Meet the queer vanguard of country music
(CNN)Roy Orbison had his signature specs, Johnny Cash his all-black suits and Dolly Parton her massive blonde mane (and bust, which she likes to joke about before anyone else gets the chance).
Orville Peck's got a fringed mask that obscures most of his face and a cowboy hat with an upturned brim. You'll never see him without them, just like Dolly would never let you catch her without a full face of makeup.
Maybe you've heard or seen of Peck, a country star on the rise -- one of his songs just appeared in HBO's "Euphoria," and last year he appeared in ads for Beyoncé's Ivy Park collection. With his striking accessories -- not to mention his acrobatic voice, evocative of Elvis -- he's hard to miss.
For as little of his visage as he exposes, Peck bares all in his songs -- country music is just "three chords and the truth," after all, as songwriter Harlan Howard famously said. Peck muses about the mythic West, lonely highways and, in his most aching songs, the men who've broken his heart (or vice versa).
"I didn't think of it as an angle or something really groundbreaking at all," the masked singer told CNN of his songwriting. "I just thought I was doing what everybody else does, which is write from your heart."
That he's gay is "the least interesting thing about [him]," Peck said. But to fans and artists working within a genre that has traditionally excluded marginalized performers, it's been meaningful to see him ascend without shedding an ounce of what makes him so captivating.
Singing gay love songs once killed the careers of artists like Patrick Haggerty, whose band Lavender Country in 1973 released what's widely considered the first country album recorded by an out gay performer. Even artists who came out decades later, like k.d. lang and Chely Wright, said their careers stalled after they made their sexuality public.
Now, out queer people are some of the most celebrated country stars. Brandi Carlile and Lil Nas X are Grammy winners. T.J. Osborne, one half of the Brothers Osbourne, came out last year, the first out gay artist signed to a major country label. Trixie Mattel, who won her season of "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars," incorporates original music inspired by Loretta Lynn and June Carter Cash into her drag act. And Black queer artists like Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah and Joy Oladokun are reaching audiences across genres.
Queer country artists are telling familiar stories -- first love, heartbreak and learning to heal -- from perspectives that were once shut out across the music industry. The sincerity and undeniable talent of country's queer performers are changing narrow ideas of what country music can be -- and who gets to perform it.
"I spent most of my career as a performer trying to be something I wasn't," Peck said. "I just finally realized that I could just be myself... and be what I always wanted to be, which was a country Western star."
