Living Out Loud: Not Ready to Make Nice

Apparently, I don’t know much about Country music and its audience here. They seem not to support freedom of speech. Case in point: I’m not supposed to want to listen to those liberal, outspoken Dixie Chicks.

Marty Thompson, program director at Country station B105, is frustrated by the whole thing.

“We want to play The Dixie Chicks,” Thompson says, “and we need to play The Dixie Chicks. But when the new album came out, we took a poll with our audience and 4 to 1 listeners said they didn’t want to hear it.”

That’s not the case elsewhere and nationally. The band has been all over the media with a profile on 60 Minutes, performances on the morning network talk shows and on the cover of Time magazine. Recently they performed the first single from their new album, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” on David Letterman’s late night show.

The new album, Taking the Long Way, is No. 1 on almost every Billboard chart and is the top-selling CD on Amazon.com.

So what gives here locally? B105 music director and drive-time DJ Duke Hamilton knows his audience all too well.

“Cincinnati’s a conservative town,” he says, “and naturally the Country music audience tends to be very conservative. It’s unfortunate things had to happen the way they have.”

What Hamilton is referring to and what local listeners can’t forget is the comment lead singer Natalie Maines made 10 days before U.S. and British troops poured into Iraq. On a stage in London three years ago, the Texas native said, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”

So much for free speech. Let the backlash begin.

Country radio stations stopped playing Dixie Chicks music, fans destroyed their CDs, some Americans thought Maines was being unpatriotic and she even received death threats. It was all very ugly — but it was three years ago.

Now public opinion is on her side. Now most of us — at least according to the polls — feel the way Maines felt three years ago. Bush has been shameful and deceptive with the war in Iraq, and most Americans want our troops to come home. And now, three years later, the Dixie Chicks haven’t backed away from the controversy.

The new album doesn’t express any regret for what Maines said. In the case of “Not Ready to Make Nice,” it’s like the Chicks are using the song to raise their middle finger to fans who deserted them. It’s another frustration for Thompson at B105.

“They keep saying more to turn their fans away here,” Thompson says. “I really wish Natalie would just shut up.”

Natalie and the Chicks aren’t about to do that. The uncompromising lyrics to “Not Ready to Make Nice” put you on notice:

“I made my bed and I sleep like a baby/ With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’/ It’s a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger/ And how in the world can the words that I said/ Send somebody so over the edge/ That they’d write me a letter/ Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing/ Or my life will be over.”

This powerful song and album won’t be played on Country radio here, but tune into Northern Kentucky’s NPR station, WNKU (89.7 FM). They play a wide variety of Folk, Rock and Acoustic music and have never stopped playing the Dixie Chicks.

“We’re doing what we do with every album,” Music Director Michael Grayson says. “We’ll go through it, pick some tracks and put them on. We’ll definitely be playing the Dixie Chicks because of who they are, and we know our audience wants to hear them. We have no reservations about playing their music.”

As to why Country radio fans here aren’t ready to forgive and move on, Grayson echoes what Hamilton said.

“Most Country music listeners are a little more conservative in their thinking, and maybe they just don’t want (this music),” Grayson says. “Our listeners do. They want to hear more controversial stuff.”

So do I.

I can’t fault the folks at B105. If listeners don’t want to hear the Dixie Chicks, the station can’t turn its back on the audience. That’s bad business.

But I’m beginning to think Country music in this town means being a redneck. Flag-waving, war-supporting artists such as Toby Keith and Brooks & Dunn get plenty of airtime on Country radio here, yet an anti-war group — which more accurately reflects the country’s mood — gets booted.

I’m going to stop listening. Enough is enough.

It’s time to make nice with the Chicks, and if that can’t happen with Country radio I’ll take my ears elsewhere.

This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.