Time Magazine
May 21, 2006
Natalie Maines is one of those people born middle finger first.
As a high school senior in Lubbock, Texas, she'd skip a class a day in an attempt to prove that because she never got caught and some Mexican students did, the system was racist. After Maines joined the Dixie Chicks, and the Dixie Chicks became the biggest-selling female group in music history--with suspiciously little cash to show for it--she and her bandmates told their record label, Sony, they were declaring themselves free agents. (In the high school that is Nashville, this is way worse than skipping class.)
Now that she's truly notorious, having told a London audience in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas," Maines has one regret: the apology she offered George W. Bush at the onset of her infamy. "I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President," says Maines. "But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
A sizable chunk of their once adoring audience feels the same way about the Dixie Chicks. After Maines' pronouncement, which was vigorously seconded by bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, the group received death threats and was banned by thousands of country radio stations, many of which still have informal bans in place.
The Dixie Chicks have mass appeal--you can't sell 10 million copies of two of your three albums without engaging lots of different people--but country radio is an indispensable part of how they reach people. Programmers say that even now a heartfelt apology could help set things right with listeners, but it's not happening. "If people are going to ask me to apologize based on who I am," says Maines, "I don't know what to do about that. I can't change who I am."
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Maines says she's not looking for more battles, but she won't shy away from any either. "Everything was so nice and fine and happy for us for the longest time," she says of their pre-Incident days. "It was awesome to feel those feelings again that I felt in high school: to be angry, to be sure that you're right and that the things you do matter. You don't realize that you're not feeling those feelings until you do. And then you realize how much more interesting life is."
Read much more:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1196419-6,00.html#ixzz0okDlWOpJMaines was ahead of her time in protesting the inequity at school. She saw the problem clearly even then.
Much later, all three of the Dixie Chicks got stomped for realizing and saying what very few people would or did about the war. Other musicians began to protest, but those 3 hit the problem squarely on the head much earler.
There are a lot of people, especially fellow musicians, who should be forever shamed for not standing up for them. They really caught the brunt of go to war crowd and its leaders.
I miss them a lot.
Sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire – two-thirds of the Dixie Chicks –recently recorded "Court Yard Hounds" which mixes country, folk, and So-Cal pop.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-musically_0504gd.State.Edition1.2c33f43.htmlThey are going to tour with "The Eagles" this summer.
http://www.dixiechicks.com/splash.html
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