Posted on 27-8-2002
Dixie
Chicks Fly Coup
By BILL FRISKICS-WARREN, NYT, 26 Aug02
(Photo shows The Dixie Chicks, from left: Martie Maguire, Emily
Robison and Natalie Maines)
In the early 1990's, the Dixie Chicks were a cowgirl revival
troupe playing
for tips on the Texas dance hall circuit. By the end of the
decade, they
were Nashville, and pop, superstars. Their albums "Wide Open
Spaces" and
"Fly" sold more than 10 million copies each. They won a clutch
of Grammys.
Their 2000 tour grossed more at the box office than those of
Bruce
Springsteen and Britney Spears. Most striking of all, the Dixie
Chicks
achieved success not by cleaving to the conservative dictates
of the
country music industry but by taking risks that could just as
easily have
been big mistakes.
The three women — Natalie Maines and the sisters Emily Robison
and Martie
Maguire — cultivated their own sense of fashion, favoring post-punk,
neo-hippie styles over the more conventional ensembles worn
by their female
counterparts. They insisted on playing their own instruments
instead of
employing the usual session musicians. They played banjo (Ms.
Robison) and
fiddle (Ms. Maguire), instruments often dismissed as quaint
by country
radio programmers. They sang about dicey topics like "mattress
dancing" and
doing away with an abusive spouse. Displaying a "love it or
leave it"
attitude like that of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and the
other
"outlaws" of the 70's, the Dixie Chicks reinvigorated the moribund
Nashville music scene of the late 90's.
"Home," the album they'll release on Tuesday on their new Open
Wide Records
label, an imprint of Sony Music, is likely to shake up and challenge
the
Nashville establishment further, suggesting that it has lost
touch with its
roots. Most of the record's 11 tracks will no doubt be deemed
too long for
airplay, some running as long as six minutes. There are no drums
on this
bluegrass-steeped album, something that is virtually unheard
of in
commercial country music, and "Long Time Gone," the record's
first single,
includes a punning jab at radio playlists. Written by the Nashville
singer-songwriter Darrell Scott, "Long Time Gone" all but dares
country
stations not to play it. "We listen to the radio to hear what's
cookin',"
goes one line. "But the music ain't got no soul/ They sound
tired but they
don't sound Haggard/ They got money but they don't got Cash."
The Dixie Chicks insist they weren't trying to force the hands
of radio
programmers by releasing "Long Time Gone" as a single. "I don't
look at the
song as a political statement," said Ms. Maguire, seated on
a wraparound
sofa with Ms. Robison and Ms. Maines in a Tuscan-style bed and
breakfast
off Nashville's Music Row. Ms. Maguire, 32, who was born in
York, Pa., and
Ms. Robison, 30, who was born in Pittsfield, Mass., spent their
early
childhood years in southeastern Pennsylvania, where they studied
the violin
using the Suzuki method of learning by ear. Ms. Maines, the
lead singer,
who will be 28 in October, was born and raised in Lubbock, Tex.
Her father
is Lloyd Maines, an esteemed producer and steel guitarist best
known for
his work with the charismatic roots rocker Joe Ely. "We've had
a lot of
controversy in our career, and it's never been intentional,"
Ms. Maguire
continued. "We didn't release `Goodbye Earl' " — a comic tale
of revenge
akin to "Thelma and Louise" — "to get back at wife beaters.
We're more
lighthearted than that. Everyone has their own opinion about
what should be
on the radio, and I think there's room for all different people."
The Dixie Chicks also maintain that the bluegrass arrangements
on "Home"
don't constitute that much of a departure from the bold, expansive
music on
their last two albums. "We still have our core sound," Ms. Robison
said.
"We've peeled back a few layers, but I think people will still
recognize it
as us." Indeed, in contrast to the Appalachian cast of the soundtrack
to "O
Brother, Where Art Thou?," which despite sales of six million
received a
lukewarm response from country radio, the music on the Dixie
Chicks' new
album evinces both traditional country and modern pop sensibilities.
Doubtless some will view the success of "Long Time Gone," which
was No. 2
on the Billboard country chart this week, as a sign that the
strictures of
country radio are loosening a bit. The Dixie Chicks' next single,
a cover
of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" done in the ambient bluegrass
style of
Alison Krauss and Union Station, will certainly test that notion.
But
country stations can't afford to ignore any record the Dixie
Chicks put out
at this point. While Garth Brooks was feigning retirement and
Shania Twain
was off having a baby, the trio sold 21 million albums, doing
more than any
of their peers to see country music through its recent slump
in sales. "Do
we have a choice not to play the Dixie Chicks?" asked Darren
Davis, a
program director for the Infinity Broadcasting network. "Sure,
we have a
choice, but one also has a choice to cut off one's nose to spite
their
face. The Dixie Chicks are the biggest of the big right now.
We play their
music as often as we can get it on the air."
Lon Helton, the Nashville bureau chief for the trade magazine
Radio and
Records, said he believes the ascendancy of the Dixie Chicks
has as much to
do with the integrity of their musical vision as with any demands
of the
market. "The Chicks have to be given tremendous credit for knowing
who they
are musically, for saying, `This is what we do; anyone who wants
to do so
is free to play it,' " Mr. Helton said.
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