The Dixie Chicks were the 'top winners' at the Grammy Awards. They won five grammies and one of them was . . . [eat your heart out country radio] . . . best freakin' country album of the year!
Now who's the outsider?
NY Times:
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11 — After death threats, boycotts and a cold shoulder from mainstream country radio, the Dixie Chicks gained sweet vindication Sunday night at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, capturing honors in all five of the categories in which they were nominated.
They were the top winners during a night when the Recording Academy spread the wealth, even handing out ties in two categories, as it bestowed multiple awards to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mary J. Blige, Carrie Underwood, Justin Timberlake, Tony Bennett, John Mayer, Ludacris and the late jazz musician Michael Brecker.
The Dixie Chicks took home Grammys for the top three awards: record, song and album of the year. Their “Taking the Long Way” (Open Wide/Columbia) won best country album and “Not Ready to Make Nice” also captured best country performance by a duo or group with vocal. That song is an unapologetic response to the furor set off in 2003 when the band’s lead singer, Natalie Maines, made an off-the-cuff antiwar remark to London concertgoers: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”
But Sunday’s awards were the Recording Academy’s rejoinder to the country music radio establishment. Accepting the award for song of the year, Ms. Maines joked, “For the first time in my life, I’m speechless.” When the trio returned to the stage for the best country album Grammy, Emily Robison, another member of the group, added that the band had been in a “strange place to be sometimes, without a genre.”
Not Ready to Make Nice
"I think people are paranoid. I think that if they speak out, they think they're gonna get whacked by the government. It's pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked." -- former Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart, cited by Reuters
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images via the Times.
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