new for me. It was just an acceptance ….”

As a woman who has seen more than her fair share of Pride events around the world, Wash is, not surprisingly, a strong proponent of marriage equality. She said it comes down to a matter of equal rights for everyone.

“If you’re going to be a citizen of the United States then that’s what it should be: justice for all. My feeling is if you’re going to pay taxes, you should be afforded the same rights as everybody else. If that’s not the case, give me my taxes back.”

by Brandon Beard, OKC Pride 

 The Gayly – June 13, 2014 @ 11am