DIXIE
CHICKS PARODY RADIO
"We listen to the radio to hear what's cookin'/ but the music ain't
got no soul/now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard/ they got
money but they don't have Cash/ they got Junior but they don't have Hank."
- 'Long Time Gone' - Darrell Scott
When The Dixie Chicks cut Darrell Scott's radio parody 'Long Time Gone'
as first single from sixth album 'Home' they chanced their feathers on
a rumble.
Kasey Chambers invaded the myopic moat in Australia with radio spoof 'Not
Pretty Enough' but didn't reveal its message until it topped charts.
 |
And it wasn't until 'Long Time Gone' charted that the U.S. press fanned flames for this Texan trio. "I'm
glad radio played it," Maines revealed, "if that had been
brought to our attention, we may have second-guessed that being
a single, and I'm glad we didn't second-guess it because it is doing
really well.'' |
"I think
it turned out to be OK because everyone in this business, including us,
thinks that they're the exception," she said. "I'm sure there's
other people who think, 'why does radio play that stupid Dixie Chicks
song?' And we think the same thing about other artists."
Maines, 28 and wed to actor Adrian Pasdar, shot from the lip as she lampooned
Toby Keith's jingoistic No 1 hit.
And the Chicks lanced a few bucolic boils on their previous disc with
'Goodbye Earl' and 'Sin Wagon.'
But, with album sales of 25 million plus, they soar on an acoustic disc
on their Open Wide label through Sony with whom they stitched up a multi
million dollar law suit.
LLOYD
MAINES PRODUCTION
Maines' dad Lloyd produced the disc for a mere $150,000 in Austin with
Emmylou Harris and Chris Thile from Nickel Creek as guests.
It features stripped back versions of four Chicks originals, two each
by Marty Stuart and Patty Griffin and others from Radney Foster, Tim O'Brien
and the title track by Randy and Mata Sharp.
That eclectic nature is reflected in a radio friendly cut of Bruce Robison's
evocative 'Travelin Soldier.'
The song was an album track for banjo babe Emily Robison's brother in
law Bruce about a young girl who mourns a lover who was a Vietnam casualty.
It's a vast contrast to 'White Trash Wedding' - penned by the three newly
wed Chicks about fiddler Martie's second wedding in a Catholic church.
"I shouldn't be wearing white and you can't afford no ring/ mama
don't approve, mama don't approve.'
It wasn't Martie and Emily's mum who didn't approve but a superior mother
of sorts.
Griffin's 'Truth No 2,' utilises a more subtle domestic violence metaphor
than Dennis Linde's 'Goodbye Earl' and compliments gospel flavoured finale
tune 'Top Of The World.'
It follows Foster lullaby 'Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)' - written to his son
who lives in exile in Paris with his mother.
With a pair of divorces in their slipstream it was easy for Natalie and
Martie to source 'Tortured, Tangled Hearts' with recidivist altar sprinter
Marty Stuart, living happily with singing spouse Connie Smith - 17 years
his senior.
Romance can also be happy - the trio's 'I Believe In Love' is a balance
for O'Brien's 'More Love' and the title track.
The Chicks, with Emily on dobro and banjo and Martie on mandolin, countrify
Steve Nicks 1975 hit 'Landslide' with no collateral damage.
Emily revealed she and Charlie resorted to IV to ensure maternal success.
''My biggest fear is the ol' switcheroo!'' Emily revealed.
''I was artificially inseminated first; then, when that wasn't working,
I had surgery, which stunk. Then when you start actively trying in vitro,
it's a roller coaster.''
Now the singer has ''a freezer full'' of eggs at her Hill Country home.
''Hopefully I won't have to go through the drug or retrieval part again,
which is a drag.''
Story Appeared - November, 2002.
DIXIE CHICKS FLYING HIGH ON HEDONISM
| When
Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines was promoting the Dixie Chicks
fourth album Wide Open Spaces she revealed she hadn't written any
heartbreak songs - because she was happily married. Now, two years and nine million album sales later, Ms Maines is qualified to comment as she skates on the jagged edges of her broken heart. |
 |
Natalie uses
the stage to expose her anger about a bitter marriage break-up with Michael
Tarabay - a Texan musician she met in her hometown of Lubbock in 1995.
Ms Maines, on leave from Berklee College Of Music in Boston, wed Tarabay
- bassist for cutting edge Texan troubadour Pat Green - in June 1997.
But the fairy tale 18-month marriage ended last year just as the romance
of fellow Dixie Chicks banjo supremo Emily Erwin and singer songwriter
Charlie Robison blossomed into marriage.
The volcanic vocal outpouring from stage has enjoyed a more subtle refinement
in the songs penned by Maines.
"The last thing he said was 'it's not about the money'", Maines
told concert fans, "months later we're still not divorced and it's
still not about the money."
The lure of lucre won't be curbed by the success of the Dixie Chicks fifth
album Fly which topped the U.S. Billboard rock charts for two weeks after
selling a cool million units in its demolition job of the hordes of rappers,
poppies and other chart cloggers.
FLY IN AUSTRALIA
Fly, fuelled
by TV advertising, CMT exposure and ABC and community airplay also gate
crashed our ARIA charts by debuting at No 16.
The Dixie Chicks have broken all the rules in their ascent to the top
in the carnivorous country music juggernaut, stealing young fans from
rival genres with glorious gusto.
They insisted on playing on their albums, choosing their own tunes, costumes
and tour circuits - they joined other female country artists on the Lilith
tour and earned feature stories in the rock and fashion bibles without
compromising their music.
Their marketing of a turbo tonking cocktail of traditional and cutting
edge country with a raw, rock rooted ribaldry has buckled the bible belt
to the jubilant jangle of cash registers around the globe.
Just stop and listen to the mirthful music that has revered writers diverse
as Mike Henderson, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Darrell Scott and Richard
Leigh lining up to share the royalties.
But it was Natalie who wrote the joyous, hedonistic bluegrass anthem Sin
Wagon with Emily and hit writer Stephony Smith - better known for power
ballads such as Tim McGraw-Faith Hill smash, It's Your Love.
So what do we get in Sin Wagon - the salacious saga of a woman who wants
to cut loose with the girls and do a little "mattress dancin'"?
A near perfect exorcism for a good old girl from the West Texas panhandle
- third generation of the legendary Maines Brothers (and sisters) family
band.
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition/ need a little more of that
sweet salvation/ they may take me with my feet draggin'/ but I'll fly
away on a sin wagon."
The Dixie Chicks - Maines and Massachusetts born sisters Emily and Martie
(who write and perform under their marital names Robison and Maguire)
- have long crashed and burned the Nashville rules and amassed five prestige
CMA awards.
DIXIE
CHICKS STICK TO NAME
They stuck to their guns when record company bosses asked them to change
their original name Dixie (too regional) and Chicks (politically incorrect).
Well, the name was an abbreviation of the title of a Little Feat album
recorded before Lowell George met his maker.
They also honored their pledge to have Dixie Chicks tattooed on their
feet each time they had a No 1 chart hit.
And the sisters have insisted on playing their own instruments - Emily
(banjo, dobro, accoustic guitar and lap steel), Martie (fiddle and viola)
and Natalie (accoustic guitar) - on their discs with Ms Maines famed father
Lloyd on pedal steel for most of their journey.
Lloyd Maines happy clients as producer have included artists diverse as
Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Richard Buckner, Charlie and Bruce Robison, James
McMurtry and Wayne Hancock.
Although Natalie claimed in a previous interview with me in 1998 that
she hadn't suffered a ruptured romance her co-write with newlywed Emily
on Don't Waste Your Heart and Eric Silver on Without You draw from the
fertile fodder of marital mayhem.
"And don't waste your heart on a wild thing/ she's got a soul that
won't settle on one thing/ whoa this bird can't sing when you've tied
its wings/ don't waste your heart on me."
The tune was penned early this year when the trio retreated in the wake
of their international success of Wide Open Spaces and churned out a bunch
of new tunes - five of which appeared on this album.
"I'm not that great at writing sad heartbreak songs, being only 23,"
Natalie confessed in a previous interview on Nu Country FM, "I don't
have much dirt to write about. People think all country ballads have to
be sad and sappy. I like really good love songs that make you feel happy,
that don't conjure up bad feelings or emotions. We're expanding a lot
of boundaries with radio."
The expansion hasn't yet hit the unlucky radio country yet but the Seidel-Marcus
Hummon penned hit Ready To Run leaped the moat through the Richard Gere-Julia
Roberts movie Runaway Bride and has helped give exposure to the album.
Seidel and Hummon also wrote Cowboy Take Me Away which graduated from
its original purpose - the wedding waltz for Emily and Charlie - to a
an album fixture.
GOODBYE
EARL
It's no surprise radio strayed from its rigid formats to supplement the
Celtic flavored Ready To Run with four album tracks including the mock
murder and merriment mind and body blower, Goodbye Earl - penned by prolific
writer Dennis Linde, best known for his Presley hit Burning Love.
Texan country band Sons Of The Desert split with Epic - sister label of
the Dixie Chicks re-incarnated Monument imprint - when they were banned
from releasing Goodbye Earl as a single.
Label bosses obviously predicted that the Chicks version, replete with
hand claps and harmonies by a redneck choir including Charlie Robison,
would be a monster hit for three divas, not a male quintet.
The song, accompanied by a warning "The Dixie Chicks do not advocate
pre-meditated murder but love getting even", is the latest in a series
of murder and marital revenge songs dissected by critics and social commentators.
Although the revenge theme dates way back to the 18th century its more
recent predecessors - the 1959 Louvin Brothers hit Knoxville Girl, Danny
Dill-Marijohn Wilkin tune Long Black Veil and Gretchen Peters penned Martina
McBride hit Independence Day - are instant flashbacks.
The Chicks anointed NYPD actor Dennis Franz to play Earl in the video
with singing actor Dwight Yoakam the bemused understudy.
The Dixie Chicks, formed 10 years ago by Dallas sisters Emily Erwin and
Martie Seidel, Robin Lynn Macy and Laura Lynch, are no overnight sensation.
They began as a teenage bluegrass quartet Bluenight Express playing for
tips on Dallas street corners and soon graduated to the indoor roadhouse
circuit where they ducked bottles, boots and hats thrown by "fans."
While working the bluegrass scene they were joined on stage at Minnesota
State Fair by banjo toting Melbourne comedian Rusty Rich of Those Scared
Weird Little Guys.
"They were still a bluegrass group back then," says Rusty -
brother of singer Sherry Rich who cut her debut album with Wilco as her
backing band.
THANK HEAVENS FOR DALE EVANS
That was
shortly after The Dixie Chicks made their debut - Thank Heavens For Dale
Evans in 1990.
The title track eulogised the singing spouse of the late cowboy star Roy
Rogers who died on July 6, 1998, at 85.
Little Ol' Cowgirl (1992) and Shouldn't A Told You That (1994) boosted
total sales to 90,000 before Laura Lynch struck gold when her husband
won a $27 million Texas lottery in 1995.
Natalie replaced Laura in the band for record breaking Wide Open Spaces
- the title track was penned by singer Susan Gibson of Amarillo band,
The Groobees, and When You Were Mine written by Emily and Martie about
their parents' divorce.
"That's about their parents divorce," Maines said, " they
were actually 16 and 19 when their parents got divorced. Emily wrote the
majority but didn't have a bridge so Martie wrote the bridge which is
everybody's favourite part - the saddest part, of course."
The Dixie Chicks also cut songs by writers diverse as Bonnie Raitt, the
late Tom Jans, former Lone Justice singer Maria McKee, John David Souther
and Montana based hit writer Kostas.
This time some of the writers - Hummon, Henderson and Linde - play on
the disc; so does expatriate Australian singer-songwriter Keith Urban
who plays guitar on Some Days You Gotta Dance - also on his former band
The Ranch's U.S. debut.
The Chicks have added their own stamp to Henderson's sizzling shuffle
Hello Mr Heartache, the Jim Lauderdale-Buddy Miller honky tonker rocker
Hole In My Head and an accordion adorned Heartbreak Town by Darrell Scott.
Equally memorable are the Matraca Berg-Annie Roboff tune If I Fall, You're
Goin' Down With Me, Richard Leigh's Cold Day In July and Patty Griffin's
soft gospel finale Let Him Fly.
The Dixie Chicks, unlike Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill and Martina
McBride, have broken without de-countrifying their music.
But they still have a fanatical following - especially hordes of "buckle
boys" (male groupies) - with Dixie Chicks tattooed on their chests.
"We're a bit naive to all that," Natalie revealed, "they
get on each other's shoulders - dancing around, chanting. It cracks us
up. They look pretty funny. We've had a few scary E-mails but we just
laugh at them. I got a lot of marriage proposals."
Story Appeared
- November 1999.