Bluegrass Pride To Kick Off Porch Pride with Lavender Countr

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Bluegrass Pride To Kick Off Porch Pride with Lavender Country Live!
First Weekend of Pride Month Festivities Features Queer Country Forebear in Conversation with BGP Board Member Jake Blount

Bluegrass Pride, a California-based non-profit with a mission to uplift LGBTQ+ folks in roots music, is proud to announce the first weekend of their month-long pride celebration and virtual festival, Porch Pride, which will feature Lavender Country Live! On Sunday, June 6 at 1pm PDT / 4pm EDT Bluegrass Pride members, followers, and fans are invited to join the organization in kicking off Pride Month with music, conversation, and fellowship with seminal Pacific Northwestern queer country group, Lavender Country, featuring Patrick Haggerty. The event will be hosted by Bluegrass Pride board member, acclaimed roots musician and scholar Jake Blount.

All Porch Pride events are FREE to attend, but Bluegrass Pride encourages those who are able to donate to support all of the artists on the Porch Pride lineup as well as supporting the ongoing work of Bluegrass Pride. Get more information and donate here.

Lavender Country blazed onto the PNW country scene in 1973 with a beautifully transgressive and controversial self-titled, self-released album that made waves with its single, “Cryin’ These thingysucking Tears,” prompting the industry to blackball Lavender Country and frontperson Patrick Haggerty for decades. In the time that’s elapsed, Haggerty and the band have remained committed to their radical, activist, anti-fascist roots. In recent years, they’ve received ample acclaim for their trailblazing efforts in the ‘70s and beyond, and they have collaborated with artists and icons such as Trixie Mattel and Orville Peck.

Bluegrass Pride is so excited to open their Porch Pride festivities with Lavender Country, deliberately and overtly paying tribute to the radical, progressive, and anti-fascist roots of the modern queer rights movement, of LGBTQ+ Pride, and of American roots music.

Tune in on Sunday, June 6 at 1pm PDT / 4pm EDT for Lavender Country Live with Bluegrass Pride! via Bluegrass Pride’s website, YouTube Channel, or Facebook page.


More information on Porch Pride:
Porch Pride is the headline fundraising event for Bluegrass Pride, raising more than $22,000 in its first year. All of the event’s virtual programs are free to view and attend – and will be available to view on our website and channels after air – members, fans, followers, and listeners are encouraged to donate to support the musicians performing on Porch Pride, as well as the ongoing work of BGP. You can support Porch Pride here. You can become a member of Bluegrass Pride here.

Porch Pride will take place all month long during June 2021! Over the course of Pride month, Porch Pride will feature performances by folks like Lavender Country, Rainbow Girls, Gangstagrass, Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Jake Blount, Sunny War, and many more, plus a virtual Bluegrass Pride Brunch and open house, a beginner-friendly jam-along, and so much more. See a full schedule of events below:

June 6, 2021 at 1pm PDT / 4pm EDT – Lavender Country Live with Bluegrass Pride, hosted by Bluegrass Pride Board Member Jake Blount

June 12, 2021 at 1pm PDT / 4pm EDT – Bluegrass Pride Brunch & Information Session, an informal gathering and Q&A period hosted by Bluegrass Pride Board Members. Open to all members, fans, followers, and folks new to Bluegrass Pride, too.

June 13, 2021 at 1pm PDT / 4pm EDT – Beginner-Friendly Jam-Along with Luisa Lopez, “bring” your instruments and voice to play and sing along with protest songs and movement music. Lyrics and chord sheets provided

June 19, 2021 at 3pm PDT / 6pm EDT – Juneteenth: A Rainbow Revival, featuring Sunny War, Jake Blount, Yasmin Williams, Faith Nolan, Jackie & Resa, Stephanie Anne Johnson, and Lenworth O’neal. An evening of musical performances curated by Brandi Pace of non-profit Decolonizing the Music Room that will highlight the essential contributions of Black queer, trans, and non-binary folks to roots music and the Pride movement.

June 26 & 27, 2021 at 3pm PDT / 6pm EDT – Porch Pride: 5th Anniversary Celebration. Our headline festival returns celebrating five years of Bluegrass Pride and featuring performances by:

Saturday, June 26:
Mya Byrne
Ben Garnett
Crys Matthews
BOOJUM
Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Gangstagrass

Sunday, June 27:
Willi Carlisle
Maddie Witler
Amanda Fields
Hasee Ciaccio & Friends
Stephanie Anne Johnson
Rainbow Girls

More About Bluegrass Pride: Our mission is to recruit, encourage, and support LGBTQ+ bluegrassers of all levels, promoting their advancement and acceptance within all areas of the bluegrass music industry and musical community. We aim to uplift the genre of bluegrass as a whole to receive LGBTQ+ folks openly, and to promote allyship with all marginalized peoples within the industry and musical community. We do so by creating opportunities for community building and resources for musical skill development, such as concerts, jam sessions, showcases, festivals, parades, tutorials, recording, and more! Bluegrass Pride is a Section 501(c)(3) charitable organization, EIN 83-3224672. All donations are deemed tax-deductible absent any limitations on deductibility applicable to a particular taxpayer. More at bluegrasspride.net

More About Lavender Country: While Lavender Country (1973) was little known outside the Pacific Northwest and only released one self-distributed album, they created a genuine cultural milestone: the first openly gay country album. After sitting stagnant for four decades, indie label Paradise of Bachelors discovered the album, reissued it, and shot Lavender Country into the stratosphere. With a new rotating lineup of musicians, Patrick Haggerty began performing to a brand new generation of Lavender Country fans drawn to the band's timeless message of queer liberation and revolution. Haggerty, now approaching age 77, is stronger than ever. His shows are a unique combination of good country music, sharp Marxist political critique, and a huge lineup of incredible backup musicians across the country. Poignant emotions leave his audience laughing, dancing, and crying all at once. The current emergence of fascism and the deep political divisions in American culture are making Lavender Country a critical component of progressive and radical politics.

More About Jake Blount: Jake Blount is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and scholar based in Providence, RI. A winner of the 2020 Steve Martin Banjo Prize, he specializes in the music of Black communities in the southeastern USA, and in the regional style of the Finger Lakes. His first full-length solo album, Spider Tales, debuted at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart, received positive coverage from Rolling Stone Country, Billboard Pride and AV Club among others, and earned five out of five stars as The Guardian's Folk Album of the Month. It later appeared on "Best of 2020" lists from NPR, Bandcamp, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Blount is also a founding board member of Bluegrass Pride.