“Trans Country star” is a phrase that would seemed almost impossible to say out loud just a generation ago – even though queer artists have always been around making music for decades, just tucked away deep in the shadows thanks to a close-minded society. A handful of proud queer trailblazers over the years have garnered varying degrees of cult success, like Lavender Country and K.D. Lang, but the number of out musicians in the country world was almost nonexistent just a few years ago.
And though there are still many in the industry, from labels to radio stations, that continue to ignore queer country, there is a growing list of remarkably talented out musicians that are turning in some of the most essential country records nowadays. Among the group is Shawna Virago, a transgender woman playing a satisfying mix of country with elements of punk recalling groups like Jason & the Scorchers and the Old 97s. Though she’s been around since the ‘90s and released her first LP 15 years ago, Virago is finally getting wider er attention with her latest, Blood In Her Dreams, a departure a bit from her more traditional acoustic sound for a more diverse one that touches on everything from 1950s Rockabilly to classic X records.
“Climb To the Bottom” and “Bright Green Ideas,” the two tracks that open the record, have a timeless quality that sets up the rest of the album. But it’s on the third track, the dark “Ghosts Cross State Lines”, where Virago really flexes her lyrical prowess, a muscle that remains flexed throughout the album, boasting sly wordplay (“I see him still in the scar he gave me/As I finger comb my hair/Maybe I’m living but it’s hardly a life/Still I don’t regret I used that knife”). Virago refers to the song, about a transwoman trying to outrun her dangerous past, as the album’s mission statement.
There is hardly a weak moment on the record, but it’s the title track and the album closer, distortion-laden “The Barman’s Daughter” (sounding like Social Distortion’s Mike Ness at his outlaw country-loving best), where Virago proves just how much we have been missing out on her music. Recorded over a two-year period in San Francisco, Blood In Her Dreams is a fantastic intro for many who have been sleeping on her music for years.
