Cindy Watts

The Tennessean

NASHVILLE — Thirteen years after country music blacklisted the top-selling female band in American history, the Dixie Chicks are returning to the town that made them famous.

And when the trio performs Wednesday night at Nashville's sold-out Bridgestone Arena, they'll do so unapologetically — with a show featuring the same brand of biting political commentary that most country artists avoid at all costs, and that forced the Chicks into exile more than a decade ago.

“They have a bitter feeling about Nashville,” said Paul Worley, record executive and the Dixie Chicks' former producer. “People in the industry may have turned their back on them, but Nashville did not. And they are going to find out when they play here that Nashville has always been here for them and will always be here for them.”

That thousands of fans have shelled out money to hear past hits like Wide Open Spaces and Cowboy Take Me Away suggests that, while the band's controversial ways haven't changed, country music fans have.

A single flippant remark about then-president George W. Bush derailed the careers of Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer in 2003, at a time when they were at the apex of country music.

Yet on Wednesday, if previous shows on the Dixie Chicks' largely sold-out 55-city tour are any indication, they will perform in front of a giant image of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — embellished with horns sprouting from his head and a devilish goatee scribbled on his chin.

"I get banned for not liking Bush and now Trump can practically put a hit out on Hillary and he's still all over country radio!" Maines tweeted last week. "Hypocrites!"

Media firestorm

On March 10, 2003, the Dixie Chicks watched news coverage of the United States’ escalating tensions with Iraq as they were preparing to walk on stage in London. The trio lamented having to play a concert when their home country was headed for war, and for reasons they didn’t support.

At that moment, they were top of the country radio airplay charts with Travelin’ Soldier, a heartbreaking song about a young cadet who didn’t make it home from Vietnam. Maines thought when introducing the song it would be inappropriate to not acknowledge current events.

“Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence ...,” she said, before adding: “And we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”

That latter remark set off a media firestorm. When the American news media picked up Maines’ statement about the president, it was met with vitriol. Country radio, prompted by complaints from its conservative fan base, pulled Travelin’ Soldier, which quickly toppled from the charts. The singers received death threats.

They never had another hit on country radio, but they won Album of the Year and Best Country Album at the Grammy Awards for 2006's Taking the Long Way — the trio's last album.

“The real tragedy is all the great music we will never hear because their momentum was stopped,” said Beverly Keel, chair of the recording industry department at Middle Tennessee State University. “It was the perfect storm of the time and the place and what she said."

Worley recalls thinking the scandal would blow over and said he still believes there’s something “fundamentally wrong” with the trio’s expulsion from country radio.

“This is the land of free speech and they were singled out and destroyed, systematically, by corporations that owned and controlled country radio,” he said.

“Nashville loved these women, Nashville signed these women, and Nashville made these women stars,” said author and country music historian Bob Oermann. “It was a shameful chapter that we allowed (the shunning) to happen, and you couldn’t blame the Chicks if they did feel betrayed.”

The packed arenas on their current tour offer a measure of validation of the Dixie Chicks, and their place in the genre that spurned them.

“So many artists would have backed down just to please country radio,” said Tracy Gershon, who handled artists and repertoire for Taking the Long Way. “The fact is their beliefs were more important and they paid the price. Coming full circle, it just proves great music can last through that. If it’s a man’s world, you just have to be better. I think they were the embodiment of women’s power. They stood their ground and never apologized for who they are.”

Follow Cindy Watts on Twitter: @CindyNWatts