NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — With the death of Patrick Haggerty, country music loses the trailblazer behind one incredibly bold album for its time. The 1973 Lavender Country is an album that nearly faded into obscurity. Instead, Haggerty became known as a leader in the effort to diversify country music.
It was in March that NewsChannel 5 first met Haggerty at a gig in Chattanooga. He was touring Tennessee with music he'd recorded nearly 50 years ago. It was music Haggerty never thought the world would hear.
"What was unique about it is it was the world's first gay country album," said Haggerty.
Growing up on a dairy farm in Washington, Haggerty's family knew he was gay, and they loved and accepted him. He said problems came later. He said when working for the Peace Corps, his sexuality was discovered.
"Next day I was on a plane to Washington, D.C. to be processed out," said Haggerty. "It was that fast. That event changed my life."
When Haggerty began recording Lavender Country, it was a few years before the gay community found refuge in the late '70s disco scene. Haggerty's inspiration was music born in far quieter spaces.
"I grew up in a rural environment in 1955, on a cow farm," he said. "What was in me was country."
What was country music in 1973? It was six weeks at number one for Conway Twitty, big hits for Loretta Lynn, and three singles reaching number one for Merle Haggard. The release of Lavender Country also came just a few years after the Stonewall riots. Haggerty was ready to make a statement.
"One of the basic principles of coming out was, 'don't shut up,'" he said.
"The very idea we'd have an actual out, gay artist on the radio at that time, it probably would have raised Nashville up like an earthquake!" laughed country singer Ty Herndon, speaking to NewsChannel 5 in March. "What a brave, brave man."
"Everybody was shocked by it," Haggerty remembered. "It was outrageous."
Haggerty knew releasing Lavender Country would mean giving up on moving to Nashville and any ambition of ending up on the Hot Country Billboard chart.
"But I chose to come out," he said. "Lavender Country had no chance for commercial success, and so, it died."
Then, in 2014, someone uploaded a song from Lavender Country to YouTube. Suddenly, a label offered to reissue the album.
"I didn't believe them until they sent me a $300 advance and the check was good!" laughed Haggerty.
After complications from a stroke, Haggerty has just died at 78. We're left remembering that gig earlier this year where we met Haggerty, and he told us the story of an album brought out of obscurity.
"Now, I have this hat of being the father of a new genre called gay country — which is exploding," he smiled, telling his story in March. "It's an incomprehensibly and astonishingly beautiful experience here at the end of my life."
