Lavender Country - Blackberry Rose
- Format
- Vinyl LP
- Genre
- Country
- Catalog No.
- LP-DG-250
- Pressing
- Download Card
Four decades after releasing the first openly gay country album, Patrick Haggerty & Friends are back with a fresh batch of songs as poignant as ever. Running the gamut from gut-wrenching ballads to rowdy marxist singalongs, Haggerty uses his knack for sharp storytelling to shine a light on institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. The current emergence of fascism and the deep political divisions in American culture are making Lavender Country a critical component of progressive and radical politics.""Now 74 years old, Haggerty again respects no limits lyrically or musically. Where else can you hear a honky-tonk number about author and activist Clara Fraser, a socialist and radical feminist who died in 1998?"" - Country Queer""The band on the album is both cross-generational, cross-gender, and multi-racial, the kind of Lavender Country community described in the title track of the first album"" - Adobe & Teardrops""The new music blends a striking mix of radical queer and socialist politics, rural aesthetics, and classic country sound. Haggerty examines the risks intimacy, lust, and unconventional values pose to those seeking human connection and purpose in life"" - Slate1. I Can't Shake The Stranger Out Of You 2. Gay Bar Blues 3. Leave All Disillusions Behind4. Red Dress 5. Sweet Showman 6. Clara Fraser, Clara Fraser 7. Lament of a Wyoming Housewife8. Blackberry Rose9. Stand On Your Man 10. Don't Buy Her No More Roses
- Format
- Vinyl LP
- Genre
- Country
- Catalog No.
- LP-DG-250LEC
- Pressing
- Download CardColored Vinyl
- Edition
- Limited Edition
Vinyl LP pressing. Led by principal songwriter Patrick Haggerty, it is the band's first album in nearly fifty years. Their debut self-titled album released in 1973 is universally recognized as the first ever country album to be released by an openly gay artist. While Lavender Country was little known outside the Pacific Northwest in their time and only released one self-distributed album in 1973, they created a genuine cultural milestone; the first openly gay country album. Sponsored by the original Stonewall activists of the Gay Community Social Services of Seattle, Lavender Country's self-titled release was the brainchild of Patrick Haggerty, whose experiences as a gay liberation activist during the Stonewall era shaped him into a tenacious political savant. Radically defying the conservative norms of country music, Haggerty turned to Seattle's gay community for song topics that addressed a wide range of political and social concerns, including institutionalized oppression and divisions of the working class, as well as more personal subjects such as the complications of intimacy and sexual identity. The album marked the genesis moment of creation for the entire queer country movement that today is booming with the likes of Lil Nas X, Orville Peck, Brandi Carlile, Paisley Fields and more.
