An Oral History – Billboard

On March 10, 2003, when Natalie Maines mentioned she was ashamed to be from the identical state as then-U.S. president George W. Bush from the stage in London simply earlier than the Iraq Warfare, the whole lot modified for the Chicks (then often called the Chicks). However the seismic ramifications of her phrases have been felt not simply by the nation superstars, however nation radio was by no means the identical, and neither was the Chicks’ label, Columbia Data, the trio’s fellow songwriters or the music enterprise on the whole.

“House was promoting tens of millions of albums, the songs have been throughout nation and pop radio, [they had a] sold-out enviornment tour,” recollects Don Ienner, who ascended from Columbia Data’ chairman to president of  Sony Music U.S. in April 2003. “In someday, they’re off the air, and followers are burning their information.”

Their single, “Travelin’ Soldier,” had hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Nation Singles chart, however nation stations all through the U.S., responding to what they mentioned have been listener complaints, abruptly pulled the tune, together with prime radio chain Cumulus, which issued a brief ban on the group’s music banned the group fully. A Kansas Metropolis station created a celebration known as a “hen toss,” wherein followers trashed tapes, CDs and tickets. Two weeks after Maines insulted the president on international soil — a transgression many thought of unforgivable — the Chicks have been out of the highest 40 of Billboard‘s Nation Airplay chart.

Tonight, because the Chicks kick off their first tour since 2017 in St. Louis in help of their 2020 album Gaslighter, which debuted atop Billboard’s High Nation Albums chart, Billboard presents an oral historical past of that country-music time bomb. Under, radio programmers, document execs and songwriters revisit what occurred almost 20 years in the past, and surprise if Maines’ phrases would have elicited the identical outsized response in at the moment’s world of social media the place scandals typically disappear after one information cycle. (The Chicks’ publicist didn’t reply to a request for remark).

Through the London promotional present, Maines mentioned: “We are not looking for this conflict, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of america is from Texas.”

Ienner: It was actually in a single day. I had by no means seen the venom or the hatred in america of America, the place we’re purported to have freedom of speech.

Marcus Hummon, co-writer of the Chicks’ “Able to Run” and “Cowboy Take Me Away”: The pinnacle of my publishing firm mentioned, “Did you examine what occurred? They’re finished at nation.” I nearly laughed on the absurdity of it. It’s important to keep in mind, the Chicks on the time have been like Elvis.

RJ Curtis, former operations director/PD at then-country station KZLA, in Riverside, Calif., now govt director for Nation Radio Broadcasters Inc.: My morning present was doing a distant [broadcast] someplace and I bought a name from a good friend. I used to be fully unaware of it. I suppose I took it a bit too frivolously. At present, that might’ve gone viral, and who is aware of the way it might need lived within the brief information cycle. As a substitute, it simmered and festered and grew.

Radney Foster, (author of “Godspeed,” coated on House): I assumed, “Oh, there’ll be some blowback from that.” I didn’t count on it to be as visceral because it was. It shocked me.

Mike Kraski, then govt VP and normal supervisor of Sony Nashville, now runs New Imaginative and prescient Artist Administration: The rate and sameness in response, by supposed nation followers, on each station within the nation, took everybody abruptly.

Some country-radio stations grappled with the disconnect between the Chicks’ current mega-popularity and the sudden flood of listener feedback — and some programmers puzzled if right-wing, pro-war operatives have been behind the backlash. Different programmers rapidly deleted their songs from playlists.

Dale Carter, program director and morning host, KFKF Kansas Metropolis: Kansas Metropolis is unquestionably the center of the Midwest. KFKF is a really patriotic radio station, and the calls got here in instantly: “Get that off the air.” On the time, there have been 9 titles of theirs that have been testing for gold [in our rotation], so it took a big chunk out of our library.

Mitch Mahan, then program director at WIRK in West Palm Seaside, now with The Eagle in Jonesboro, Ark.: You’d get calls from very indignant individuals each time you’d play a Dixie Chicks tune — reactionary, violent calls. Threatening to return down and beat you up. My evening man advised me he had a few calls like that in a single day, and so they really requested the safety guard to escort him to his automotive that morning.

Kraski: Radio lives and dies by their viewers staying on the dial. I don’t blame nation radio, essentially, for being afraid. All their particular person jobs have been at stake, and the income of the most important radio chains have been threatened.

Carter: We did an auditorium music take a look at proper after this occurred. We had simply began utilizing know-how the place you’ve bought a room of 100 individuals, and so they’ve bought this dial that goes zero to 100. You can see a tune go by, and it’d be about 60 to 65, 70 to 80. And a Dixie Chicks hook performed and it will actually go to zero. I’ve by no means seen something like that.

Bruce Logan, then programmer for WSSL and WESC in Greensville, S.C., now operations supervisor and model content material director of two stations in West Palm Seaside: You had conservative talk-radio stations chasing a chance to take a shot on the No. 1 station available in the market. We have been effectively above them within the scores, and it was their drum to beat, and they might do that for weeks.

Kraski: I’ll go to my grave believing that was not an trustworthy natural response from country-music followers. That was a well-executed, coordinated effort on the a part of the political proper.

Curtis: There have been interns, like 22-year-olds, answering telephones, and getting the shit beat out of them [on the calls]. However we had a script, and there have been solutions.

Ed Wenck, previously morning host at WLHK outdoors Indianapolis, now content material director with Cedia commerce affiliation: Was it honest? No, after all, it wasn’t honest. The punishment didn’t match the crime. She misspoke. It was a fleeting error in judgment.

Mahan: We examined their music yearly after that, and it nonetheless got here again extremely damaging. You had songs that have been testing 90% constructive all of the sudden testing 30% constructive — that’s an enormous swing, and it simply continued.

Radio stations killed off the Chicks’ profession at nation radio, though their subsequent 2006 album Taking the Lengthy Method would promote 526,000 copies in its first week and hit No. 1 on the on the Billboard 20 ,and High Nation Albums charts. Plus, live performance ticket gross sales remained sturdy.

Carter: In radio, we’re operating comfort shops. We’re stocking our cabinets with what listeners need to hear. It grew to become clear — to today — that the Dixie Chicks are poisonous for my radio station. Absolute no-brainer. In the event that they not solely don’t need it, however will tune to a different radio station in the event that they hear it, why would we play that?

Mahan: I can’t consider any radio stations which have been profitable that don’t hearken to what their listeners need. And so they have been telling us they don’t need the Dixie Chicks. Any enterprise the place you’ve bought a product that’s extraordinarily widespread, after which someday it’s making all people unwell, effectively, you pull that product out of your cabinets.

Logan: We had a lot of conferences internally with the air workers about how you can deal with it and what to speak about. We had no concept if the viewers was going to alter their minds. I had no concept why we’d need to gentle the careers of arguably the largest stars we had on the radio station on fireplace. We wished to protect them, as a result of we have been hoping to play the subsequent album and the subsequent album.

Kraski: After all, we have been pissed off. We have been the a part of Sony that constructed Dixie Chicks, and to have it taken away was, on the very least, a slight.

Curtis: One week they’re a core artist and so they’re on a billboard, and the subsequent week we’re not enjoying them. That appeared hypocritical to me. It felt fallacious to cease enjoying their music. It felt like censorship, and we didn’t like that. It was painful. We simply put our head down and plowed ahead, like, “This too shall go.”

Logan: We backed off on WESC. To be fully trustworthy, I don’t keep in mind if we dropped the whole lot or not. I do consider we lowered the profile. WSSL [“Whistle”] was extra the feminine nation station; Whistle performed extra up to date songs and its gold didn’t return fairly as far. On WSSL, we didn’t take a document like “Huge Open Areas” from energy to secondary. We left it proper the place it was — however the place it was the decrease finish of the testing, we did take away these songs.

Hummon: I used to be twice-blessed, as a result of I had the primary two singles. You had that royalty stream. They’re nonetheless promoting 75,000 items per week, 45 weeks in — that was their resting place after seven singles. And that ended. From a enterprise standpoint, because it seems, it was form of disastrous.

Mahan: They have been core artists. We have been enjoying plenty of songs by the Dixie Chicks. Pulling them off the air was a tough factor to do. It nonetheless makes me unhappy — [until Gaslighter], they’re not on nation radio, and even classic-country radio.

Protesters destroyed Dixie Chicks CDs across the nation, together with one 33,000-pound tractor. Some stations defiantly continued enjoying the group’s music, however others, notably within the Cumulus chain, have been particularly lively, sponsoring anti-Chicks rallies in Toledo, Ohio, and Shreveport, La.

Logan: [Listeners] hooked up the radio station to the Dixie Chicks — if we have been going to help them, they have been going to punish us as effectively. There have been protesters on the present, a lot of them.

Curtis: In that conflict, nation radio and help for the troops are a really shut alignment, and it made sense, from a advertising standpoint, for radio to try this. Stations noticed that as a technique to get on the native TV information, and that’s once you noticed these rallies.

Kraski: Radio’s response, largely was, “It’s out of my palms.” Plenty of that was finished on the company degree for the radio chains, which made it straightforward for program administrators to clean their palms and never hurt their relationships with the label on the identical time.

Hummon: It’s important to settle for there’s a specific amount of misogyny concerned. I simply can’t assist however suppose that performed a giant half in people’ outrage on the time.

Fellow nation star Toby Keith attacked the group publicly, displaying Maines’ photograph subsequent to a picture of Saddam Hussein at his live shows. The Chicks responded with defiance, showing nude on the quilt of Leisure Weekly coated in ironic graffiti like “huge mouth” and “traitors.” They offered 867,000 tickets within the first weekend of their 2003 tour and wound up as Billboard’s top-selling nation tour that 12 months. Maines later wore a home made T-shirt studying “FUTK” on stage on the 2003 ACM Awards; the Chicks coyly gave a special clarification, however most believed the final two letters stood for Toby Keith.

Foster: It was like, “Oh, their stadiums are going to be empty.” Nicely, they certain weren’t.

Logan: [Their concert] was packed to the rafters. I’d by no means seen safety like that. I used to be on a entrance row. I saved considering, “If anyone takes a shot at them, I hope they don’t hit me.”

Carter: In the event that they’d come out and apologized and mentioned, “Whoops!” — nation audiences are very forgiving. The truth that [Maines] doubled down on it simply cemented the place it went.

Wenck: That journal cowl with all of the phrases written on them: I assumed, “Wow, technique to personal this!”

Foster: I get the message that they’re going to place out “Godspeed” as the subsequent single, as a result of what’s unpatriotic about loving your youngsters? They have been going to debut the tune within the spring. They’re dwell in an enormo-dome someplace, and Natalie is sporting the now-infamous “FUTK” [t-shirt]. There’s this dangerous off-and-on [with] Toby Keith. That form of put the lid on that concept.

Logan: As a homosexual nation program director, I used to be form of an odd duck. I used to be an outsider. So I appreciated the power of what they have been doing. However I used to be simply greatly surprised — at each alternative they needed to make it higher, they selected the opposite method. It will die down, and impulsively my e mail or cellphone would explode once more, and I’d say, “Nicely, what the hell did she say now?”

Curtis: In 2006, they launched [Taking the Long Way], which was sensible, and so they performed it for nation radio, and nation radio was like, “That is superior.” The Dixie Chicks by no means made a nasty album. We mentioned, “Do us a favor — don’t convey out ‘Not Able to Make Good.’” After all, that was the fallacious factor to ask. That’s precisely what they did.

Mahan: That they had the chance to make amends with the nation viewers, and it simply by no means occurred.

The repercussions persist: Taylor Swift advised The Guardian newspaper in 2019, “I come from nation music… The No. 1 factor they completely drill into you as a rustic artist, and you may ask some other nation artist this, is ‘Don’t be just like the Dixie Chicks!’”

Kraski: The disgrace of it’s what it did to nation music. There was nobody, ever, to switch the Chicks and their sound and contribution to the format. That they had three [multi-million-selling] information in a row, after which the underside fell out.

Foster: Folks would speak about it brazenly. Different artists can be like, “You don’t need to get Dixie-Chicked.” It was used as a verb. There have been 10 years the place no person would go close to something political in any respect in mainstream nation music. In any respect.

Ienner: We by no means, ever, ever requested Miranda [Lambert] or any of the opposite artists to not say no matter they wished to say, and in the event that they wished to help the Dixie Chicks, we have been OK with it.

Curtis: Artists are cautious. They do have political opinions, however they understand we dwell in a time of nice division. If I begin railing about Donald Trump, and also you’re a Donald Trump fan, that will finish our relationship. It’s not due to the Dixie Chicks — I don’t suppose they get all of the credit score for that.

Mahan: I’ve heard the conspiracy theories that we banned the Dixie Chicks. No, we didn’t. The viewers simply didn’t need to hear them anymore.

Ienner: What they did to those girls was simply devastating. They weren’t a part of a mass taking pictures! They mentioned 15 f–king phrases — and so they have been proper.