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Waymon Hudson is a Deaf, queer singer-songwriter, late-deafened as an adult, and the writer, composer, and lyricist of Speakeasy: A New Musical, an original jazz musical set in a queer speakeasy in Prohibition-era Chicago, drawn from the real, largely erased history of the Pansy Craze. He wrote the full score without hearing a note of it, composing through vibration, chest resonance, and muscle memory. His body is the studio monitor.

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Sessions from the Velvet Boot brings that score to listeners as genuine live performances, released as their own singles, independent of the show's own stage timeline. The first entry, "Cracked Bottles, Broken Hearts," is the show's Act Two opener, usually carried by a full company. This recording strips it to one voice and a piano, one person carrying what four characters usually share.

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Hudson's catalogue extends beyond the show. His acoustic project, Through My Skin: In the Quiet, strips songs from his pop catalogue to guitar, piano, and voice, led by "Read My Lips (Acoustic Version)." His debut album, Through My Skin, is the full-production home both series draw from.

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The defiance running through all of it is not a pose. Before he was a recording artist, Hudson founded the national LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Fight Out Loud (covered by CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times) and organized the largest protest in Fort Lauderdale history. He has contributed to HuffPost, the Chicago Tribune, and Encyclopedia Britannica, and is a forthcoming contributor to the Proud Outtakes anthology. Across music, theatre, horror fiction, and memoir, the work is the same: sensation turned into story, always from the body, always unmistakably his. He is also, when the moment calls for it, very funny.