Decoupage: Clubbo's disco queens

You’ve heard the urban myth: “You know those chicks in that disco group, Decoupage? Well, they’re not chicks!”

True or false? Both. Partly. Kind of.

It all started in 1967, when Joanne Tarkenton and Maurice Green first met in a Dallas, Texas fifth-grade classroom. That year, the US Supreme Court finally struck down longstanding laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Even if these 10-year-olds had known what “miscegenation” meant, the ruling would have held little interest. But nine years later, when blonde Joanne fell in love with brown-skinned Maurice, the two became all too aware of Lone Star attitudes toward interracial relationships.

Weary of the bad vibes, the pair moved to New York City in the summer of 1977, arriving just in time for the blackout. Joanne landed a gig as a singing waitress at the legendary Petrino’s on 45th Street, while Maurice bused tables at the Maxi, a restaurant/nightclub in Chelsea.

The Maxi’s business lunch crowd was about as subcultural as Gerald Ford — but on Thursday nights, the club hosted raucous drag-themed disco events. Maurice befriended several performers, who persuaded him to try on their clothes and makeup. The results were stunning: Maurice was a handsome, if slight man, but he was a knockout en femme. When a headliner cancelled on short notice, Maurice’s friends literally had to drag him onstage. Several standing ovations later, Maurice — rechristened Marilyn — was booked as a regular. The following Thursday, Joanne stopped by after work and joined Marilyn onstage for a few numbers. They were, of course, an instant sensation. “After that night,” Joanne recalls, “we pretty much never sang solo again.”

With the help of Tommy Palmieri, a precocious Juilliard dropout who’d written charts for several other performers at the Maxi, the couple assembled a band and cranked out a few original tunes. Palmieri, speaking via phone from Las Vegas, where he currently serves as music director for the critically hailed revue Pantz in Motion, says the music came together almost effortlessly. “The hardest part was finding a name that wasn’t already taken. Jo wanted to use ‘Montage.’ Taken. Then Mare wanted to call it ‘Collage.’ Taken. Then I went, ‘Wow — what about “Decoupage,”’ and what do you know? That one wasn’t taken.”

Marilyn discovered that the female role suited her offstage as well, and she took to living full-time as a woman. Rather than feeling alienated, Joanne found the transformation strangely exciting. “I thought it was just great,” she said recently. “Now the sweet guy I adored so much was also my best girlfriend. And we could share clothes.” Kinkier than their gender-bending (at least by 1970s club-scene standards) was their steadfast monogamy. Their friends teased them about their lack of interest in other partners, Palmieri recalls: “They were frickin’ freaks!”

Decoupage gradually migrated from the drag circuit to mainstream discos. “We didn’t want to be trapped in a box,” says Marilyn. “So we made a conscious decision not to emphasize the drag aspect of our performance. We weren’t trying to hide anything — we just wanted to succeed on the strength of our shows and our songs.” New fans simply assumed they were seeing a female duo. Which they basically were. The most common rumor that swirled around Joanne and Marilyn was that they were a lesbian couple. Which they also basically were.

According to Clubbo lore, Bo Bogerman, who signed the duo, didn’t realize they were anything other than biological females until he saw the name Maurice in the contract paperwork. The discovery terminated his emerging habit of patting Marilyn’s rump.

The sole Decoupage album, Dress Rehearsal, was released in May 1979. The title track was an instant club smash, but the second single, “Black and White TV,” was initially seen as a dud. It’s hard to believe today, after the song’s quarter-century reign as an anthem of diversity and empowerment.

But disco’s days were numbered. Hair got shorter. Clothes got blacker. New wave clubs replaced discothèques. And Clubbo dropped Decoupage. The group returned to their hometown to play a final gig at Razzle Dazzle Dallas, the city’s gay pride celebration, in June 1981.

It wasn’t the only turning point for Joanne and Marilyn. Marilyn decided to undergo sexual reassignment surgery, a process she completed in 1986. In 1992, the couple moved to Saranac Lake, NY as partners in a small Adirondack bed-and-breakfast. They’ve continued to make music together, working in the professional MIDI studio they constructed in the inn’s 130-year-old icehouse. They turned a profit with their self-produced 1992 New Age release Dreamsilk, creatively marketing the disc through airport bookstores and body-care shops.

There’s a final fairytale twist to the story: After 29 years together, Joanne and Marilyn recently returned to Texas — to get married.

Why tie the knot after so long? “We wanted to make a statement after the last election,” says Joanne. “We’re both of us Texans by birth, though it’s not something you’d want to admit in most of the world these days. The ceremony was about reclaiming our roots — and pointing out how ridiculous all these anti-gay marriage laws are.”

Following the September 2000 example of Jessica and Robin Wicks, Marilyn and Joanne were able to bypass the legal obstacles faced by most same-sex couples. Texas law has established that chromosomes, not genitalia, determine gender. So even though Marilyn and Joanne are a long-term lesbian couple, on April 7th, 2005 a San Antonio justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife.

“It’s as stupid as the old miscegenation laws,” Marilyn says. “We’re all just people in the end, all just citizens paying taxes and looking for happiness in our lives. Who that does harm to, I’ll never understand.”