Onstage and Backstage Podcast

Martin Aston, author of Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, sat down to discuss the book with BBC World Service Newshour.      About the Book Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache is not only the first book to tell the story of how music "came out" but to the first to shed light on these hidden pioneers alongside their famous counterparts. Author Mark Aston's ambitious and comprehensive narrative unfolds over a hundred years, against a backdrop of social and political shifts, as gay liberation transmuted into LGBTQ rights, pushing for visibility and equality, from 1920s liberalism through to the closet of postwar years, the eventual breakthroughs of the '60s, the permissive '70s, the mainstream invasion and AIDS crisis of the '80s, and the advances of the '90s and noughties. Aston also documents the retrogressive steps in Russia and parts of Africa, where songs bravely encapsulating the LGBTQ experience signify how the journey from illegality and bigotry to freedom is far from over. A