Patrick Haggerty was the first of his kind.
Long before Ty Herndon, Paisley Fields, Brandi Carlile, Orville Peck, Andrew Sa, or Trixie Mattel, Haggerty recorded what is widely cited as the first gay Country music album by an openly gay performer and fronted Lavender Country, one of the first queer bands ever. After recording the album and releasing it in 1973, he shifted away from music only to re-emerge nearly 40 years later with a surprise comeback.
Haggerty, who was 78, died Oct. 31 from complications from a stroke. He was surrounded by his husband J.B. Love as well as his children, according to a post from friend and record executive Brendan Greaves on Twitter.
Haggerty was born on Sept. 27, 1944, and grew up along with nine other brothers and sisters on a farm in rural Washington state. During recent tours he spoke about the love and acceptance he felt from his parents who embraced his flamboyant personality. After being kicked out of the Peace Corps in his early 20's, Haggarty moved to Seattle, where he found friends in the LGBTQ community. He said in the documentary C C Presents: A Lavender Country Special, "I went into the Peace Corps a petite bourgeois aspiring senator, sappy Democrat and came out of that experience a screaming Marxist bitch."
Those friends encouraged him to make a record and the result, Lavender Country [now on Paradise of Bachelors Records] featured upfront songs like "Come Out Singing" and "Crying These Cocksucker Blues" and was clearly ahead of its time.
The original pressing for the album was a mere 100 copies, though the band played at several local Pride events until they broke up in 1976. Haggerty married partner J.B. Love and started a family, running for state office and becoming an activist for LGBTQ+ causes, HIV/AIDS awareness, socialist issues and Black Civil Rights.
After an article about gay country music appeared in 2000, Greaves heard Lavender Country through a friend and in 2013 cold-called Haggerty with an offer to record again.The result was an immediate re-issue of Lavender Country, a five-song EP (Lavender Country Revisited) featuring as well as the full-length Blackcherry Rose (all on Don Giovanni Records).
Haggerty enjoyed a burgeoning interest from music and pop critics as well as younger audiences, queer and straight.He was the subject of a short documentary film, C C Presents: A Lavender Country Special while also getting the adulation of new fans on several sold-out tours.
Haggerty told Pitchfork, "It's really quite astonishing, to have come full circle and realize that my anti-fascist work and my art get to be combined into the same me. I get to go onstage and be a screaming Marxist bitch, use all my artistry and hambonedness to do my life work and get to be exactly who I am."
Haggerty is treasured as "The Grandfather of Queer Country" by a younger generation of LGBTQ country performers. Queer country star Orville Peck remembered Haggerty as "one of the funniest, bravest, and kindest souls I've ever known, he pioneered a movement and a message in Country that was practically unheard of."
Pitchfork's article on Haggerty is at https://tinyurl.com/39tzh2zb.
