Inside Boston Music: Queer Folk

Fans gather during a music set at the venue Pasta Planet. Photo by Roxie Jenkin.

When Sam Anderson, also known as non-binary folk musician Preyhound, moved to Boston from Santa Clarita Valley, Calif., they were only starting their musical journey. Before college, they had been primarily focused on playing the flute. However, once they started at Berklee College of Music, the opportunities for them to write and play their music bloomed. Often finding there was a limited number of queer music spaces in their hometown, they have found a safe space in the Boston scene. “In Boston, queerness and music are so intertwined,” Anderson said. “I've discovered more about myself in this community than I knew about myself completely, like, my whole life.” 

The Boston music scene is diverse and it is immense. From large venues like TD Garden to the smaller, underground scenes where local artists come together, Boston offers an abundance of places to listen to and play music. A popular genre of music to see among these scenes is folk. In fact, the genre has such prominence that Boston’s Wang Theater has created the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame with displays and exhibits of memorabilia and artifacts that celebrate the history of the genre.

Wang Theater, hosts of the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame. Photo by Roxie Jenkin.

MasterClass’s article, “Folk Music Artists: A Brief History of Folk Music,” recounts that folk music originated as the work songs that enslaved peoples would sing. 

As the genre became more mainstream in the music industry, the faces that emerged at the top of the genre were people like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and so on. For a long time in mainstream folk, there was a lack of diversity with gender, race, and sexuality. However, times are changing and folk music is changing with it. 

“What's been happening with our culture is more people are starting to slowly get access to tell their stories.” Said Black queer folk musician and poet, Naomi Westwater. “We're seeing all different types of people make folk music and I think we're also hopefully broadening what we decide is folk music or not.” For Maddy Simpson of Sweet Petunia, a queer alt-folk band, “Having the opportunity to tell the stories of the non-majority, whether that's queer people or people of color or whatever the minority is, having folk music be the way that people tell their stories is a really accessible way for other people to then hear those stories.” 

In its history, folk has been a form of resistance or protest. Folk artists have produced songs like “Tear The Fascists Down” by Woody Guthrie and “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution '' by Tracy Chapman that address the issues in the current society. Indigo Ansin, also known as American-folk indie-rock fusion artist Chrysalis, applies this value to the queer artists in the industry as well. “It doesn't surprise me that queer people are drawn to folk because folk, in its very true form, is and has always been about resistance." Said Ansin. "I feel like it makes a lot of sense that queer people are getting big with folk through things like Tik Tok, right? Why wouldn't you be drawn to the genre that has always spoken up for someone who is marginalized?” 

Folk artists generally describe the genre as genuine and honest, which directly relates to the increase in queer artists joining the genre. “The nature of folk music is just, in its lyrics and in its message, just honesty and authenticity.” Said Anderson. “I mean, it would completely make sense to me why a genre that is built on expressing the truest, like human experience would be so tied with queerness.” Coco Smith, an indie-folk artist, also emphasizes this and argues that queer folk is, “always going to hit people because we are forced to live, in my opinion, more genuine lives because you can't hide and so when you can't hide who you are, you turn to mediums, that's what happened to me. I turned to folk music when I couldn't hide who I was any longer.” 

The underground music scenes of Boston are no exception to the ever-growing queer folk scene. Mairead Guy, another member of Sweet Petunia, has found, “there's a lot of gay people in Boston. I say most of the shows that we play, it's like majority queer people.” Guy finds that, as a result of this, it’s, “easier for us to be totally authentic when we're in those spaces, which is really nice.” Artists have stated that they feel a need to protect these scenes because of this very fact. Ansin has noticed that the prominence of queerness, “makes the scene more vulnerable [...] when it comes to DIY scenes, it's not really like there's any kind of protective legislation and things that can keep us safe beyond ourselves.” Smith also emphasizes the importance of this protection and believes, “people like to call it an underground scene, it's only underground because we want to maintain it as a safe space.”

The Boston folk scene has provided a sense of comfort and deep, personal understanding for the artists.  Westwater says, “Boston is a place where I feel safe, and where I feel like people are interested in the stories that I have to tell.” This is not uncommon among the queer musicians in the scene. Smith states, “I have experienced most of my queer experience in Boston. So that's one thing that's gonna make it really hard to leave is like, I don't think I've ever really experienced queer dating, queer love, queer friendships, aside from Boston.” 

Boston is a busy city that never sleeps and waits for no one. Despite that queer people have found their safe haven in Boston, and more specifically the folk music scene. Smith concludes, "folk music also really encompasses that feeling that against the odds, you will find happiness and you will find love.”