Chris Housman's 'Blueneck' creates comfort in country's embrace of queer community
For the past decade, Chris Housman has hidden in plain sight as one of Nashville's most authentically soulful singer-songwriters plying his trade in country music.
Housman grew up on a farm 40 miles north of Dodge City, Kansas, where gunslinger Wyatt Earp was a lawman and gambler. Thus, his story is tailor-made for some level of mainstream country music acclaim.
However, he is also openly gay.
It's also 2024, and mainstream culture would lead everyone, everywhere, to believe that country music's pro-heterosexual stereotyping should not be heavily centered in any conversation anymore.
Notably, since coming out in 2021, T.J. Osborne of the Brothers Osborne has won Academy of Country Music and Grammy awards.
Housman walked the carpet at 2024's Academy of Country Music Awards show as a CMT-co-signed Equal Access grant winner with a May 31-releasing album, "Blueneck." He's a clear representation of who and what is next insofar as entrenching queer artists deeper in country music's mainstream industry.
'Blueneck'
Housman's "arrival" comes as the culmination of a three-year process that began with his album's title track achieving viral acclaim as marginalized country music fans began to mobilize around songs that thematically broke barriers in the genre.
"Blueneck," notably, is an homage to being a "bleeding heart" liberal "good ole boy" and a "hick" who grew up with "cornfields in every direction." However, Housman believes that "y'all means all" and he preaches unity regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation.
Online, country fans worldwide were intrigued by a song that rekindled the interest of many in the genre. Perception-wise, at the genre's queer margins, there exists a belief among many fans that for every Garth Brooks, there are 10 Kid Rocks, which has steered them away from maintaining interest in the genre because it feels like an unsafe cultural space.
Housman's work, alongside the rise of the Brothers Osborne and the emergence of a collaborative, Black and queer artist-friendly space defined by performers such as Grammy winners Brandi Carlile and Brandy Clark, Americana favorites Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell, renowned songwriter Shane McAnally and collectives like the Black Opry, led to a surge in queer visibility online from Nashville and beyond.
Something else took shape as the world emerged from COVID-19's quarantine into real-time interactions. Naturally, as a child of 1990s and early 2000s country, Housman can mimic something akin to Tim McGraw's swagger, but underpinned with a disarming level of honest earnestness.
Thus, a route from having "Blueneck" debuting as the No. 1 song on the iTunes Country chart (No. 4 iTunes all-genre) and in the Top 20 of Billboard's Digital Country Sales chart to having CMT's Equal Access name him in their 2024 cohort becomes apparent.
Add the Clark and McAnally-penned and Country Music Association Song of the Year award-winning Kacey Musgraves anthem "Follow Your Arrow" to the mix of songs that, until he released "Blueneck," fortified his resolve to remain openly gay and still work in Music City.
'Intentionally undeniable songs'
Ten years later, via an album comprised of a decade of hard work, he's arrived at a formula for Nashville songwriting that honors the genre's classic era through the throwback stylings of love ballads like "Guilty as Sin." However, it also folds progressive notions like honoring drag queens into the mix via words and action.
Those songs, alongside "Blueneck," are the tent posts. Deeper still, songs like "Laid Back" and "Long Story Long" are R&B-influenced country radio jams that are as familiar to the format in recent memory as anything by Russell Dickerson, Walker Hayes or Thomas Rhett.
"These are intentionally undeniable songs that reflect who I authentically am as someone raised and living a life defined by values that are just as 'country' as anyone else's are," says Housman. "Yes, factors play into me having success, but at some point, I don't want to feel like it's the fault of the song.
"Yes, I'm queer, but I also really love being on boats and drinking beers."
He also grew up influenced by what he refers to as "people-pleasing and fear-mongering conservative Christian values" that forced an implicit morality upon his existence that he's still feeling the after-effects of divorcing himself from.
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He notes, in total honesty, that micro-dosing psilocybin has aided him in this process — and also in writing "Blueneck" in a clear-headed and direct manner.
"It's fun to write storytelling songs about loving your neighbor, no matter what and include songs about loving people who look different or love differently than others," says Housman. "It's also gratifying to write light-hearted songs about freedom but include ones that occasionally affirm people's gender identities."
He's hopeful that his work, alongside the heightened awareness of artists like Carlile and Clark, the Brothers Osborne and Russell, Apple Music Radio host and singer-songwriter Fancy Hagood, veteran performers like Ty Herndon and others, is establishing a lucrative and socially safe space defined by "authentic self-expression."
Redefining 'authenticity'
Expand that "authenticity" up the ladder of newly welcomed communal and lucrative social spaces in Nashville and country music. Almost immediately, the idea that queer liberation is tied to the same fundamental emotional roots as solving for Black liberation, social reintegration of the incarcerated and empathy toward those dealing with substance abuse issues becomes apparent.
"Expanding from feeling like our most honest emotions are also taboo to explore in country music and Nashville's mainstream allows a new definition to emerge for what song publishers call 'the stuff that cuts through and stands out,'" says Housman.
A statement about how he views the power of conveying the truth via a three-minute country song doubles as the most potent argument as to why Housman's songs are gaining ears and appreciation lately.
"The personal details of my life appear to resonate with more people than I ever imagined," he says. "Having that validation has opened the doors for me to realize that (embodying) my most vulnerable self makes me the best artist."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Chris Housman talks 'Blueneck' album, iTunes and queer country music
