Carl Bean Wiki – Carl Bean Biography
Carl Bean was an American singer and activist who was the founding prelate of the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a liberal Protestant denomination that particularly welcomes lesbians, gays, and bisexual African Americans. Before founding the denomination’s first church, Unity Fellowship Church, Los Angeles, in 1975, Bean was a Motown and disco singer, known particularly for his cover of the early gay liberation song “I Was Born This Way.” He was openly gay.
In 1982, Bean became an activist, working on behalf of people with AIDS.
Carl Bean Age
Carl Bean was 77 years old.
Carl Bean Cause of Death
Carl Bean, a gay icon who escaped a difficult childhood in Baltimore to become a Motown singer, founder of a network of LGBT churches, and ultimately archbishop, has died. He was 77 years old.
“Archbishop Bean worked tirelessly for the liberation of the underserved and people of LGBTQ faith and, in doing so, helped many people around the world find their way back to spirituality and religion,” wrote the Movement of Unity Fellowship Church in a statement Tuesday announcing the death. Bean’s “transition to eternal life” on September 7 came “after a long illness.”
While Bean was a legend in his own time who influenced a wide variety of industries in advocating for the LGBTQ community and black civil rights, his interpretation of the hit album “I Was Born This Way” and his influence on Lady Gaga in 2011 represents her most recent and best known cultural contribution.
“I always say the lyrics found me, and it was very natural,” Bean told NPR in 2019 when asked to do a cover of the 1975 song, which was originally sung by singer Valentino. “[It has] been a blessing in my life. And it’s been a blessing, once again, even for the lives of another generation through the shot that Gaga did. ”
Read Also: Who was Bithow Wan? Wiki, Biography, Age, Family, Cause of Death
The song became a defining moment in Bean’s career in the mid-1970s, by which time he already had multiple accomplishments to his name, all despite the odds. Born in Baltimore in 1944, Bean was raised by a neighbor after his mother died during an abortion, but was expelled after realizing that he was attracted to children and abused by his uncle. He soon found himself in a psychiatric hospital, but resisted homophobic electroshock therapy and, after being discharged, began singing gospel in Baltimore, the BBC reported.
He moved to New York City at age 16 and appeared in a Langston Hughes production before moving to Los Angeles and forming the group Carl Bean and Universal Love. Following the success of “I Was Born This Way,” Bean decided to become an AIDS activist and founded the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, focused on LGBT and Afro-descendant communities, rather than pursuing a career in Motown, as refused to sing romantic songs with a commercial focus. women.
The many honors he received during his lifetime of advocacy work, including the NAACP Image Award.
“Thank you for decades of unrelenting love, bravery and a reason to sing,” Lady Gaga told Bean this May, the 10th anniversary of the release of “Born This Way.” “Then we can all feel joy, because we deserve it. Because we deserve the right to inspire tolerance, acceptance and freedom for all ”.