Jayne County 1947to –
American punk rock trailblazer and underground theater performer, known for her wild stage shows and songs such as “Man Enough to Be a Woman” and “Fuck Off.” Born to a strictly religious family in Georgia, County was an eager rebel from a young age. In 1968, being shot at on the streets of Atlanta prompted her to board a bus to New York City. The following year, she attended both the Stonewall Riots and Woodstock. She quickly found herself among the queer scene that surrounded Andy Warhol, and at one time lived in a small apartment with Leee Black Childers, Holly Woodlawn, and Jackie Curtis. Curtis’s trashy glam aesthetic would be an especially big influence, and in 1970 County made her stage debut in Curtis’s play Femme Fatale (alongside a young Patti Smith). County became a frequent performer and playwright in the New York underground Theatre of the Ridiculous. Her role in Andy Warhol’s play Pork took her to London in 1971, where she made a huge impression on a young David Bowie. But County’s true love was rock music, and inspired by proto-punks like Iggy Pop, she formed her first band Queen Elizabeth in 1972. Her next group, Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys, played regularly at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, where she also DJ’ed. Although an influential staple of the exploding New York rock scene, County didn’t find success until she moved to London and formed Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1977, just in time for the birth of British punk. County’s performances were shocking even by punk standards, and included anything from masturbating with a Virgin Mary statue to eating dog food scooped out of a toilet, in drag that pushed well past the boundaries of acceptable glam rock androgyny. In 1979, she changed her name to Jayne and publicly identified as a woman, making her the first openly trans singer in rock. Drugs and other tensions caused the band to fall apart by 1980, but County returned to music in the mid-80s, and in 1995 released her autobiography Man Enough to Be a Woman. Today she identifies as gender-fluid, and once again lives in Atlanta where she continues to create spirited and confrontational music and art.