While she now knocks them dead nightly on the Las Vegas strip performing as Tina Turner and Patti LaBelle, drag legend Hot Chocolate was born in Atlanta over 50 years ago. Like her fellow Atlanta female impersonation icons Rachel Wells and Charlie Brown, Hot Chocolate created her high energy stage persona onstage at the Sweet Gum Head, the legendary “Showplace of the South” 1970s-era drag club on Cheshire Bridge Road.

This Saturday, June 7 at the 2025 “Drag Down South” show in front of city hall in East Point, Hot Chocolate will return to metro Atlanta for the first time in years as a special guest entertainer.

In 1972, Larry Edwards, a Fort Myers, Florida native, was a young fashion merchandising student at Atlanta’s Massey Junior College, who spent his days in class learning about clothes. But at night, between scouring the latest finds at local thrift shops, Edwards would show up in the audience at the Gum Head in full eye-catching drag. Mr. Charlie Brown was the emcee at the Gum Head at the time. In his memoir “Bitch of the South,” Brown recounts: “For months, you’d look out in the club and see this beautiful Black queen with long black hair, keeping herself cool with one of those church fans that you could fold up in your purse. She had created a mystique but she wouldn’t do a show. She hung out for months, building this allure. And man, when she finally hit that stage, everyone knew who Hot Chocolate was. She tore that place up!”

While Hot Chocolate has gone on to become a Las Vegas drag icon performing on the strip, being featured in films, including “Miss Congeniality 2,” pulled up on stage and praised by RuPaul, a friend of 40 years and been awarded the 2023 Human Rights Campaign Trailblazer for Equality Award, Edwards has never forgotten his and Hot Chocolate’s roots here in Atlanta.

Before hopping on a red eye for this weekend’s Drag Down South festivities in East Point, Larry Edwards, 70, reflected with Eldredge ATL about his formative early years in Atlanta, creating Hot Chocolate, his frothy, unforgettable drag alter ego half a century ago.

Q: Can you take us back to Hot Chocolate’s creation here in Atlanta?

A: I was so in awe of going to see the shows at the Sweet Gum Head and watching queens like Neely Demann, Rachel Wells, Mona March and Lavita Allen. I remember thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do!’ I started out using the name Tonya as my drag name and Roxanne Russell said to me, ‘Honey, you can’t use that name, it’s tired! You need something fun and festive. Why don’t you call yourself Hot Chocolate?’ I said, ‘Really?’ She told me, ‘Yes, the music you do is so high energy, it would be perfect.’

Q: Black female empowerment songs were what set Hot Chocolate apart when you debuted her. You did the Pointer Sisters, the Staple Singers “I’ll Take You There” and Gladys Knight. What drew you to those numbers?

A: I just liked high energy numbers. This was back when disco was first starting and Gloria Gaynor was out with “I Will Survive” and “Honey Bee.” I loved the energy of disco. It was so different from the old rhythm and blues and rock. It was like this revolution of music we’d never heard before. It felt like music for gays. ‘I Will Survive’ meant so much to so many gays because we were all going through so much stuff back then. It became one of our national anthems and Gloria Gaynor became one of our divas. The night she performed at Sweet Gum Head, I got to meet her. I was just in awe.

Q: Since you brought it up, tell us about doing “Honey Bee” onstage at the Gum Head with Lavita Allen and Satyn Deville dressed as bees doing back up for you?

A: [laughs] Yes! Lavita loved to spoof me. She would get onstage as Cool Vanilla! She would do all of my songs, my dance steps, everything! The crowd would go nuts. I was like, ‘Damn! I might as well not have an act. Lavita Allen has taken over!’ [laughs]. I figured out a way to change outfits three times during that number. Back in the day, I thought, as the high energy queen, everything had to be over the top. I was the only queen doing disco at the time so I did multiple costume changes on stage with a cute little cover up and I ended up with wings and this little leotard.

Q: In his memoir, Charlie Brown talks about this mysterious queen in the audience who was dressed to kill and observing everything that went on. That queen was you. Why was it important for you to study the scene before getting onstage?

A: I was so in awe of not only the entertainers but the crowd response. With people like Rachel Wells performing, you did not just hop up on that stage at the Sweet Gum Head. I needed to figure out a way for to be different from everyone else. I needed to stand out. Being in fashion at school, I would go to thrift stores and find different outfits and hats. Back in the day, nobody could afford a glamourous Las Vegas costume. You had to mix and match and be creative to be high fashion and make a statement in a night club. I would come in in my different hats and my different looks and just watch. Meanwhile, I was trying to create my own little popularity with the crowd, who would be watching me doing my own little sideshow in the crowd. I respected every single one of those entertainers on that stage. It was an honor just to be amongst such great talent and then, later, to be onstage performing with them.

Q: I want to take you back to a certain pageant you competed in at the Gum Head…

A: Oh, God (laughs). I know where this is going!

Q: You were doing Paul McCartney’s James Bond theme “Live and Let Die” and there were flash pots on the stage but you weren’t satisfied with little flashes, were you?

A: That’s right, honey! [laughs]. That was Miss Gay Atlanta. Most people used rubbing alcohol. I had someone bring kerosene to the club for my number! I was young and so dumb, I didn’t realize that I could have burned the place down when we set those off. The fumes alone could have killed someone! I thought, ‘I wanna make an impact.’ They had to evacuate the club. The judges were passing out! They had to put out the flames with fire extinguishers. ‘Live and Let Die?’ Yeah, we almost died. The judges gave me zeroes across the board. It was the most embarrassing — and enlightening — experience of my life.

Q: In many respects, back then performing at the Sweet Gum Head was kind of like a drag boot camp, wasn’t it? Everybody was thinking on their feet, listening to the radio for their next number, scouring thrift shops for outfits. It was all do-it-yourself. It sounds like this era of great creativity. Is that how you remember it?

A: Exactly. Everybody was trying to make sure their talent stood out, we wanted to make sure our act stood out. But we were all on a budget. We weren’t making much money at all. You had to make do with thrift store outfits, hats for $1. It was like boot camp. All of the entertainers were checking each other out, what song they were doing, what they were doing in their act, their make-up, everything.

Q: One of your signature numbers back then was Linda Clifford’s disco version of “If My Friends Could See Me Now” from “Sweet Charity.” How did you know when a number worked at the Gum Head?

A: Just by seeing how the audience would dance to the numbers. Their reaction when the DJ played certain songs. I would think, “Imagine if a queen was up on stage performing that!” If the queens in the crowd threw their hands up in the air, you knew it would work on stage in drag, lit properly with a great costume.

Q: And that was the number you took to Miss Gay Atlanta 1978 and won, right?

A: Yes! [laughs]. After being completely embarrassed and almost burning down the club, I came back to the Sweet Gum Head and won the pageant in 1978. It haunted me, honey. I had moved to Houston but I knew I had to go back to Atlanta and show people that I had grown up.

Q: When you think back to the Sweet Gum Head days, what is hardwired into you as a performer today in Vegas that you learned in Atlanta?

A: To be a team player, to be a family. To create that backstage as well as onstage. To have that love for each other. Not as a competitive thing but really enjoying each other and helping each other out. I had so many people help me out along the way back then. That’s something I always continue to do — help someone first starting out. To give someone else the support I got from people like Rachel Wells.

Q: You’ve accomplished so much in your career. We could spend the rest of the day discussing your iconic status in Vegas. What does it mean for you to come back to the city that birthed Hot Chocolate?

A: I’m so proud of everything I’ve achieved over the years. Coming back to my roots is very important. The roots that built me, that helped me create that whole Hot Chocolate persona. I’m at a loss for words right now because I’m choking up a little bit. So many of my Atlanta friends are no longer around, I want to keep that legacy we built going. I’m so honored to be coming back home.

A special thanks to author Martin Padgett, whose brilliant 1970s queer history of Atlanta, “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution” provided the road map for this conversation.

Drag legend Hot Chocolate will perform this Saturday, June 7, from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at East Point City Hall as part of Drag Down South 2025, along with performers Shawnna Brooks, Lena Lust, Bubba D ’Licious, Niesha Dupree, Mona Lott Moore Brown and others. For tickets and more information, click here. Follow Hot Chocolate on her official Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Richard L. Eldredge

Richard L. Eldredge is the founder and editor in chief of Eldredge ATL. As a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta magazine, he has covered Atlanta since 1990.