LGBTQ+ Artists Reclaim Country Music At Dorothy To Celebrate Pride Month

LGBTQIA+
By
Kayleigh Padar
June 6, 2024
Block Club Chicago
Article

Although there have always been LGBTQ+ country artists, the genre and its most popular radio stations have long been dominated by straight white men crooning about lost love, beer and trucks. Gay country has gotten more attention in recent years with openly LGBTQ+ performers like Orville Peck and Cheley Tackett and the enormous hit that was Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”But it’s Chicagoans’ work that will be on display during Country Pride. Dorothy’s Country Pride performers represent a variety of flavors of country music, including THEM Queers, a folk-punk band that dabbles in tapdancing; #QueerCountry Bandwagon, which covers country songs with queer themes or written by queer artists; and Iris Marlowe, who creates cinematic, Southern gothic songs driven by yearning for the danger of the Old West.

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A portrait of a Irish Marlowe with pink hair wearing a red hat and a black shirt with flame designs, posing with a red electric guitar, surrounded by stylized flame cutouts.
Photo Credit:
Chris Nightengale

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The Rhapsody Project

Building community through our roots. The Rhapsody Project is a community that explores and celebrates music and heritage through an anti-racist lens.

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Website

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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.

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Color Me Country

Hosted by Rissi Palmer, Color Me Country brings to the forefront the Black, Indigenous, and Latinx histories of country music that for too long have lived outside the spotlight and off mainstream airwaves.

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