rdewald's Journal: The Dixie Chicks: Taking the Long Way

Let me establish my Dixie Chicks credentials. The band used to have different members. I don't remember their names, but they were decidedly more mature and the music was decidedly more roots-country/hillbilly. The former members had wonderful vocal talent, they were a small regional act and seemed to have no aspirations on mega-stardom. I liked them quite a lot, so did my mother (b. 1929). I caught their live shows whenever I could.

When the current Dixie Chicks emerged there was some strife over the displacement of the former members, the details of which I don't remember, but I do remember thinking the current band members were too ambitious for my tastes, so I ignored them.

I ignored them until Natalie made her famous expression of shame over having a common geographic heritage with President G. W. Bush. Since she was giving voice to a deeply held conviction of mine, it got my attention. I was curious about who these people were and the only avenue to knowledge that I had was their music. So, I checked it out. Since then I've also read most of the public interviews of the band, and I saw the 60 Minutes piece on them recently.

I'm from Dallas. I know what kind of juvenile twisted rednecks live there. So, when Natalie received her death threat which promised her demise at a concert in Dallas I knew that this was truly worrisome rather than some random over-the-top expression of targeted rage. Honestly, I also remember thinking that chances were that whatever idiot wrote the letter would be too afraid to get out his F-350 and actually take action on anything in his life, much less something that could get him hurt, but I also knew that I read stories in the newspaper regularly of some inbred bubba shooting up a church over a parking space, so this was not something that could be blithely dismissed.

Ultimately, Natalie did what I would have done. She asked for the help of the law enforcement authorities, including the Texas Rangers, and went ahead with the show, spending as little time in Dallas as possible (which is still my policy today).

Remember, this is not some BudLight-infused Bush-supporter blowing off some steam with friends saying "I'd like to kill that bitch," this person went to the deliberate trouble of writing *and* addressing *and* sealing *and* *mailing* his threat. People are in Gitmo for doing much less against the faceless entity of the Government of the US. One should also not fail to notice the fact that Natalie is still processing her reaction to this years later. Dismiss her pain and you might as well hand bullets to the shooter, you are objectifying her in the same way.

Let me also say that their dismissiveness of their declarations about President Bush as "simple statements" along with their forced "I'm shocked!" at the reception of them is either disingenuous or naive. Only they know for sure, but they have confessed to neither. But, I guess I'm willing to forgive them for that. I've done the same myself many a time when I was threatened by the reaction to a provocative declaration of mine.

So, this is taking the long way to reviewing "Taking the Long Way," The Dixie Chicks new album, the first after all this happened.

This is not really a Country album. In fact, if it weren't for the twang in Natalie's voice, you'd be hard pressed to associate this music with Nashville at all, aside from their Katrina fund-raising song, "I Hope." It's really what the industry calls AAR, which is probably the music marketing demo into which I most fit.

These women are not Joni Mitchell or even Tori Amos, they don't have that kind of musical gravitas behind them, but the music is very pleasant to listen to and an interesting expression of guitar-driven songwriting. There's a lot of interesting vocal work, Natalie has a great voice, and I've always found it interesting to work the violin/fiddle into rock-ish compositions.

The songs I really recommend are:

• "Lullaby," which is probably in some measure an actual Lullaby. They've all had children in these intervening three years.

  "How long do you want to be loved?
  Is forever enough?"

  There's new material for Johndiii there. It's a gorgeously languid and personal devotional.

• "Easy Silence" could easily be from any number of alt-rock artists: Tori Amos, Ben Harper, Blink 182, etc. It's actually quite interesting, the production and arrangement are subtle and powerful.
• "Baby Hold On" is evocative of The Beatles at first, and then it progesses along this musical crescendo that reminds me of Nirvana, and breaks with a nod to Springsteen.

Those are the tracks I most frequently punch up on the iPod when I need my DixChix fix, however, I frequently play the entire album. I recommend it.

I also recommend you purchase it online, not only does that relieve the planet of the burden of producing, packaging and distributing that plastic disc-shaped license document, but it's cheaper.

The Dixie Chick

[YTYTYTYTYTY]

These women are National Treasures. Even the anti-war bands of the sixties and seventies didn't have to contend with death threats or non-play on radio station play lists. I applaude their courage under fire but require a hard copy of my CD's since I'm not yet MP3 enabled, though I agree in principle with the environmental benefits of downloading over hard plastic discs and the cases what brung 'em. In short, buy the Dixie Chicks new album any way you can, but buy it. YOu'll love it.

Re:The Dixie Chick

[rdewald]

"I'm not yet MP3 enabled...."

Oh yes you are. Get iTunes, buy the music, burn the CD. You still save the planet the case and the extra manufacturing energy expenditure. But, you're right, buy it however you can get it.

By the way, I'm pretty sure the anti-war bands of the 60's endured some death threats and they certainly faced some trouble getting air-play.