Sylvester, “Queen of Disco”

Sylvester. Beadazzled and dazzling ancestor. Revolutionary in rhinestones. A bird-of-paradise that the world insisted should be a robin. But that was our folly, our failure to time-travel with this glitternaut. “Sometimes folks make us feel strange,” he declared in a 1978 show, with his Two Tons o’ Fun back-up singers. “And those folks — they just have to catch up!” And Sylvester made us feel mighty real: