Baby Dee, America’s preeminent transsexual, tricycle-riding carnie-cum-musician, weighs in on Catholics, Coney Island, and how to play the harp while wearing a bear suit

It's hard to judge the high points in Baby Dee's career. The transgendered harpist and accordionist has held down so many jobs—as a street musician, a Coney Island freak show act, a church organist, a tree surgeon, and, physically at least, a man—that comparing them all would be impossible. This month, her first wide-release album debuts on Drag City records. With production help and backing instrumentation from indie icons Will Oldham, Matt Sweeney, Andrew WK, and members of Psychic TV, Safe Inside the Day delivers a gloriously bizarre combination of brooding personal history—about Dee's upbringing in Cleveland and the many twists her life has taken leading up to a sex change—and bawdy humor. It fuses the sound of old-world music halls with a Patti Smith punk aesthetic. Here, she chats with Radar about retarded infants, tricked-out tricycles, and the one thing that truly embarrasses her.

RADAR: Baby Dee's an interesting name. What do you go by when you're not onstage?
BABY DEE: I go by Baby Dee. That's my name. I have no other. Well, there's a name on my passport. But it's, like, who cares what my name is? That's a bore. If you're going to insist on me giving you another name, I'm just going to make one up.

Why don't you do that?
I would put on the full bear costume—head and all—before leaving every day, and then I was the bear until I got back.You want me to make one up? How about ... 50 Something. That's what people are calling me these days. 50 Something. My sweetheart, Pepper, calls me "storebought."

How'd you get the name Baby Dee?
It was given to me. You know the Pyramid Club in New York? Back in the '90s there was a party there run by a tranny named Gloria Hole, who had, at one point in her life, a neighbor with a retarded child named Baby Dee. I guess Gloria liked to think of me as her retarded child. That's sort of how it came about.

So your music career predated your name?
Yes. I started out playing in the street, in the park. I wore a bear outfit and played the harp in the park. That was my first job.

Must have been tough to play harp with furry paws.
I wore gloves with holes in them. I looked out the bear's mouth. It worked pretty good. I had these friends with a wonderful apartment on 66th and Madison, a beautiful Stanford White building. They let me keep my harp and my bear suit at their place. I would put on the full bear costume—head and all—before leaving every day, and then I was the bear until I got back. They had a real elevator guy. I'll never forget. His name was Jack and he was a real prick. I'd say hello to Jack and he'd be like, "Oh boy." I'd go out and all the doormen on 66th Street and between there and 5th Avenue, they knew me. I'd walk by every day and it'd be all waves.

I imagine you were one of the only people in a bear suit carrying a harp.
At least on the East Side! That was kind of a fun, silly thing. It was a good way to make a living, and it was better than having some horrible job that I hated. So then I took that act—if it was an act—to Europe. I did it in Paris for a year. I moved and made some friends and did music and then I came back to New York. Then I wasn't a bear anymore. But please, can we not talk about my stupid life? Oh my God. Can you imagine how many times I've had to tell this ridiculous story? It's just so stupid. I don't even want to hear it anymore.

What do you want to talk about then?
Let's talk about my wonderful new album. Did you hear it? Or are you just pretending?

Of course I've listened to it! How did you meet Will Oldham and convince him to produce it?
My friend David Tibet has a band named Current 93. Dave is a good friend of Will's and that was the connection. The actual story begins in Cleveland. I gave up music a few years ago and left New York to start a company that cut down trees. But then I dropped a big, monstrous tree on somebody's house. That effectively made me wish I was no longer in the tree business. I went home that day and wrote an e-mail to anybody that I could think of who could get me back into the music business. One of them was David. He mentioned the whole thing to Will, who was coming through Cleveland to play a concert. I opened for him and that's when we met, and we've been friends ever since.

When did you leave New York? As someone who lives there, such a move seems inconceivable.
I first came to New York in 1972, and I left in 1999. It was one of the hardest, craziest, most insane moves that I've ever made. That's for certain. I mean, come on. I lost my apartment. That's like wooooo. That's like the end of the world.

What made you decide to make the leap?
I was at a point in my life where I got to thinking about how I wanted to not be the focus of my life for a change. Most people have kids and that becomes the center of their world. In some weird way, I began to kind of envy that. So my parents got old and started falling apart, and I decided that instead of stuffing them into a nursing home, I would adopt them. That's what happened.