Thursday – A Second First

[ninanevermore]

.
.
.
I’ve been hearing and reading in the media that country singer Chely Wright is the “first country and western singer to come out of the closet as gay.”

Is anyone else old enough to remember when k.d. lang was the first country and western singer to come out of the closet as a lesbian? Or if it happened more than 15 years ago does it no longer count?

I’m just curious.



* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Comments

[simplecity2htwn.livejournal.com]

The only thing that's new is the history you don't know. The article is probably written by a Gen-Yer who has no idea who Lang is.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

But she's still around and making music. She's more adult comtempory/alt country these days, but in the early 90s when she hit the scene the C&W stations were the only ones playing her and she was openly gay from the get go. Gah!

In the age of Google, there's no excuse for not knowing this before you write a damn headline.

[magsmom.livejournal.com]

right. It's ancient history. But I will say that 15 years ago everything was a little less "lock step." Different memebers of different groups were allowed to have different viewpoints. Though of course they still do, the media tends to treat these groups as polarized idealogue groups. The portrayal intended is something like this:
Country western = redneck = right wing = religious = homophobic.
Every single step along that equation is an overstatement, but folks gets to the end result very quickly.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The older I get, the weirder the world gets. Now I understand why my parents spent so much of their times shaking their heads.

The fact that lang no longer sings country music may be one reason they've forgotten she ever did, but that doesn't change the fact that she won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, and that she was openly gay when she won it.

Maybe that's another part of the problem: she was never really in the closet, so there was no big to do about her coming out of it.

[squidflakes.livejournal.com]

k.d. lang is a country singer? I know she looks a bit like Lyle Lovett, but does that make her country?

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She's not country now, but back when everyone was first talking about her, she definitely was. There was a big hullabaloo about *gasp* a lesbian singing country music. It made headlines.

In her subsequent albums, she shifted genres. But in the beginning, there was k.d. - gay country chanteuse.

She won the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her 1989 album Absolute Torch and Twang and she was openly gay when she won it. Look it up.

[squidflakes.livejournal.com]

:P

Someone's sarcasm meter appears to be on the fritz.

Oh, and I find that using Grammy Award nominations and wins to be a poor way of proving anything. Mostly because Jethro Tull won the '89 Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Vocal, or Instrumental, beating out Metallica. The same band has also won Grammy Awards for Best Country album.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Sorry. She fact that she later switch genres (though not orientations) confuses some people. I get that.

The Grammy's may be a joke, but Ms. lang was being played on the C&W stations at the time and her abums were being bought by C&W fans, which is the real test as to what kind of music she performed. Jethro Tull, on the other hand, was never considered by the Hard Rock fans to be metal. I remember the big fuss and all the metal fans going, "Huh?!" It was funny.:)

[anne-nahm.livejournal.com]

I remember! I also remember the cover of Vanity Fair with Cindy Crawford giving her a shave:
http://www.celebritysmackblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/kd-cindy.jpg

And then this shot too:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k213/amymiller13/lang_crawford_vanity_fair2.jpg

Which seems to suggest everybody at the time understood at least one of them liked women.

But probably if you showed this to 'kids these days' they wouldn't only say, 'who's KD Lang?', they'd probably say "who's Cindy Crawford'.

And OMG, I just said 'kids these days' and meant it. 0_o

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

You're right: these damn kids today. The thing that is annoying me is not they don't remember (how could they? They were either babies or they weren't born), but the assumption that if they don't remember it, it didn't happen. They are driving on the frickin' information highway and not bothering to read any of the frickin' signs. They had the information avaible but didn't bother to look it up.

Even better, they could have grabbed the nearest 30 year old and asked, "Hey, has there ever been an openly gay country and western recording artist before?"

[anne-nahm.livejournal.com]

*hitches up pants, nods, spits into spittoon.*

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

*slides bifocals down bridge of nose to glare over them*

[lil-ms-drama.livejournal.com]

I remember because it was during the time I was heavily into church and religion and what they said goes, so I detested her music for no other reason. It's crazy because at the time I was really into Country music.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I remember when Amy Grant started singing secular music and the evelgelical kids down the street had to burn all her albums. Funny how that stuff works out.

An interesting note: did you know that all pentocostals believe that homosexuality is a sin (like your church did)? I read an artical on the RPI group that endorses gay marriage because they believe it is the only way to ensure that gays lead a moral life. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for their take on it:

http://www.rpifellowship.com/Beliefs___Doctrine.html

People are funny and surprising. Its one of my favorite things about humanity. :)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She defies classification these days, like so many talented artist I'm discovering. Unless you count "Good" as a classification. :)

[suspiria.livejournal.com]

God bless K.D. Lang.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

With a voice like that, I'd say she's been blessed pretty well. :)

[sidneymintz.livejournal.com]

Loved her duet with Roy Orbison