Doug Stevens

Doug Stevens (born 1957) is an American country singer from Tupelo, Mississippi. In the 1990s, he led Doug Stevens and The Outband, one of the premier gay and lesbian groups in the country music genre. He took a break from recording in 2007.

He also co-founded the Lesbian and Gay Country Music Association from 1998 until 2007. (As of 2015, the LGCMA is now led by LGBT country songwriter Vicki Llewellyn).

His parents both played the guitar and sang every night after supper and his grandparents on both sides were country musicians.

He grew up hearing fiddles, guitars, out-of-tune pianos, and untrained voices singing and playing old, hillbilly music, and white gospel.

Northern Mississippi was a place where bluegrass mixed with Cajun and blues and somehow, he grew up with a strong feel for Tejano Music. So, it was no surprise when he pursued a career as a musician. As he got older, television and movies made Doug yearn to live in the larger, mainstream culture. He developed an interest in Country Music, then turned to Classical Music and art.

He studied voice as a tenor and then, later, as a counter-tenor, studying Baroque Performance Practice at The Royal Conservatory at The Haag.

As the saying goes, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. After a successful career as a classically trained singer, his heritage got the best of him and he formed a country band. The effect of a life and education in the mainstream culture, however, produced a twist. His band would be a Gay and Lesbian Country Band, performing for primarily gay audiences, singing original, gender-specific gay songs.