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World's first gay country album was made in Seattle in 1973

This story originally aired on March 31, 2018.   

In 1973, in the midst of the Stonewall era, a Seattle band called Lavender Country released an eponymous album. The album delivered radical politics with a country twang, and became known as the world's first openly gay country album.

In this interview, Patrick Haggerty tells Gabriel Spitzer how the album lived, and died, and lived again. He also explains why the album might never have existed if it weren't for his father--a "hayseed" of a dairy farmer who gave his son permission to be exactly who he was.

"I ask you," Haggerty said, "what sissy in 1958 in what hayfield in America got that from his father? Everybody else was getting the [expletive] kicked out of them ... That's what was happening to country sissies in 1958. But it wasn't happening to me, because of my father."

Posey Gruener is a former KNKX producer who worked on All Things Considered and Sound Effect.
Jennifer Wing is a former KNKX reporter and producer who worked on the show Sound Effect and Transmission podcast.
Gabriel Spitzer is a former KNKX reporter, producer and host who covered science and health and worked on the show Sound Effect.