Billy Tipton

Billy Tipton
Tipton at the piano
Background information
Birth name	Dorothy Lucille Tipton
Also known as	Tippy Tipton, William Lee Tipton
Born	(1914-12-29)December 29, 1914 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	January 21, 1989(1989-01-21) (aged 74) Spokane, Washington, U.S.
Genres	Jazz, swing
Occupation(s)	Musician, talent agent
Instruments	Piano, saxophone
Years active	1936–1970
Labels	Tops Records

William Lee "Billy" Tipton (December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician and bandleader. He is also notable for the postmortem discovery that, although he lived his adult life as a man, he was assigned female at birth.

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Tipton grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was raised by an aunt after his parents' died. He subsequently rarely saw his father, G. W. Tipton, a pilot who sometimes took him for airplane rides. As a high-school student, Tipton went by the nickname Tippy and became interested in music, especially jazz, studying piano and saxophone. He returned to Oklahoma for his final year of high school and joined the school band there.

As Tipton began a more serious music career, he adopted his father's nickname, Billy, and more actively worked to pass as male by binding his breasts and padding his pants. At first, Tipton only presented as male in performance, but by 1940 was living as a man in private life as well. Two of Tipton's female cousins, with whom Tipton maintained contact over the years, were the only persons known to be privy to Tipton's assigned sex.

In 1936, Tipton was the leader of a band playing on KFXR. In 1938, Tipton joined Louvenie's Western Swingbillies, a band that played on KTOK and at Brown's Tavern. In 1940 he was touring the Midwest playing at dances with Scott Cameron's band. In 1941 he began a two and a half-year run performing at Joplin, Missouri's Cotton Club with George Meyer's band, then toured for a time with Ross Carlyle, then played for two years in Texas.

In 1949, Tipton began touring the Pacific Northwest with George Meyer. While this tour was far from glamorous, the band's appearances at Roseburg, Oregon's Shalimar Room were recorded by a local radio station, and so recordings exist of Tipton's work during this time, including "If I Knew Then" and "Sophisticated Swing". The trio's signature song was "Flying Home", performed in a close imitation of Benny Goodman's band.