If you're not moved-- probably profoundly-- by the song and video above, it's probably a waste of time to read the rest of this post. That's the self-made, independent ($7,000) video of "All American Boy" by Lemont, Illinois-born country singer, sometimes called the first out male country star, Steve Grand. Steve's 23 years old and the video hit YouTube last July… and exploded. It's not the kind of song country music radio would ever play. Not ever. Not anywhere. How do I know? Long before I wound up as president of Reprise Records, and before my partner Chris Knab and I started the first punk rock radio show in America and one of of the first punk rock indie labels, I was a country fan. I was a contributing editor of Country Music Magazine and a voting member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. I never liked the glitzy, over-produced Nashville crap but the music I loved was Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, early Dolly Parton and I spent my time promoting "Outlaw" music and pushing Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tompall Glaser, Steve Young, Jessi Colter, Bobby Bare, Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle…
When I moved back to the U.S. from almost 7 years living abroad, one of my first jobs was at the Rainbow Cattle Company, 3 blocks from my apartment in San Francisco's Mission District. It was a raucous, immensely popular country music gay bar and, though I've never tasted a beer, it became the center of my life. Eventually the owner hired me as the dj of a new bar he bought on Polk Street, a more traditional place he wanted to turn into another gay cowboy hangout. I thought I was supposed to make the drag queens who habituated the place love country music-- and they started coming around right from the beginning-- until the owner told me I was supposed to play music they would hate so they went away. Ugghhh… I started turning more and more to punk music around that time.
This week I checked out the new Out Magazine. I looked to see if they had any politicians they were honoring among this year's "Out 100." Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims was the only one this year and I already knew about him because Blue America congressional candidate Daylin Leach has told me what a great progressive legislator Sims is. But I chanced on the blurb about Steve Grand, who I was not familiar with. I read it and immediately went to YouTube.
"All American Boy" had a million views on YouTube in a week. It's over 2 million today. It's very touching, even though many gay activists find it politically incorrect and out of touch with the strides the gay community has made in recent years. Below is "Stay," Grand's follow-up… not bad for a kid who's parents forced him into 5 years of conversion therapy when he told them he was gay in 8th grade.“By 12 I was already set on being a rock star,” says Steve Grand, whose viral hit, “All-American Boy,” turned a classic country music template-- falling for the wrong man-- into a catchy anthem of gay longing and regret.
Even in America in 2013, finding a record label to support that kind of song is near impossible, which is what makes Grand’s decision to self-release his song on YouTube, complete with a sexy video he paid for with his life savings, so bold. His tastes may be mainstream, but his methods are anything but, demonstrating-- if proof were still needed-- that the once-mighty labels have been outmaneuvered by technology. For gay musicians everywhere , that can only be a good thing. "This has been my dream," says Grand. "It makes me feel really good that something I created inspired others, or made them feel a little less alone in the world."
