Michael Callen: July Portrait of the Month

Michael Callen, 1987

Singer, songwriter, author, and AIDS activist Michael Callen was born in 1955 in Rising Sun, Indiana, and was raised in Hamilton, Ohio. He attended Boston University on a music scholarship and graduated in 1977. After college, he moved to New York, singing in cabarets and with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. First diagnosed with AIDS in 1982, he became a significant voice during the early response to the AIDS crisis. He was a founding member of the board of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Manhattan in 1983 and a co-founder of the People with AIDS Coalition in 1985. Through its hotline, monthly newsletter, and library, the coalition provided information about treatment and resources for people living with AIDS. With Richard Berkowitz, Dr. Joseph A. Sonnabend, and Richard Dworkin, he wrote How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach (1983), a book that outlined early views about safe-sex practices. Callen was the editor of Surviving and Thriving with AIDS: Hints for the Newly Diagnosed, which was published by the People with AIDS Coalition in 1987; the collection of articles was revised and expanded in 1988. His acclaimed book, Surviving AIDS, published in 1990, recounted the stories of 14 long-term AIDS survivors. He remained devoted to music, performing and writing songs throughout his life. In the early 1980s, Callen was part of the gay and lesbian band, Lowlife, playing piano and keyboards, singing, and twirling a baton. As one of its founding members, he recorded two albums with the gay male a cappella singing group The Flirtations. In 1988 he released his solo album, Purple Heart, which included his most popular song, “Love Don’t Need a Reason,” written with Oscar winner Peter Allen and Marsha Melamet. Callen died of AIDS-related complications in 1993 at the age of 38.