Tag: karen & the sorrows

LISTEN: Karen & the Sorrows, “It Ain’t Me”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Karen & The Sorrows
Hometown: New York City
Song: “It Ain’t Me”
Album: Guaranteed Broken Heart
Release Date: October 18, 2019

In Their Words: “I like to say The Sorrows are a full-service heartbreak band. I write songs for all kinds of sad situations! This one is for when your ex first starts seeing someone new, and you can’t stop wondering if they’ll love that new person in all the ways they couldn’t love you.

It also belongs to a genre I often write that I would describe as what-the-country-rock-band-plays-late-at-night-after-everyone-else-left-and-the-bartender-is-mopping-up songs. I’d put a lot of my favorite Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs in this imaginary genre too, because to do it right, you need a truly lonesome-sounding Wurlitzer. And nobody does lonesome Wurly like the Heartbreaker’s Benmont Tench! I was definitely hoping to channel a little bit of the Heartbreakers’ twangy, tough despair on this one.” — Karen Pittelman

Photo credit: Leah James

Kacey Musgraves is Country’s Queer Icon, but These Roots Artists are Actually Queer

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Kacey Musgraves’ dominance during Sunday’s 61st Annual Grammy Awards has certainly solidified her place as country music’s newest queer icon. She offered simply stunning, near-perfect performances during the primetime broadcast and took home four trophies: Best Country Solo Performance, Best Country Song, Best Country Album, and one of the most prestigious awards of the night, Album of the Year. So-called “Gay Twitter” devolved into a tizzy as the show unfolded through the afternoon and evening with Musgraves decidedly at the top.

Said Album of the Year, Golden Hour, saw a critical mass of LGBTQ+ fans embracing Musgraves’ music, but her relationship to the broader gay community has been percolating since her debut album, especially given its overt “Follow Your Arrow” message. All combined, her eye for gratuitous-yet-effortless glamour, her acid-steeped, anime-meets-California-meets-trailer park aesthetics, and her singular, pop-influenced countrypolitan sounds are gay country manna from heaven. And it’s not just in the music. This year, she made an appearance as a guest judge on VH1’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and she routinely advocates for LGBTQ+ fans and their causes on her social media feeds.

To be sure, Musgraves fits the diva-idolized-by-gays criteria impeccably, but there’s a certain passive erasure that can occur when fans consciously or subconsciously become myopic in their praise of and infatuation with straight, cisgendered, female artists. It’s true that Musgraves has played an important role in expanding country music’s borders — musically, socially, and otherwise — but at the same time a burgeoning community of LGBTQ+ writers, artists, musicians, and creators are carving out their own space within country, Americana, folk, and even bluegrass and old-time.

This writer would never go so far as to suggest that one ought not squeal with delight at Musgraves’ fierce-as-fuck costumes, her tear-jerking solo performance of “Rainbow,” or her impossibly long and flowy Cher-callback, bump-it wig. Rather, if you love Kacey Musgraves and Golden Hour — because queer identities can be seen and reflected within her work, because she opens the door to the idea that country isn’t a forbidding place for these identities, and/or because she’s unabashed and unapologetic in her pursuit of these goals — you’re going to love these eleven badass, talented, inspirational, openly queer roots musicians, too.

Time to get stanning:

Brandi Carlile

After last night’s show this name should no longer need mentioning or introduction, as Carlile and her twin collaborators, Tim and Phil Hanseroth, absolutely brought down the Staples Center with one of the most moving performances of the night, the soaring, galvanizing, overtly queer, and now Grammy-winning masterpiece, “The Joke.” Carlile is openly gay, married, a mother of two daughters, and a tireless voice for representation and progress in Americana and its offshoot genres. If “The Joke” resonates with you (i.e. if it makes you sob uncontrollably, as it does this writer), check out “That Wasn’t Me,” “Hurricane,” and, of course, “The Story.”

Mary Gauthier

Gauthier’s latest, Rifles & Rosary Beads, was nominated for Best Folk Album this year and though it didn’t take home the prize, the album has received universal acclaim for its message of hope, empathy, and visibility for members of our armed services and the struggles they face during and after their service. Gauthier collaborated with veterans of the military in writing all of the record’s heart wrenching, honest, raw songs — which might seem counterintuitive given gays’ historically tenuous relationship with the military writ large. But Gauthier’s own life story, and the trials she’s faced, make her the perfect writer to prioritize empathy above all else in these songs.

Don’t sleep on the rest of her discography, though. The simple profundity of her writing is consistently awe-inspiring. Check out “Mercy Now” after you’ve given Rifles & Rosary Beads a listen.

Karen & the Sorrows

Jewish New York City native Karen Pittelman may seem like an unlikely frontwoman of a country band, especially when you factor in her past punk and queercore experiences, but it turns out she grew up bathed in the country compilation albums her father produced and sold for a living. Her voice recalls country mavens of bygone eras — it’s delicate yet powerful, with a pin-up girl quality that’s as subversive as it is natural. Also check out “Take Me for a Ride,” a Pittelman original that plays like a trad-country, queer version of Sam Hunt’s smash hit, “Body Like a Back Road,” but without the cheese.

Little Bandit

All of the hollerin’, barn-burning, hell-raising country soul of your favorite outlaw country rockers, but with lacy gay edges, Little Bandit (AKA Alex Caress, et. al.) is as honky-tonk as it gets. It’s a beautiful balancing act, presenting as an impossibly big-voiced, piano-smashing, charismatic frontman while singing male pronouns without hesitation. He leans into a beautifully paradoxical queerness that equally embraces diamonds, Waffle House allusions, platform shoes, and plain ol drinkin’. If you like it — and you will — check out “Diamonds,” too.

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers

Outspoken outlaws in a crop of alt-country artists who align with that eponymous country movement of the 70s, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers are a road-dogging band that would seemingly fit that mold, excepting Shook’s deliberate efforts to challenge the inherent heteronormativity of country music at every turn. For Shook it’s not necessarily about having a political message, as she put it in a 2018 interview with BGS, “I feel like doing what I’m doing — touring relentlessly, putting out records, and being unapologetically myself — is a very powerful and political maneuver as well… I’ve never been concerned about that because I feel it’s important to be honest and forthright as a human being, and as an artist and certainly lyrically as well.”

Indigo Girls

Both Amy Ray and Emily Saliers — the two halves that make up the absolutely iconic Indigo Girls — have released solo albums in the past year, both of which draw heavily on folk, Americana, and country influences. This should be no surprise to even the most casual IG fans. Banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, and so many other hallmarks of roots music have been integral to the Indigo Girls’ sound all along. But the songwriting, devastating and personal and oh so very real, is the real takeaway from both projects.

kd lang

This list might as well not exist if it excluded kd lang. Before her crossover to more mainstream genre designations, kd pretty much originated the role of badass queer making unimpeachably trad country music that refused to shy away from its queer touchpoints. Just take a look at this video! “Honky Tonk Angels,” sung with Loretta Lynn, Brenda Lee, Kitty Wells, and finally, kd in all of her butch, gender-bending, binary-eschewing glory — complete with a Minnie Pearl cameo! Country has always been (more than) a little queer, y’all.

Lavender Country

A man well, well ahead of his time, Patrick Haggerty (AKA Lavender Country), released his debut, self-titled album in 1973. It was a groundbreaking work, but the world, let alone the country music community and its commercial machine, were not ready for it. A Seattle DJ was fired for playing “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” on the airwaves, only one thousand copies of the album were printed, and the band was relegated to performing exclusively at LGBTQ+ events and programs. But, despite being largely shut out of the industry, Haggerty and Lavender Country never ceased. In 2018, at the age of 74, Haggerty took part in AmericanaFest’s very first queer-focused showcase.

Amythyst Kiah

Amythyst Kiah’s booming, captivating voice, and her haunting, Southern gothic approach to Americana, bluegrass, and old-time set her apart from almost anyone else on the scene at this moment. Her reimagination of Dolly Parton’s magnum opus, “Jolene,” is a perfect example of how she carefully turns tradition on its ear. Based in East Tennessee herself, she draws on the rich musical heritage of the region, adding her own spin, creating space to allow herself to soar. And there’s plenty more soaring in her future, as she has opened shows for artists such as Rhiannon Giddens and Indigo Girls across the country and in Europe, and her collaboration album with Giddens, Allison Russell (Birds of Chicago), and Leyla McCalla, Songs of Our Native Daughters, is set to drop February 22.

Alynda Segarra

Singer/songwriter, activist, and Hurray for the Riff Raff frontwoman Alynda Segarra entrances with The Navigator, a concept project that focuses on the life and times of a fictitious Puerto Rican youth living in New York City. Themes of immigration, identity politics, displacement, disenfranchisement, and capitalistic overreach are threaded throughout the album, which offers its songs as tableaus of this girl’s — Navita’s — reality. It’s a stunning reminder that the intricacies and nuances that define us, and by doing so, separate us, are not so difficult for us to overcome with empathy and understanding. “Pa’lante!” (which translates to “forward!”) is the album’s battle cry, a song that turns utter despondency, grief, and a sore lack of humanity into a glimmer of hope.

Trixie Mattel

While almost all other drag queens who delve into the music scene release dance tracks, rap albums, or similar club-ready jams, Trixie Mattel (AKA Brian Firkus) draws upon her rural Wisconsin roots on two folk-adjacent, country-ish albums, Two Birds and One Stone. (Get it?) This isn’t just an opportunist attempt to punch up Trixie’s Dolly Parton-esque, country barbie aesthetic, she’s really got the chops. Not only is she a talented humorous-while-poignant songwriter, her technical skills on guitar and autoharp (yes, autoharp) are precisely honed to showcase her original music. This is no gimmick — though the Doves in Flight Gibson guitar and the custom, pink d’Aigle autoharp are jaw-droppingly perfect additions to Trixie’s lookbook.

 

Karen Pittelman: Bring Your Truth

Posted on by Editor

A queer Jew from Brooklyn seems like the most unlikely candidate to front a country band, right? If you factor in Karen Pittelman’s past experience singing and performing punk and queercore, her current old country-influenced, honky tonk-inspired group, Karen & the Sorrows, seems even more implausible. Addressing these kind of assumptions about who “owns” country or who is allowed “admission” to country — by the mainstream country machine, country radio, country writers, or country fans at large — is why the following conversation is so important. On the surface, it would be easy, even hackneyed, to presume that Pittelman and company came to country as opportunists on the waves of the Americana tide. But considering LGBTQ+ identities and perspectives in roots music necessitates digging deeper. Doing so in our laughter-filled dialogue with Pittelman was both enlightening and encouraging.

Before Karen & the Sorrows, you were singing in a punk band. I wonder how you bridged the gap between punk and country — it sounds like it was something of a homecoming for you. Did identity play into you leaving country behind? Did you feel that in punk you would be more free to be yourself rather than in country?

Yeah, I think that that’s true. I came up around queercore, a place where making music and building queer community are all one thing. But I also think the distance between country and punk isn’t as far as people like to think. Who’s more punk than Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash is punk as fuck. I think, in terms of genres that give you a space to tap into anger and make something out of that, punk and country are two of the best. Punk isn’t so good for heartbreak and that’s what took me back to country. Really, what I love the most are sad songs. My heart was broken and, I dunno, I guess when my heart breaks, pedal steel comes out. [Laughs] Different things happen for different people’s hearts, but that’s what’s in mine, so I had to come back to country, whether I wanted to or not.

What was the beginning of country for you? Did you grow up listening to it?

I guess I’m not the average country music listener. I grew up in New York City. Being a queer Jew, I’m not whatever is supposed to be the stereotype of a country music listener. [Laughs] I think lots of people who love country music don’t fit the stereotypes. My dad, when I was growing up, ran a company called Heartland Music and he made compilation albums that were sold on TV. He was working, through my childhood, mostly with country music stars. He would be making these commercials with Conway and Loretta, and George Jones, and Don Williams, and then come back home and play me everything — and force me to listen to everything and learn it. I was kind of resistant, but it all sunk in. I guess it was just in there waiting to come out later.

I always find it interesting that a lot of people who might be opposed to LGBTQ+ rights feel that, because these identities are becoming more visible in more traditionally conservative spheres — roots music, country, bluegrass, old-time — that people with othered identities are “infiltrators.” But when I have these conversations with diverse people, their stories are exactly analogous to anybody else’s experience getting into these genres. Where do you think this disconnect is happening?

I think that’s a kind of stance that happens not just in this situation, but in a lot of different situations where people are feeling afraid of anyone who feels like an “other” to them. Not just LGBTQ, but anybody who is outside of who they define as their community. It always feels like people are infiltrating, because the “others” feel scary. Almost always, whoever is being termed the “other” has been there all along. Especially in America, we’re all mixed up with each other whether we understand it or not. Depending on where you live, maybe things are less racially or religiously diverse, but you don’t have to travel very far before that changes. And certainly you can’t get away from LGBTQ people; we’re everywhere. We’re 10 percent of the population. So, whether someone realizes it or not, we’re always there. We’re your friends and your community. Maybe that makes it even more scary — people having to redefine who they are and who they think everyone else is in relationship to themselves.

I think that’s what I grapple with the most in trying to unpack these issues with people who may stand in opposition. Because of the way the narrative has been told for so long, it’s easy to think that these ideas have only cropped up in the past 30 to 40 years. It’s hard to undo the revisionist history that everyone holds so closely, because it’s a linchpin to their worldview.

When the history of queer people in music is erased, of course nobody knows that it’s actually there. Queer people have been making all kinds of music all along, of course. If you’re not used to hearing that, I get it. You’ve been told your whole life that somebody is the enemy, that somebody is dangerous to you because of who they are — no matter how you define that “other” — you’ve got a lot to disentangle and unpack before you can see me or somebody else as a fellow musician, your neighbor, your friend, or your family.

I noticed, when I first started reading about your band and your album, that you’re clearly labeled and tagged “queer country.” In the course of these interviews and conversations, I’ve found a whole continuum of visibility and display of artists’ identities in what they create. I wondered how you got to the point where you wanted it to be overtly queer?

To me, first and foremost, it’s about the music. First, second, and third it’s about the music — and I just want people to hear the music. As a woman, though, I already don’t get to have that luxury (of being less visible). It’s already going to be, “Ah, women in music.” [Laughs] It happened because I was just craving the space for queer country to exist and I so missed having that space in queercore and queer punk shows. Not that queer space is the only space that I can feel comfortable in or the only space I want to play, but it really feels like home to me. I felt like I needed to make that space for myself and then other people, too, especially when other people were saying, “Yes! We need this, too.” That inspired me and made me feel like I had to keep going. That’s how we started calling it queer country.

Obviously, like we were just talking about, queer people have been making country all along — we’re going to play our record release show with Lavender Country and Patrick Haggerty made his out, proud, queer country album in 1973! I needed this community and, in order to make community, you have to be willing to announce it. “Okay, this is going to be queer country and that’s who we are and anyone else who feels the same way, come play this show with us!” [Laughs]

I can totally relate to that. I grew up in bluegrass — traditional, straight-ahead bluegrass. I didn’t realize that I craved a space to be queer within bluegrass until I tripped into such a space. You feel this burden lifted that you didn’t realize you were carrying around, just from feeling like the odd person out. It feels so good!

Especially in the way that roots music wants to claim a sort of “home” — a space where everyone can feel welcome, where it isn’t about putting on some kind of airs. This is music that’s about telling the truth about your life, about telling the truth of who you are and where you come from, so it’s important that we’re creating a space together where our lives feel known. I think it’s hard to realize, when you grow up with a certain kind of music, that you’re not being included in it. You know, but you don’t know in your bones, until you’re in a space where you are included. Then you realize how lonesome it felt all along.

That really resonates with me. It feels like the LGBTQ+ community in roots music is starting to network and weave together this strong fabric with each other. I love that.

I feel like we’re making it together right now! It’s amazing!

I want to ask you about “Take Me for a Ride” off of your new record, The Narrow Place. I love that it’s basically bro country, but queer. While listening to it, though, I could imagine someone hearing the lyric “I wanna kiss that pretty mouth and keep on kissing south” sung by a woman to a woman and being appalled by how “inappropriate” it is. Meanwhile, Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road” has been at number one for a record-breaking 25 weeks!

[Laughs] Yeah, “Body Like a Back Road” is way dirtier! It’s funny: I wasn’t sure, when I was working on that song, how dirty it would end up being, but I knew what I was going for. I think it ended up pretty sweet, as far as saying dirty things go! [Laughs] But “Body Like a Back Road” is filthy! And so catchy.

So how do we bridge this logical gap for people? We talked about this a little bit before — queer people have always been in country; queer people come to country music the same ways as everybody else. How do we show people that don’t want us to “flaunt it in their faces,” that it’s really not any different than Sam Hunt singing about “driving with his eyes closed”?

[Laughs] Hmm. I had this really interesting experience with someone writing a comment on one of our videos on YouTube. They wrote this really nice comment about how much they love the song and the band, but then they basically said exactly what you just said: “I don’t understand why you have to be putting all of these identity politics and labels on things.” I wrestled with it for a while, but then I wrote back saying, “Thank you so much. You know, I wouldn’t describe it as ‘putting labels.’ I would just say that all of my favorite country music and musicians just try to bring the truth of their lives to the music.” The person wrote me back saying, “Oh, I get that. Thank you for taking the time.”

Now, obviously, it doesn’t always go like that! [Laughs] That was like the world’s best case scenario of that conversation. He felt heard, I felt heard, everything went great. I mean, why do you want to hear Tim McGraw and Faith Hill sing “It’s Your Love”? It’s because they love each other! For real and in real ways. It’s beautiful, and you feel the truth of it. Yes, there’s an entirely different question here of how authenticity gets constructed. It’s complicated. That said, I do believe in bringing your truth to the music. If we all agree that that’s something we love about country music, then we’re going to need to find a way to let everybody who makes the music bring their truth.

Photo Credit: Carole Litwin — (from left to right) Tami Johnson, Karen Pittelman, and Elana Redfield