In 2002 they recorded a cover of the Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac song Landslide. It changed the original, but in a surprisingly appealing way. Landslide was released on a album by the name of Home. Then the Chicks did something really unusual. They held a televised concert in which they played all of the songs on Home, start-to-finish, live and unedited and released this as a DVD.
I was hooked. An Evening with the Dixie Chicks is the most enjoyable concert film I had seen since Woodstock. The sheer fun they and audience have along with the stunning professionalism of the music is a true joy to watch.
Then, as anyone who followed the news at the time knows, in the early days of the Iraq War, the lead singer Natalie Maines announced at a London concert that they were "ashamed that George Bush was from Texas". All three of the Dixie Chicks, Maines, Martie McGuire, and Emily Robison are Texas natives. Their lives and careers were never the same.
They instantly became caught up in the culture wars, in which they were identified by the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh slice of America as "liberals". This wouldn't have mattered so much if only for the fact that they were a country music act, and the country music fan base is largely composed of rural conservatives. They went on a U.S. tour in the midst of the uproar certain that the fans would boo them off the stage or, worse, simply not show up. But that didn't happen. The concerts were a great success. However, country radio stations all but banned their music from airwaves.
Some time passed and emotions cooled. By this time is was positively mainstream to oppose the Iraq War, and it became increasingly silly for people to disparage the Chicks for simply articulating what most people thought in any case. For a while it seemed as though their careers might continue largely unscathed.
Then, the Chicks--lead by Maines--decided to offer as their first comeback single a song entitled Not Ready to Make Nice. Its lyrics are quite clear that even if country music fans were ready to move on, Natalie was still really pissed at the way she and the band had been treated. It opened all of the old wounds. If there was ever a chance that the Dixie Chicks could ever again have wide appeal with a country audience, then Not Ready to Make Nice closed that door.
Not Ready to Make Nice was included in their 2006 album Taking the Long Way. The album's eponymous first song tells the world that they don't do things the easy way. It's a great song on a great album. The thing is, though, it didn't really sound like a Dixie Chicks album. It was more mainstream pop and light rock than country. The critics approved of the album, and the Dixie Chicks swept the Grammys that year, winning every award they were up for. Taking the Long Way was successful to be sure. It sold 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone and was a big hit internationally as well. However, Home had gotten an even better critical response, and their 1999 album Fly sold 10 million copies in the U.S. Clearly, it didn't matter what music critics thought. Country music fans had turned their backs on the Dixie Chicks.
The same year Taking the Long Way was winning awards, a documentary came out about the controversy surrounding the Chicks entitled Shut Up and Sing. Among other events, it documents a painful moment when--after having rejected an offer from a corporate sponsor for a 20 million dollar guarantee for their new U.S. tour (Maines is seen remarking that accepting it would be a sign that they lacked faith in themselves)--they sit in front of a computer and watch the Ticketmaster site and are told that sales for the concert series were "sluggish."
For the first time since they hit it big, they were canceling dates and playing to venues that were not sold out. I saw them at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. during that tour. Maines was not the same. She engaged in very little banter with the audience and generally seemed wary and hesitant. She didn't seem to enjoy herself. However, her voice and the music were exemplary. Sisters McGuire and Robison seemed like their old selves.
That was 2006. Since then the Chicks have appeared in public together only rarely and have not recorded another album. McGuire and Robison released an album on their own under the name Courtyard Hounds. It was not particularly successful, at least by Dixie Chicks standards selling 825,000 copies in the U.S. They released another album just this summer that was almost completely ignored by the public. Maines released a rock-oriented solo album entitled Mother that was also unsuccessful, selling only 60,000 copies in the U.S.
As part of the promotional tour for Mother, Maines came out and said publicly what many already knew, which was that she never really felt comfortable in the country music world, and that the estrangement between the country music establishment and the Dixie Chicks was probably here to stay. She also made it clear that she had no plans to record with her former bandmates. There was never any hint of personal animus between Maines and the other two Chicks, but they are certainly musically estranged.
I would be shocked if the Dixie Chicks--at least any line-up that includes Natalie Maines--ever records again. The problem is that Emily Robison and Martie McGuire are country artists. They always have been and likely always will be so. Maines has made it clear that she has no desire to return to country music, and it is hard to imagine conservative country music fans and radio stations accepting her back even if she did. For fans of the Dixie Chicks, this is incredibly sad.
To get an idea of what the Chicks were like at their peak, see this 2006 MusiCares tribute to James Taylor. Many bands played that night, including Sting, Alison Kraus, Bruce Springsteen, and Carole King. Despite all of the world-class talent on hand, the Dixie Chicks rendition of Shower the People blew them all off the stage.
This all reminds me of a theme that I come back to over and over about those who experience great success, only to see it fade away.
For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. . . . The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. . . . A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.
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