Fancy Hagood

When Fancy Hagood was just 17 years old, he got in a car he barely knew how to drive and moved to Nashville, a city he’d never visited, with the dream of becoming an openly queer country artist. He had gumption, and hustle. “Every year I'm on some artist to watch or up and coming list, and I've been on that list for the past decade and I just keep going.” This drive, resilience, and indomitably joyful spirit color Hagood’s sophomore solo album, American Spirit.

American Spirit marks, in Hagood’s view, both a return and an arrival, an embracement of his past while moving forward into his future. On his debut album, 2021’s Southern Curiosity, which found the singer blending country with the sounds of glam rock and confessional pop, he says, “I fought really hard about it being labeled a country album, because I had just been so jaded by…