Decades later, gay country pioneers Lavender Country return

In 1973, amid the growing gay rights movement, a band called Lavender Country recorded a country music album that unabashedly explored LGBTQ themes

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- In 1973, amid the growing gay rights movement, a band called Lavender Country recorded a country music album that unabashedly explored LGBTQ themes, becoming a landmark that would nonetheless disappear for decades.

Led by singer-songwriter Patrick Haggerty, the self-titled album was created by a collective of activists, singers and musicians with ribald songs focused on LGBTQ people, like “Back in the Closet Again” and “Come Out Singing,” as well as an explicit song bashing straight men that has since become a cult favorite.

Nearly 50 years later, Lavender Country is back with a sophomore record that connects today’s LGBTQ country musicians to historical roots in activism and social change.

Haggerty, now 78, grew up on a tenant dairy farm about 100 miles west of Seattle in the Olympic Peninsula, one of 10 children. As a young man in the 1970s, Haggerty was heavily involved in radical gay rights activism, spurred by the Stonewall rebellion in New York City. The idea for a record was a collective one, with Haggerty joining up with his friends to write lyrics, play the instruments and collect money to book studio time.