Gay Country Mic: Nashville Com Out – Rollg Stone

Contents:

• HE RELEASED ONE OF THE FIRST GAY UNTRY ALBUMS. NEARLY 50 YEARS LATER, HE'S STILL SGG
• ‘I’M HERE, I’M QUEER AND I’M COUNTRY’: THE TOP 5 GAY COUNTRY SONGS
• 9 COUNTRY MIC ARTISTS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY
• COUNTRY MIC HAS NEVER BEEN MORE GAY
• COME OUT SGG! 2: LAVENR COUNTRY — MUCH MORE THAN THE FIRST GAY COUNTRY ALBUM
• HERE ARE GAY COUNTRY SGERS WHO STOOD OUT LOUD AND PROUD
• WA’S PNEERG GAY UNTRY BAND LAVENR COUNTRY RELEAS FIRST NEW ALBUM 50 YEARS
• MAN BEHD 'WORLD'S FIRST GAY UNTRY ALBUM' TOURS UNTRY NEARLY 50 YEARS AFTER FIRST ALBUM RELEASE
• GAY COUNTRY

HE RELEASED ONE OF THE FIRST GAY UNTRY ALBUMS. NEARLY 50 YEARS LATER, HE'S STILL SGG

” That same year, Billy Gilman (who found succs untry mic as a child wh songs cludg “One Voice”) also me out publicly as gay. In the 2000s and 2010s, songwrers Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark, who are both openly gay, began havg succs as wrers.

“We Shall Be Free” — and s celebry-filled mic vio — took aim at a number of social issu, cludg homophobia, eedom of relign, world hunger and racism.

‘I’M HERE, I’M QUEER AND I’M COUNTRY’: THE TOP 5 GAY COUNTRY SONGS

Includ on the group Lavenr Country’s groundbreakg, gay-themed, eponymo 1973 album, this song is a mil ray of sunshe, as the sger basks the happs of a new relatnship. Brothers Osborne’s TJ Osborne me out as gay an terview wh TIME 2021, and soon, the siblg duo released this song, crafted as a song to TJ’s younger self, filled wh enuragement and wisdom. Hailg om the Pacific Northwt, Haggerty's 1973 self-tled LP unr the Lavenr Country banner is generally nsired to be the first openly gay untry half a century later, still sounds bracgly timate and morn, the unvarnished mgs om a member of the Stonewall Haggerty, now 78, said he hears somethg different.

"Blackberry Rose, " Lavenr Country's sophomore album self-released by the band 2019, is beg released by New Bnswick-born Don Gvanni Rerds on Feb.

"And the last 10 years pecially, and even gog back to the last 20 years, there’s been a plete explosn of gay untry artists, many of whom I have done shows wh and know and have met, and ’s really que rehg to see them e up.

9 COUNTRY MIC ARTISTS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY

While the stereotype is that untry mic is about as far om gay-iendly as you n get, that’s not always the se.

That may be due to the lyrics, however, which tell the story of a gay man cshg on his straight iend. Though Sublette’s not gay himself, he lived on Christopher Street New York Cy, next door to a gay untry bar.

Freddy Freeman’s “I’m Here, I’m Queer and I’m Country” feels like a manifto for the gay untry mic fan. While Mgrav herself is straight, the song was -wrten wh Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark, both openly gay Nashville songwrers.

COUNTRY MIC HAS NEVER BEEN MORE GAY

” While the song was censored when she performed for the CMA Awards broadst, wasn’t the reference to homosexualy that was cut, but the reference to smokg a jot. No article on gay untry mic would be plete whout a mentn of Pat Haggerty, the lear of the first gay untry band Lavenr Country.

Rerd for a private-prs LP 1973, “Cry’ The Cocksuckg Tears” is a fearls prott song agast homophobia and sexism. After the wife of untry sger Jason Alan ma an ignorant post thankg her parents for not "forcg her" to be trans when she was a tomboy, other sgers, like Maren Morris, clapped back, sayg there's no room for homophobia and transphobia untry mic and that those clgg onto need to change or get out of the way.

"But there's a very sid culture of people feelg very fortable beg transphobic and homophobic and racist, and that they n wrap a joke and no one will ever ll them out for . When he me out as gay, and also revealed that when he had been sexually abed by an uncle, he was disowned om his fay.

COME OUT SGG! 2: LAVENR COUNTRY — MUCH MORE THAN THE FIRST GAY COUNTRY ALBUM

Herndon is nsired by most to be the first mastream male untry artist to e out as gay when he did so 2014. The album explored the tersectn of beg gay and relig and her song "Lovg You" is a self-acceptance anthem about lovg who you love no matter Getty Imag. Nashville native Cys is an unniable pop and rock star, fond of sgg vers by the Cranberri and Soundgarn, but her gut list at the Ryman was 100 percent untry: Brothers Osborne, Ltle Big Town, Mickey Guyton, Maren Morris, and the gay masked wboy Orville Peck.

In juxtaposn to Wallen’s boorish behavr was Osborne’s vulnerable, public revelatn a Time magaze terview that he was gay. Bee the very ia of a gay untry star once seemed like a fantasy — the assumptn beg that untry mic’s fan base was overwhelmgly nservative and perhaps even bigoted.

HERE ARE GAY COUNTRY SGERS WHO STOOD OUT LOUD AND PROUD

Homan, who’d left his ral Kansas home at 18 to e to Nashville to pursue both mic and an tn, hadn’t imaged there would be a time when the untry-mic dtry would be welg to gay artists. “It was like, ‘I n ntue to be fortable and out and gay, or I n do untry mic, but I fely n’t do both, ’” he says.

WA’S PNEERG GAY UNTRY BAND LAVENR COUNTRY RELEAS FIRST NEW ALBUM 50 YEARS

Now, midway through 2021, that dichotomy appears to be fallg apart as artists stop worryg how they’ll be perceived for beg gay.

In se you missed the news om last year, the Brothers Osborne ontman me out as gay, sayg his fay and close iends have known for que some time, but he wants to be his full self at this pot his reer. hen Brandy Clark lnched a untry-mic rerdg reer 2013, there wasn’t any template to follow for an openly gay artist Nashville. Clark has been at the foreont of that shift and creds her iendship wh Shane McAnally — one of Nashville’s most succsful songwrers, who is also gay — wh givg her the nfince to pursue a solo reer.

“Who knows who’s gog to be listeng to me the flyover stat that’s gog to draw strength om ‘Oh, she’s gay too? “Though a lot of people that work the dtry support me om a distance, there’s a difference between that and actually takg some steps to ph that further and sign some [gay artists], ” Homan says. A product of the Pacific Northwt queer scene of which Haggerty was a part, the band rerd the rerd wh fundg om the Gay Communy Social Servic of Seattle and sold at queer bookstor and by mail-orr lol z.

MAN BEHD 'WORLD'S FIRST GAY UNTRY ALBUM' TOURS UNTRY NEARLY 50 YEARS AFTER FIRST ALBUM RELEASE

Beg openly gay was enough to banish them om most rpectable muni, and makg the subject of their mic further alienated them om the untry mic tablishment so that their project was entirely separate. He formed Lavenr Country this world of radil inty and radil polics: all but one of the micians were queer activists, and Marxist gay and lbian muny lears such as Faygele Ben-Miriam played key rol s velopment.

Haggerty was and still is a radil: he found his way to the Seattle queer scene through the leftist Gay Liberatn Front, and 1990 he ran for Seattle Cy Council on a Marxist ticket featurg Black Natnalist ndidat, earng 13% of the vote as a rult of grassroots muny anizg. For Haggerty, queerns and radilism are separable: beg openly gay is an act of revolutn fiance of a society built on anti-gay stctur.

GAY COUNTRY

By publicly documentg a diversy of experienc of gay life, the rerd enacts this revolutn, proclaimg and embracg the very behavrs that opprsive societal forc seek to hi.

The rerd extends this orientatn to polil revolutn as a necsary facet of openly gay life: if beg out is a rebe of a fundamentally homophobic society, then queer radilism is the only way to create a world that is safe for gayns and that n fulfill the liberatory promise of g out. Rural muni, and workg-class on pecially, are often thought to be more bigoted and homophobic than their urban unterparts, part due to class prejudic. When they released the rerd, the band llaborated wh RFD Magaze to try to share their msage wh “isolated gays and lbians ral areas” to brg them the radil public inty that beg part of a larger queer muny afford.

Siarly, Lavenr Country sat dormant for over two s after the group disband, until a 2000 feature by Chris Dickson on gay and lbian untry artists the Journal of Country Mic highlighted the rerd, givg a short bgraphy of Haggerty and placg on the timele of LGBTQ exprsn untry mic. Other gay and lbian artists emerged the 1980s and 90s, leadg to the formatn of the Lbian and Gay Country Mic Associatn (LGCMA) 1998, the foc of Dickson’s article. “Cry’ The Cocksuckg Tears” was reissued on a 2012 pilatn of 1970s gay liberatn mic, leadg to greater attentn, culmatg a full-blown reissue of the origal rerd 2014 by the highly rpected die label Paradise of Bachelors, along wh a heavy PR ph.