Episode 89 Adele Bertei

Adele Bertei is a multi-disciplinary artist —poet, writer, actor, performer, singer, songwriter, and filmmaker. She was an original member of New York incendiaries, the Contortions, while working as personal assistant to Brian Eno. Adele has appeared in several indie films, most notably Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames, and MoMA has acquired two films featuring Adele in lead roles. Her all girl punk-funk band The Bloods was the first out band of queer women. She has toured with, provided backing vocals, and written songs for Tears for Fears, Thomas Dolby, Sandra Bernhard, Culture Club, Scritti Politti, Whitney Houston, Sophie B. Hawkins, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Sheena Easton, Oleta Adams, Lydia Lunch, and the Pointer Sisters. Adele’s work as a vocalist includes her duet with Thomas Dolby on international hit “Hyperactive!” and the lead on Jellybean’s dance/pop hit “Just a Mirage”.  Opening for writers Kathy Acker and Allen Ginsberg among others in the late 1970s, Adele's stories and essays appear in compilations The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading, edited by Eileen Myles, and Women Who Rock, edited by Evelyn McDonnell. Her first memoir Peter and the Wolves was released in 2020 on Smog Veil Books, and Why Labelle Matters, a book of hymnals to the band who gave the world "Lady Marmalade". The book was released on March 23, 2021 and is now available from the University of Texas Press.