Sugarland’s Kristen Hall also ‘out of the country closet’

To the Editors:

I was surprised to see your article on Chely Wright titled “The road to country’s first openly gay star” (June 11) which questioned “if kd lang should count?”  The answer is neither was the first openly gay country music star!

The first openly gay country star was Georgia’s own Kristen Hall; who was well out of the closet as the founder of Sugarland.  k.d. lang didn’t come out as an artist until 1992; well past her country music days. Kristen Hall was out at the formation of Sugarland with their first album “Twice The Speed of Light.”

Sadly, Kristen Hall left (?) Sugarland to stay home and “write songs” months after her appearance in the June 21, 2005, edition of The Advocate magazine. That article was titled “Sweet Success: With her country band, Sugarland, poised to become a household word, out artist Kristen Hall is pickin’ on top of the world.”

Mary F. Ferrara
Atlanta

Editors’ note: Good point, Mary. We’re fans of Kristen Hall, but did not list her as the first out country star because, while she was a founder of Sugarland, she was not the primary face of the band and left soon after it gained major success.