Overview

When Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Texas-based Dixie Chicks told a London audience, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” days before the invasion of Iraq, she set off a cultural firestorm. In the ensuing month, Dixie Chicks airplay and record sales plummeted, engineered at least in part by media conglomerates Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Broadcasting.

While other artists (including Eddie Vedder, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen, and Bonnie Raitt) made anti-war statements before or during the war with Iraq, none have come under the media scrutiny facing the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks’ unconventional career, coupled with country music’s historic aversion to political liberalism and what actor Tim Robbins called “a chill wind” forcing First Amendment erosion in the post-9/11 world, has forced an examination of pop culture politics and administrative strong-arming.

In the midst of it all, the Dixie Chicks have taken their musical empire to the next level, emerging as artists capable not only of selling millions of CDs and dominating award shows, but also of free speech advocacy and political activism.