Searching For Country Rainbows
Not so far beyond our horizon
It’s true that objects in our mirror may be closer than they appear. I’ve been writing off and on about some of the outliers of traditional Country Music and even traditional Country Rock music. Reading Ben Fong-Torres’ Hickory Wind, about the rise and fall of that most grievous of all Country Rock musicians, Gram Parsons, also got me thinking that outlaws and hard drinkers, and even serial abusers make legends of themselves in this sort of music, and somehow, too many of us keep our focus on the art as opposed to the life, and maybe even look the other way at such bad behavior.
Are these things “traditional?”
I’m guilty of such compartmentalizing in every form of artistry I study. It’s hard loving a work and accepting that the writer behind it indulges in abusing others, especially the most vulnerable of us.
James Joyce drove his children mad; Faulkner was a most unpleasant drunk; and Parsons suffered abusive neglect from his family and passed that on. He didn’t intend to be bad, but when one’s indulgences aren’t checked, they lead to ruin in many cases.
As I wrote the title of this story, I thought about The Marshall Tucker Band’s song, “Searchin’ for a Rainbow,” and how that title — that word — “rainbow” has come to mean something different in the decades since they recorded the song. Maybe Judy Garland’s “Dorothy” offered us more light and substance than we knew when she sang about that “somewhere.”
But listen: the somewhere is here right in front of us because Country Music has gone way beyond trains and mama and prison, though some might want to open the prison doors wider for those I’m writing about.
Not long ago, I read Nadine Hubbs’ Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, which is more academic than its title suggests. I had already been following Orville Peck, an openly gay country singer whom I’ll be seeing live this coming Tuesday night in Asheville and who is one of the scouts on Apple TV’s My Kind of Country.
I wrote about Peck last summer, too:
But today, I want to alert you to a few more artists who identify as Gay or Queer: artists who sing from their hearts and use traditional country instruments to invoke heartache and loss and a private yearning for all the things the public yearns for too.
First up, Waylon Payne, estranged son of Sammi Smith, whose cover of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” once changed my thinking, if not my life. Payne’s Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me: The Lost Act was released in 2021, and after I heard him interviewed on Proud Country radio, I re-listened to this album, thinking of how a country singer who finally comes out as gay risks losing his family, which might make for more lonesome music but doesn’t quite help minimize the pain and trauma. This record has more good songs than anyone should have the right to sing on a single disc. Here’s one of my favorites:
“Oh this airport bar is now empty All of the planes have gone on I sit in Austin, away from you, baby Why can’t I come home?”
So why should you or I care that he’s writing about another man? Why should you or I want to denounce his doing so?
Other fine tracks on the record include “Sins of the Father,” “Sunday,” “All the Trouble,” and “Old Blue Eyes.”
Next is Paisley Fields, whose 2022 LP, Limp Wrist, amps up the volume, the pace, and the direct look into what people who fear difference would rather not see.
“Like a canary in a coal mine,” he sings on “Black Hawk County Line,” he can’t get past certain borders, certain lines drawn in the (daytona) sand.
“Ain’t Built For Speed” sounds as traditional as they get, with up-tempo fiddle and a rhythm that the best bluegrass pickers might envy. But best, or for some most transgressive, of all, is this piece:
The guitar parts are pure country, and I love the irony of “country” within the country.
Fields played in Charlotte not too long ago, but I didn’t get up there to see him. My loss, for sure. I hope all went well, the walls were standing after, and the country felt sturdier for the singing.
And finally, for today at least, we have Lavender Country, a band with two LPs made some 50 years apart. On their debut eponymous LP, the band plays “Back in the Closet Again” and “Come Out Singing,” among others. But on their 2022 Blackberry Rose, they do what country has always done: mix up the Blues with a little fiddle and smoke, and Voila!
“Gay Bar Blues”
Sadness and tragedy abound, of course, but so does resurrection. Read more about the band here. It’s too bad when we learn of legends after they’re gone, but at least we have them in some form to hear, to respect, and to help lead us out of the mold we only think we have to stay in or conform to.
So many others to contemplate, which I hope to do in later stories.
And look for my Orville Peck concert review coming out later this week.
I hope the spirit of this weekend helps us all be kinder and more understanding. And I’ll hold back the tears of my more cynical side for now.
Thank you for reading, and please check out more of the Riff and good writers like Alex Markham, Steven Hale, If Ever You’re Listening, Nicole Brown, Scott-Ryan Abt, Dan Reich, Madeline Dovi, Kevin Alexander, Charlie Cole, Charles in San Francisco, JP Timko, Lainey Powers, James Finn, and Paul Combs.