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Music

Dixie Chicks don't back down but back off country

NASHVILLE - Country radio may be ready to make nice with the Dixie Chicks.

The grudge dates to 2003, when many country stations stopped playing the popular trio after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush.

But the Chicks' new single, Not Ready to Make Nice , is in rotation in several major markets, pushing it to No. 36 on Billboard's country singles chart after its first full week of airplay. Other stations, however, have been slower to embrace it.

Maines told a London audience on the eve of the war in Iraq that the group was "ashamed" the president was from their home state of Texas.

Back in the United States, their music was boycotted, and the Chicks said they received death threats, leading them to install metal detectors at their shows.

Maines later said she regretted the phrasing of her remark but remained passionately against the war. In January she told Entertainment Weekly magazine that she was disappointed with country music and that she's "pretty much done" with the genre.

In stores May 23, the Chicks' new album, Taking the Long Way , is produced by Rick Rubin, primarily a rock and rap producer who also crafted Johnny Cash's last albums. The record has been described as more rock-oriented, featuring musicians including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Petty's band, the Heartbreakers.

Not Ready to Make Nice was co-written by the trio, which also includes banjo and guitar player Emily Robison and fiddle and mandolin player Martie Maguire. It addresses the controversy head on, with Maines singing in the chorus, "I'm not ready to make nice. I'm not ready to back down. I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time to go round and round and round."

The group declined to comment for this story, but Robison said in a statement on its Web site: "The stakes were definitely higher on that song. We knew it was special because it was so autobiographical, and we had to get it right. And once we had that song done, it freed us up to do the rest of the album without that burden."

Wade Jessen, director of Billboard's country charts, said the song was played at least once on 41 of the 123 stations the magazine monitors to compile the chart. It got frequent airplay in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Minneapolis and Cleveland, large markets that can strongly influence chart position.

Not all big cities are playing it, though. WIL-FM in St. Louis, which hasn't had the Chicks in rotation since 2003, gave Not Ready to Make Nice a trial run and decided against adding it to the playlist after listeners complained with calls and e-mails.

In Denver, KYGO program director Joel Burke was bothered by the lyrics. KYGO tested the song, and though Burke said listeners reacted favorably, he isn't ready to add it to the playlist.

KEEY in Minneapolis, which has been playing the Chicks' music all along, took a different approach. It quietly slipped the song into rotation and has been playing it two or three times a day.

"We wanted to put the song out there on its own merits without the fanfare," said music director Travis Moon, who estimated that he has received fewer than 10 complaints. "If our listeners come back and hate it, we'll take it off. If they like it, we'll move it up in rotation."

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 03:01:29]