SEATTLE — It's been a long time coming. Then again, nothing in Patrick Haggerty's history-making music career has come fast or easy.
As the 78-year-old artist and activist tells it, having an actual career in music seemed doomed from the second the country singer and his band Lavender Country released what's now considered the first gay-themed country album in 1973. Released four years after the Stonewall uprising, its out-and-proud songs didn't find much of an audience beyond the Seattle gay liberation activists who heard it or saw Lavender Country play small local shows, including the first city-sanctioned Pride event, which in 1974 drew roughly 400 people to Seattle Center.
That changed in 2014 when a small, boutique label reissued the self-titled debut from the short-lived Seattle band that went unrecognized outside the local gay community. Just about every major music publication trumpeted the historical significance of Haggerty's music, which was ahead of its time in its celebrations of sexual freedom and fierce critiques of heteronormativity and sexism — particularly in a genre marketed to a conservative audience. Four decades after its release, Haggerty's music was pulled from the dustbins and caught the ear of a new generation.
