{"id":346,"date":"2006-06-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html"},"modified":"2006-06-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-01T12:00:00","slug":"dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html","title":{"rendered":"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p>Ricky Skaggs knows how the Dixie Chicks feel. So does Randy Travis. Both country singers spoke and sang about what they believed in\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecelebritycafe.com\/interviews\/ricky_skaggs.html\">faith in Jesus<\/a>\u2014and both saw record sales and radio airtime plummet, despite the fact that half of country fans go to church on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>If Jesus can do that for country mainstays like Travis and Skaggs, it&#8217;s no wonder that disavowing fellow Texan George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War could chase the Chicks out of Nashville altogether. Their new album, &#8220;Taking the Long Way,&#8221; made with Rick Rubin, the rock and rap producer who put the finishing touches on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Recordings_%28album%29\">Johnny Cash&#8217;s legend<\/a>, is not only unrepentant, it is not country music.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s true that the trio\u2014Natalie Maines, and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison\u2014never fit the country profile. Songs like &#8220;Goodbye Earl&#8221; tagged them as feminists in a world where female empowerment more often means wearing your jeans so tight you put the boys in a tizzy. As Maines put it in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlotte.com\/mld\/observer\/entertainment\/performing_arts\/14687001.htm\">an interview this week<\/a>, &#8220;Where would we fit on the playlist between \u2018Honky Tonk Badonkadonk\u2019 and \u2018Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the Chicks&#8217; defection to adult contemporary is a shame nonetheless. Though deep-fried patriots will puff out their chests at their rout, country music will be poorer without Maines&#8217;s untamed voice and the two sisters&#8217; real-thing fiddle and banjo. And though blue-staters will welcome them as fellow travelers, the once rebellious Chicks will be one more soft rock group singing to the choir.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ricky Skaggs knows how the Dixie Chicks feel. So does Randy Travis. Both country singers spoke and sang about what they believed in\u2014faith in Jesus\u2014and both saw record sales and radio airtime plummet, despite the fact that half of country fans go to church on Sunday. If Jesus can do that for country mainstays like&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ricky Skaggs knows how the Dixie Chicks feel. So does Randy Travis. Both country singers spoke and sang about what they believed in\u2014faith in Jesus\u2014and both saw record sales and radio airtime plummet, despite the fact that half of country fans go to church on Sunday. If Jesus can do that for country mainstays like&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-01T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"burb\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir","og_description":"Ricky Skaggs knows how the Dixie Chicks feel. So does Randy Travis. Both country singers spoke and sang about what they believed in\u2014faith in Jesus\u2014and both saw record sales and radio airtime plummet, despite the fact that half of country fans go to church on Sunday. If Jesus can do that for country mainstays like&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-06-01T12:00:00+00:00","author":"burb","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html","name":"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-06-01T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-06-01T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/06\/dixie-chicks-are-singing-to-th.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dixie Chicks Are Singing to the Choir"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8","name":"burb","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"burb"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/burb"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}