I thought he/she was black/male/female/white etc..

Nah, Haydn was the brother

Listening to the "Grafitti Bridge" soundtrack by Prince I also thought this Tevin Campbell must be a girl. Of course, mixing him up was a bit more logical as, at 14, he did indeed sound like a woman although it wouldn't last. :)

I thought this too for a long time. His voice is (obviously) quite high, there's no picture of him in the record sleeve, and I had no idea "Tevin" is a male name.

tracy chapman yeah

― Funky Buddha Lounge (Curt1s Stephens), Tuesday, 11 November 2008 10:24

came on to say this (though she was a fella), somebody already did, ah well.

unless curt1s thought she was white, of course, in which case...

Dominique Leone's "Uncover yourself", I thought he'd got a female to sing, even though I can (just about) sing along to it myself...

turns out arthur russell was a white guy.

lol, of course, Dominque Leone!

Before I came across her solo album, I thought Rah Digga of The Flipmode Squad was a somewhat high-voiced man. I think this is because The Flipmode Squad had some male member with a similar voice to hers.

My wife thought Insane Clown Posse was black. (She also thought B Real from Cypress Hill was black.)

Maybe this is because B Real uses the word "nigga" quite often? (Is it okay for Latinos to use it?)

My friend thought Nina Simone was a man

When I first heard Antony and the Johnsons I thought he was Nina Simone.

Final, definitive word on Frank Zappa's heritage: "My ancestry is Sicilian, Greek, Arabic and French."

Weird, I thought he had some roots in Lithuania, because there's a statue of him in Vilnius.

I can't remember why, but up until Everything Is Wrong came out I used to think Moby was a bald woman.

When I first heard "Praise You", I thought it was The Eels, (i.e. Mark Edwards singing, not Cammille Yarbrough.)

I initially thought it was Len Barry of "1-2-3" fame.

(xxpost) Moby, that well known Persis Khambatta impersonator...

Weird, I thought he had some roots in Lithuania, because there's a statue of him in Vilnius.

He has fans there. Both his parents were Italian or of Italian stock, I think? That bit about Arabic and French and Greek seems a bit stereotypically American for Frank.

I have a vague recollection that the statue in vilnius was at least in part due to some work he did as a cultural envoy, or something else equally unlikely...

I think he was, or it was proposed that he be, Cultural Envoy in the Czech Republic?

I heard a Ray LaMontagne song on the radio the other day and thought it was a woman.

Nat Hentoff is white?

do you only know him from liner notes? i would say the vast majority of his articles i've come across have his picture beside them

I don't really know him much at all. I hate to say it, but I think I thought he was black because he writes about jazz and his name is Nat (viz. Turner, King Cole).

short for "Natalie" iirc

Someone seven years ago mentioned thinking Eminem was black. Me too - he sounded like Del Tha Funky Homosapien on My Name Is... to my ears then.

More recently when I heard the Memory Cassette singles I thought he was a she.

I'd sort of pictured Hentoff as an Ishmael Reed/Cornel West kind of dude.

I knew a girl in school who, based on their name alone, thought Pearl Jam were a black female vocal duo.

Also I thought Sting was black first time I heard a Police record. I must've been about five.

Someone upthread mentioned him before, but I used to think Bob Seger was black and more specifically I thought he was Sherman Helmsley. I would always picture Mr. Jefferson when "Night Moves" came on the radio when I was a kid.

damn

I'd sort of pictured Hentoff as an Ishmael Reed/Cornel West kind of dude.

fwiw from some pictures he could def. pass as light-skinned, when placed next to an article about jazz ;)

Chaka Khan... is this person a man, a woman, black, white, Middle Eastern? Who knows.

one of the biggest disappointments in my life was finding out Todd Edwards is white

this was a shock to me as well!

Does it count if you forget someone is black? In that case, Chris Matthews to thread.

Was totally thrown off when I found out Edan was white.

I only knew “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, but I thought until very recently that Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show were black.

I first thought both Babe Ruth and Amon Duul II were fronted by men singing in Plant/Anderson/Lee register.

I thought for the longest time that Chuck E. Weiss was black, based on the assumption he was the other guy on this album cover:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51scsNPYGmL.jpg

I thought Chuck E. Cheese was a rat, but turns out he was retconned into a mouse.

i really don't understand how people thought Tracy Chapman was a dude? Like ... her voice sounds totally feminine to me, idk. Same with Nina Simone.

I can understand thinking Allison Moyet is a dude if you confuse her with Andy Bell, which ok sure

some of y'all had some weird instincts in terms of what are or aren't women's voices

Thought Les Claypool was a tall weasel. Turns out he's just a human man.

Had always assumed Alicia Bridges of I Love the Nightlife fame was black until I googled the video the other day.

Jónsi Birgisson is one I thought was female on first hearing.

Pre-internet, I had a song on tape by Chunky, Novi and Ernie with a completely androgynous lead vocal. The singer being named "Chunky" didn't provide a lot of guidance either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4JQ37KsdAs

I would have seen this video in 1984, and apparently I thought it was more likely that a man would perform in a dress (and, um, have breasts) than that a woman would be "allowed" to sing a song about another woman being her "gal".

Keith Jarrett tells a great story of how Ornette Coleman says to him "you just have to be black" and Jarrett replies, "I'm working on it."

I used to think Nellee Hooper was a woman.

I first thought both Babe Ruth and Amon Duul II were fronted by men singing in Plant/Anderson/Lee register.

I thought for the longest time that Sandy Denny's parts in "Battle of Evermore" were a second Plant track, and I still have a bit of difficulty not hearing it that way.

Also like many people, I assumed Nick Gilder was a woman when listening to "Hot Child in the City".

For many years, I thought Irene Cara was white, and while posting this I figured out I've been wrong for many years further in assuming she was black - she's biracial!

I thought for the longest time that Sandy Denny's parts in "Battle of Evermore" were a second Plant track, and I still have a bit of difficulty not hearing it that way.

Haha I think I heard it that way until I read otherwise at 13 or so. It was a little disappointing; I'd been really impressed by how he could just flip into such a pure tone in that register. Conversely, my friend asked "who's the babe?" when Peter Hamill switched to his pure falsetto voice on "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" (ironically, first on the line "I am a lonely man").

lol Sund4r ...

xp re kd lang : definitely heteronormativity probably plays a major role in some of this for when we were kids and mis-gendering based on lyrics

None of my friends believe me that “goodbye horses” was sung by a woman.