Lavender Country

While Lavender Country were little known outside the Pacific Northwest and only released one self-distributed album, in their time they created a genuine cultural milestone -- the first collection of openly gay-themed country songs. Lavender Country were the brainchild of Patrick Haggerty, who was born and raised in Dry Creek, a small rural community near Port Angeles, Washington, where his parents were tenant dairy farmers. While Haggerty's family was always short on money (in part because he had nine siblings), when he was nine his father gave him a $25 guitar, and Patrick t...