Pop-country stars Ty Herndon and Billy Gilman recently came out of the closet. To celebrate, Jesse Walker has written a short history of gay country music.
We’ll start with Salty Holmes’ band the Prairie Ramblers, which sometimes recorded novelty songs under a different name, the Sweet Violet Boys. In 1939, wearing their Sweet Violet hats, they released a catchy sequence of double entendres called “I Love My Fruit”
“I Love My Fruit” — Sweet Violet Boys:
“I am wild about all kinds of berries
Black and blue and rasp and straw and red
But most of all I like to guzzle cherries
And I eat them every night in bed
“I can sing the praises of pistachios
And I almost eat them til I bust
And I also love pecans and cashews
Yes indeedy I sure love my nuts
“I am always hungry for bananas
That it almost seems to be a sin
They’re so good that when I’m all through eating
I still love to nibble on the skin”