Deena Kaye Rose (1943 - ) musician

Dick Feller was born and raised in Missouri. At 12 he had his first guitar, and at 15 played with a local band.

In 1964 he tried his luck in the Los Angeles music scene.

In 1966 he moved to Nashville: he toured with The Statesiders, did session work and wrote songs. Johnny Cash had a hit with Feller’s "Any Old Wind That Blows" in 1972; Jerry Reed recorded "The Lady is a Woman" and "One Sweet Reason". "Lord, Mr. Ford" – the last was a number-one hit in 1973. Feller’s first album came out some months later.

He spent time at the Chelsea Hotel in New York in the mid-1970s.

Feller and Jerry Reed did the music for the film Smokey and the Bandit, 1977. John Denver had a hit with Feller’s "Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone)".

Feller has 400 published songs, received 10 BMI Music Awards for most performed songs of various years including two “Million-air” awards for songs that have played over a million times in broadcast play in North America alone, and has lectured at several universities.

In the 2010s, Feller relocated to Las Vegas, transitioned at the age of 70 and became Deena Kaye Rose, and published her autobiography.

*not Deena Rose the preacher

Albums (under the name Dick Feller)

Dick Feller Wrote, 1973
No Word on me, 1974
Some Days Are Diamonds, 1975
Audiograph Alive, 1982
Centaur of Attention, 2001.

• Deena Kaye Rose. Some Days Are Diamonds: The Transgender Journey of Nashville Songwriter Dick Feller. CreateSpace, 2014.
• “Deena Kaye Rose’s Book “Some Days are Diamonds” Will Take You Back to the Chelsea Hotel in the mid-70s”. Hotel Chelsea Blog, April 18, 2016. http://www.chelseahotelblog.com/living_with_legends_the_h/2016/04/deena-kaye-roses-book-some-days-are-diamonds-will-take-you-back-to-the-chelsea-hotel-in-the-mid-70s.html.
• Rob Schlegel. “Singer/songwriter Deena Kaye Rose performs And discusses being trans in the music industry”. RobLasVegasBlog, May 23, 2016. https://roblasvegas.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/singersongwriter-deena-kaye-rose-performs-and-discusses-being-trans-in-the-music-industry.
• Charlotte Robinson. “Deena Kaye Rose Talks Transgender Memoir Some Days Are Diamonds”. Huffington Post, 05/12/2016. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlotte-robinson/deena-kaye-rose-talks-tra_b_9902330.html.

www.deenakayerose.com    EN.Wikipedia   IMDB    Alchetron

Stormé DeLarverié (1920 - 2014) singer, gender impersonator.

++Updated May 2014, June 2017.

K. Stormé DeLarverié was born in New Orleans.

She was a jazz singer as Stormy Dale in the '40s, and the sole male impersonator in the Jewel Box

from Avery Willard - Female impersonation

Revue 1955-1969. After starting with the show he began to dress in men's clothing offstage also. However he pointed out that his voice and movements as a male impersonator were the same as when she was a big band singer in the 40s. He also makes a point of not being bothered about whether people address her as 'Sir' or 'Madame'.

He was photographed by Diane Arbus.

Stormé was present at the Stonewall riot, where he hit back at a cop who hit him at the start.  Shortly afterwards his wife dies, and he quit at the Jewel Box Revue.

He was recognized as a transgender actor. In his 80s he worked as a bouncer at a Manhattan lesbian bar.  He lived for many decades in the Chelsea Hotel in lower Manhattan. 

SAGE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 (given to recognize the accomplishments of LGBT seniors). Vice-president of the Stonewall Veterans' Association 1998 -2000. In the Imperial Queens & Kings of Greater New York, Stormé has won election many times the title of "Imperial King".


Stormé is ignored in Martin Duberman’s Stonewall, and on the Stonewall Wiki page and in the 1995 film.  Stormé is also ignored in the otherwise comprehensive Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. 1992 by Linda Dahl.

James Lough p 164

In later years  Stormé developed mental health problems.  In 2009 the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged was appointed his legal guardian, and he was hospitalized as a woman.  He was then almost always indoors until friends and gay and lesbian activists arranged with JASA to take him out now and then.

He died at age 93.  

• AveryWillard. Female Impersonation. Regiment, 1971: 59-64.
• Michelle Parkerson (dir). Stormé: Lady of the Jewel Box. US 21 mins 1987.
• Elizabeth Drorbaugh. “Sliding Scales: Notes on Stormé DeLarverie and the Jewel Box Revue, the cross-dressed woman on the contemporary stage, and the invert”. In Lesley Feris (ed). Crossing the stage : controversies on cross-dressing. London & New York: Routledge. 1993.
• Leslie Feinberg. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Rupaul. Beacon Press, 1996: 153. 
• Patricia Bosworth. Diane Arbus: A Biography. W.W. Norton, 2005: 162-3..
• Manny Fernandez.  "A Stonewall Veteran, 89, Misses the Parade". The New York Times, June 27, 2010.   Online.
• James Lough. This Ain't No Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel, 1980-1995 : an Oral History. 2013:164.
• Lynn de la Cruz.  "Stonewall Veteran, Drag King Icon Stormé DeLarverie Dies At 93".   Advocate, May 27 2014.   Online.

StonewallVeterans