Bob says:
> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Jon Weisberger wrote:
>
> > > Are they really trying to
> > > tell their fans that the earlier configuration of the band didn't
> > > exist? or is this something the record suits thought up.
> >
> > How about neither. The bio on their page on Sony's website
> >
> (http://www.sonymusic.com/labels/nashville/Dixi> eChicks/Bio.html)
discusses
> > earlier configurations of the band.
>
> That isn't much of a test; one wouldn't expect a corporate site devoted to
> the Dixie Chicks' current incarnation to do much more, and as someone else
> pointed out, it doesn't "discuss" earlier configurations, it barely
> mentions them.
"Barely" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, and it's enough of a test
to be able to say whether the label (or anyone else) is trying to erase the
past. For those who haven't wandered over there yet, here's an extract from
their official bio:
>The origin of Dixie Chicks came one summer
>day in 1989 when 19-year-old Martie,
>16-year-old Emily and two other original
>members took their instruments to a downtown
>Dallas street corner to play for tips. Passers-by
>were so enthusiastic that the group never had to
>get summer jobs that year. In fact, people
>immediately started asking to hire the "band."
>
>"We didn't have a name at all for a couple of
>weeks," Emily recalls; "and people started
>asking us who we were and wanting to hire us.
>We were going, 'Who are we? We don't know.'"
>
>"At the time, we didn't realize it was going to
>grow," adds Martie. "Anyway, we were on our
>way to the street corner one day and the Little
>Feat song 'Dixie Chicken' came on the radio. So
>we decided to call ourselves Dixie Chicken,
>with a logo that had a chicken with long
>eyelashes. Then we shortened it to Chix, and we
>finally decided on Dixie Chicks."
>
>By then the sisters were both veterans of the
>bluegrass festival circuit. The five years they'd
>spent in the teen bluegrass band Blue Night
>Express had honed their skills and lined their
>pocketbooks. Looking back, the step into
>full-time country professionalism was inevitable.
>As it turned out, fellow Texan Natalie was
>thinking that way, too.
>
>"Country music was so prevalent in our family
>that I was fortunate to be exposed to it at a very
>early age. I always knew this is what I wanted
>to do," says Natalie. "In grade school I
>remember thinking, 'I don't have to learn this
>because I'm going to be a singer!'"
>
>Dixie Chicks were a Lone Star State sensation
>from the get-go. Between 1990 and 1994 they
>recorded three independently marketed CDs to
>sell at shows. Virtually overnight, the group was
>opening for Garth Brooks, George Jones, Alan
>Jackson, George Strait and Emmylou Harris;
>winning the Dallas Observer's Best Country
>Band award four straight times and appearing
>everywhere from the Opry to the Presidential
>Inaugural Gala.
>
>A lot of the attention had to do with the fact that
>they were an "all-girl band" dressed in western
>outfits. "That was a marketing tool for us," Martie
>admits. "We knew it was a little different. But we
>grew to the point where we really wanted the
>music to speak for itself." By mid-decade the
>sisters were ready to head toward the country
>mainstream.
>
>By then, the surviving Chicks had been through
>a couple of member changes, hired male
>sidemen and added drums. The musical mix
>had broadened from bluegrass and western
>swing to encompass all the styles of modern
>country. All the act needed was a charismatic
>lead singer. In 1995 they went looking for one.
>
>Aware of Natalie's musical talents as an
>entertainer in and around the Dallas area, Emily
>and Martie felt her vocal power and personality
>is what the Dixie Chicks needed.
>
>"I loved watching them play," Natalie recalls.
>"Martie and Emily had always been the best part
>of Dixie Chicks. I had been waiting for my shot.
>I didn't know what I was going to do -- I was in
>college, but I'd changed my major four times."
>
>Within a week of their initial meeting, Natalie
>was out of college and on the road with Dixie
>Chicks.
>
>"With Natalie, that's when the wheels started
>rolling around," Martie says. "You could tell
>there was excitement there. There was energy."
>
>Monument Records hears it and sees it. "It's
>important to emphasize the fact that Dixie
>Chicks are world-class entertainers and that
>they aren't new to this," said Sony Music
>Nashville President Allen Butler. "When they
>brought in songs for the project they said, 'this
>is us, this is who we are, this is Dixie Chicks.'
>They put their thumbprint on this album."
Now, in my opinion, that's a plenty good enough review of an indie band's
career prior to signing with the label that's producing the bio; in fact,
it's almost half of the whole thing. I'm not sure what more folks would
expect to see in order to absolve the Chicks and Monument of an erasing the
past charge; a list of former bandmembers' names? A catalog of their
non-Monument recordings and a link to a sales site? A discussion of exactly
which former members felt that things were getting too commercial and why?
Show me some examples of labels - any of them, as impeccably indie as you'd
like - doing that; I don't think it's a realistic expectation. Like I said,
the part of this that I find disturbing is the Chicks' management's
willingness to sic their lawyers on what can pretty reasonably be construed
as fair use sound clips from the earlier album - but again, that seems to be
what the current members want or at least are willing to have done on their
behalf.
Now, JP Riedie says:
>Nashville doesn't think that anything remotely hokey (or, "country") can
>break big these days.
This is wrong on several levels, but I'll just point out that many people
consider banjo & fiddle to be at least remotely country, so as long as the
Chicks feature those instruments, played by them (not by backup band
members), I don't see how anyone can take this claim seriously.
>Would their new fans would enjoy the previous records? Doubt it.
Because...?
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
