In 2017, filmmaker Matt Terrell, with help from Out on Film, created a documentary exploring the history of “The American Music Show,” a weekly variety show that ran on public access television in Atlanta from 1981 to 2005.
The show became a home for underground creatives, allowing queer artists, drag performers, punk artists, and the like to reach the mainstream for the first time.
Almost 10 years later, Terrell is re-releasing a new version of the film, “Three Decades of Queer Atlanta: The American Music Show,” on April 5 at the Tara Theatre. Sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the screening is free to attend.
“The American Music Show” was created by Dick Richards along with collaborators Potsy Duncan, Bud Lowry, and James Bond. The show wasn’t explicitly branded as a gay show during its run, but the final product is proudly queer and unapologetically Southern. According to Terrell, who connected with Richards before he passed away in 2018, much of Richards’ reasoning for wanting to start the show was to document LGBTQ+ life as he knew it.
“What it ended up being was this wonderful archive of gay life in Atlanta for 25 years,” Terrell said. “[Richards] really inspired me to keep on doing that work and to treat this subject matter as very serious.”
When Terrell first made the documentary, he tried to pick clips that reflected the best of the show, but also showed how much Atlanta has changed between when the show was airing and the present day. The updated documentary showing on April 5 will mostly feature the same clips, but Terrell said he wants to add a little more content showing what Atlanta looks like today, as well as context for some of the old clips to give audiences a better understanding of what they’re watching.
Richards’ love of documentation has contributed to Terrell’s belief that the LGBTQ+ community’s present and past should be documented and celebrated – not as a niche subject, but as something that’s integral to the ecosystem of the South and Atlanta. To keep up that legacy, a few years ago Terrell donated a number of photographs he took at drag shows around the city to the Atlanta History Center.
“I really saw through ‘The American Music Show’ how incredibly important it is that there are people out there with cameras taking photos, taking videos of their community just for the sake of preservation,” he said.
Drag plays a huge role in “The American Music Show,” not the least because it’s where RuPaul, now known as the host of the juggernaut reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” made her television debut. RuPaul is featured heavily in the documentary.
“I’m a big believer in saying that one of Atlanta’s long-time cultural exports is drag,” Terrell said. “We have long been one of the biggest exporters of drag as a form of cultural expression, and I think ‘The American Music Show’ was the first to really capture that on video for posterity.”
In a 2019 interview, RuPaul called Richards her mentor, and said that the first time she became aware of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (executive producers on “RuPaul’s Drag Race”) was through Richards.
“[Young people] are obsessed with drag,” Terrell said. “Little do they know there would be no ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ there would be no worldwide drag phenomenon, if it were not for ‘The American Music Show.’”
The increasing popularity of drag among young people and straight audiences was on Terrell’s mind when he first thought of updating and rereleasing the documentary. He said he thinks it’s a common misconception that LGBTQ+ people are a relatively new part of history. In doing the research for this documentary, however, he’s found that to be the opposite of the truth.
“What I’ve seen in my research is you can trace LGBT history in Atlanta easily back to the 1890s,” he said. “There is documented LGBT life, and you see really interesting pockets of vibrance of LGBT life.”
One of the common threads that popped up in Terrell’s research was that Atlanta has long been a safe haven for queer people in the South. “The American Music Show” exists as just one piece of Atlanta’s community that has allowed queer people to feel like they can exist openly and freely, Terrell said.
“Atlanta not only accepted queer people, but it built an entire society, an infrastructure, to help support them,” he said.
The screening of “Three Decades of Queer Atlanta: The American Music Show” is free to attend, but guests should reserve their spots online. The original clips are archived on YouTube at the misterichardson channel.
