Karen & the Sorrows

Queer country trailblazers Karen & the Sorrows, the project of singer/songwriter Karen Pittelman, have been featured in Billboard, WNYC’s The Takeaway, and Rolling Stone, who described the band as “Dolly Parton fronting Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers.” Noisey called them “exactly what country music needs right now.” No Depression wrote that, “Like Gram Parsons, Pittelman peels away the superficiality that much of country music has embraced and looks deep into its soul, its history, and its stories and makes it all her own.” Since their start in 2011, Karen & the Sorrows have released three albums and two EPs including their most recent record Why Do We Want What We Want in 2023.

Karen & the Sorrows were also at the heart of creating queer country community for over a decade, running the Gay Ole Opry Festival and the Queer Country Quarterly from 2012 to 2022, and creating space for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back. Since the pandemic, Pittelman, who is immunocompromised, has been unable to tour or perform live, but she continues to write, record, and share her songs online.