Howdy, cowpokes. Rainbow Rodeo is proud to support independent and DIY musicians throughout country, blues, Americana, folk, and all the other roots genres you can shake a guitar pick at. But LGBTQ+ artists are often marginalized in greater society, which means they can’t always hire publicists or industry insiders to help promote their work. Over […]
Rainbow Rodeo is thrilled to present another brilliant essay about the history of cowboys in queer country by Stefanie Cuthbert! To read the entire list of queer cowboy songs Cuthbert covers — and its companion playlist — subscribe to the Rainbow Rodeo Patreon today! “Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other”, or so Ned […]
A rough draft of this essay appeared on Friday’s Rainbow Rodeo newsletter For those of you who are not familiar, Country Radio Seminar is the industry event where radio programmers meet up and make totally-not-payola deals with the major record labels to determine which artists will be played on the radio. As Marissa Moss reported […]
Read the full essay on the weekly Rainbow Rodeo newsletter — and get artist resources, events, and queer country news from around the web in your inbox! Before anything else, I want to give a huge thank you to Jeremy Leroux of Country Everywhere for patiently helping me tweak some backend stuff on the site. […]
I haven’t had much juice for these weekly recaps lately because I was busy working on this article for the Nashville Scene, which is about the transphobic incidents at Americanafest and the AMA’s response to it. I am very grateful to Mya Byrne, Jessye DeSilva, and Paisley Fields for being open to discussing their experiences […]
To be fair, I’m writing this at 8 AM before I head out for the long weekend. It’s entirely possible that the Americana Music Association (AMA) will release something potentially embarrassing on the cusp of a long weekend when people are traveling and not paying much attention. Of course, if that is what happens, it […]
Something was in the water in the Southeast last weekend because, I tell ya, the Devil was hard at work. Last Thursday, gay country singer Adam Mac was disinvited from his hometown Tobacco Festival who had “questions about what kind of performance [he] would be putting on,” making sure he would not be “promoting homosexuality […]
Happy new year to all who observe! For those of you unfamiliar with the Jewish calendar, this weekend marks Rosh Hoshanah, the new year, and next week will mark Yom Kippur, our day of repentance and desire to cleanse ourselves ahead of the new year, recommitting to striving for a more loving, joy-filled life. My […]
(cw: mild homophobia) Last week, I wrote about Nashville’s reluctance to risk a dollar in the face of the unfamiliar. It wasn’t the most coherent so….sorry, but I think I got it a little more concise in my review of Nick Shoulders’ new album, All Bad, on No Depression. If you haven’t listened to Nick […]
It seems like every time I go on vacation this summer there is a new embarrassing country music fiasco. Does my presence in New York City protect some kind of cosmic ley line that preserved order in country music??? There is obviously a causal relationship at work here. With that said, I’ve only got one […]
I’m back from my honeymoon and I’m here to tell you one thing: I hate music videos. Sorry — I know you guys spend a lot of money on them and, frankly, I’m pretty sure that’s how most people consume music these days. It’s certainly how they consume information. I was recently hanging out with […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution of allyship to LGBTQ people and representations of us. I had a friend who posted on social media a decade ago that so-called allies care more about marriage equality than queer folks. I agreed, as did many other LGBTQ people I know–and this was when Macklemore’s pro-marriage […]
You can read Josh’s full essay when you subscribe to our Patreon. CONTENT WARNING: Non-graphic mention of a suicide attempt. As I write this, Travis Tritt is boycotting Anheuser-Busch over the company’s inclusion of a trans person in a beer commercial. As laughable -– no, pathetic -– as this boycotting is, it indicates a longstanding […]
Howdy, cowpokes, Sorry it’s been a minute! I’ll tell you a little bit about my Nashville adventure in a second, but I also want to make two announcements: As for Nashville, I was there to see Adeem the Artist play the Grand Ole Opry. I mulled it over with some country history nerds and we […]
Howdy, cowpokes, This will be a superpost! Not only are cities around the country gearing up for Pride celebrations this weekend, I also skipped last week. I threw my back out and had been staring at my computer all week long. By the time I was ready to write the roundup, I just couldn’t bear […]
Data journalists Jan Diehm and Dr. Jada Watson did a deep dive on just how often women (and other marginalized groups) are played in country radio. The results aren’t great, but they’re presented as a visual essay on The Pudding and you should read it after you read Jan’s personal essay about this project. You […]
Howdy, cowpokes! First of all, thanks so much to everyone who has so generously contributed to the Rainbow Rodeo issue 3 fundraiser! In just 5 days, we’ve raised $1180! Only $220 to go, so consider pre-ordering your copy of the zine or joining the Patreon today! In other news, I am once again the “voice” […]
Howdy, cowpokes! This article is EXCLUSIVE to those who pre-order issue 3 of Rainbow Rodeo! We’re in the midst of raising funds for it, so click here to donate or subscribe to the zine! Dolly Parton has had a busy spring, noted by things that she has done, and things that she has failed to […]
Hey, cowpokes! It’s Pride! And I can only hear that phrase in the “It’s corn!” kid voice. I have somehow become an avid baseball fan and so a lot of the Pride Discourse I’m seeing these days is which teams and which players would love to see me cease to exist. It’s fun! I’m thrilled […]
To be honest, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of the ills of the current Nashville industry than I do for country music lyrics, so I had to Google country songs about mistakes (yeah I know there are a zillion) and this latter-day George Jones number fit the bill (but also, it rips so you should […]
Howdy, cowpokes! Rainbow Rodeo is your queer country website. The project began as a zine, evolved into a podcast, then a newsletter, and now we’re here. You can read more about the site’s history in the About section. A lot of people say queer people and country music don’t mix. A lot of rich people […]
Karen Pittelman is the Karen behind Karen and the Sorrows and the founder of The Gay Ole Opry, which has laid the foundations for our current queer country seen these past 10 years. In her manifesto, Karen argues for a queer country community that takes no bullshit from the mainstream. NOTE: This piece was originally […]
This essay about queer country music by Felipe Oliveira originally appeared in issue 2 of the Rainbow Rodeo zine. Subscribe to our Patreon so you’ll never miss out on an issue and stay up to date on queer country! Long before coming out publicly in 2010, Chely Wright recorded a song that seemed to defy […]
It wasn’t until college that I realized “The Road Goes on Forever” wasn’t a classic American folksong. Robert Earl Keen’s slant rhyme-filled Bonnie and Clyde esque ballad, which was later covered by supergroup The Highwaymen, about a drug-smuggling couple who tragically run afoul of the law, brings a modern twist to the traditional American desperado […]