If the Dixie Chicks were ashamed of George W. Bush, what will happen if Donald Trump wins in November? Their heads could evaporate in a trio of Scanners-like explosions, but more likely they’ll just relocate to Canada and change their name to Saskatchewan Chicks.
That potential future is months away, a minute-hand tick compared to Dixie Chicks’ 27-year history. The Dallas band initially consisted of vocalist Laura Lynch, guitarist/vocalist Robin Macy and multi-instrumentalist sisters Martie and Emily Erwin (who eventually married into their current last names, Maguire and Robison, respectively). Taking their moniker from Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken,” the quartet dressed in cowgirl garb and delivered straight Bluegrass/Country.
In 1992, Macy, unhappy with the band’s musical direction, left to pursue traditional Bluegrass. Three years later, Lynch was replaced with Natalie Maines, who was introduced to the band through producer Lloyd Maines, her renowned father. Maines gave the Dixie Chicks a definitive Pop undertone and teed up the group’s unprecedented success with 1998’s Wide Open Spaces. It spawned three No. 1 singles, sold over 12 million units and earned the Chicks their first two Grammy Awards. That critical and commercial success was matched by 1999’s Fly, which sold over 10 million copies.
After suing and settling with Sony over accounting issues, the Chicks released Home in 2002. The album resulted in the trio’s first true crossover hit — “Long Time Gone,” a castigation of modern Country music for losing sight of its iconic roots, ironically became the group’s first Top 10 Pop hit. During a 2003 U.K. tour, Maines denounced President Bush in London, which sparked a reactionary firestorm. Country radio stopped playing Dixie Chicks, fans destroyed their albums and the band lost corporate sponsorships and even received death threats. Three years later, the Chicks released Taking the Long Way, featuring the pointed single “Not Ready to Make Nice,” a response to the controversy; without discernible airplay, the album went gold in its first week.
Then came the active hiatus. Maguire and Robison released two albums as Court Yard Hounds, Maines dropped her first solo album, Mother, and the trio opened the Eagles’ 2010 stadium tour. After sporadic festival dates and 2013’s Long Time Gone Tour, Dixie Chicks announced a major 2015 European tour, which was extended into North America this year, the first time in a decade they’ve headlined a home tour. The first date on the tour is the trio’s Cincinnati show.
This show is sold out.
This article appears in Jun 1-8, 2016.