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"If they saw my face, could I still take a bow? Will they know me, know me, know me now?"
The Nomi song.
When one thinks of performers who blazed across the scene and then died too soon, a few names come to mind. Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Kurt Cobain. They all gave us their gifts before they died much too soon before their times and it begs the question, Why is it that the good ones go under appreciated and then die before their full potential is discovered?
Such is Klaus Nomi. Klaus was one of the pioneers of New Wave music, which had it's roots in punk music of the mid to late 70's but by the latter part of the decade was being used to refer to the musical sounds of groups like Blondie,Kraftwerk, and Devo and artists like Gary Newman that relied on synthesized sounds,wild costumes and makeup, instead of the traditional guitar, bass and drums of pop music.
What made Klaus a standout was his combination of monochrome vinyl outifts, other worldly makeup, but most all his voice. Klaus was a rare breed of singer being a counter-tenor and having the ability to sing soprano and mezzo soprano vocals, which he coupled with his covers of songs by earliers artists such as Leslie Gore, Lou Christie and Chubby Checker. It was this combination that made Klaus an integral part of the history of the New Wave scene after he first sang at the New Wave Vaudeville in 1978 performing Delila's aria "Mon Couer S'ouvre a ta Voix" from the opera Samson and Delila by Sain Saens.
The reaction was powerful and overwhelming and it established Klaus as an artist who now found himself increasingly in demand to perform at clubs all over New York City and later brought him world wide recognition.
For me, my first exposure to New Wave music came with the December 15th '79 broadcast of Saturday Night Live when I watched Klaus perform the backup vocals along with Joey Arias while David Bowie sang "The Man Who Sold The World" and later in the show, "TVC 15." It was mind blowing to say the least, for a ten year old kid who was more used to listening to groups like The Village People and the Bee Gees.
While the SNL broadcast brought Klaus fame, and a recording contract sadly his career was cut all too short after he contracted AIDS and died at the age of 39 in 1983.
In one of his most chilling performances, given in 1982 while he was suffering from the symptoms of the disease, Klaus performed "The Cold Song" an aria from the Baroque opera "King Arthur" by English composer Henry Purcell, who died in 1695 at the age of 36. Here is the video clip of Klaus singing the aria.
What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow
See'st thou not how stiff and wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold,
I can scarcely move or draw my breath
Let me, let me freeze again to death.
In 2004 "The Nomi Song", a documentary on Klaus, his life and times was released by Palm Pictures and it helped to bring Klaus and his music to new audiences and has left his stamp on the world of music.
