“I stuck up for the Dixie Chicks 20 years ago when they buried them.”
That’s what Vince Gill had to say in defense of the country trio, who made a very brief remark way, way back in 2003 about not loving all the choices that the POTUS at the time, George W. Bush, was making.
Gill was part of a Country Radio Seminar webinar when the sensitive topic came up, according to a new story in the Washington Post.
“I found it pretty astounding that they kind of buried them for just making a probably not-so-polite comment,” Gill added. “But all I said was, ‘Man, I hear people say a lot worse things about him every day up on Capitol Hill and nobody gets barbecued for that. Why are you going to take their career away from them?’ I’m not trying to make a statement and say ‘Believe what I believe,’ I just think if you can have a fair and decent and graceful conversation about any subject, nobody has to get completely unwound to the point of all that division.”
Amen to being fair and decent and graceful.
Gill also shared that even the father of the band’s lead singer, Natalie Maines, was grateful that he’d been so supportive at the time. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for many, many years, but you and Roseanne (Cash) were the only two people that stuck up for my kid,” Lloyd Maines told Gill. “And as a father, I just wanted to thank you.”
It’s good to know that the Dixie Chicks still have plenty of fans out there, Gill included. The backlash from country radio did not and will not take their loyal fan base away from them. In fact, the trio is currently working on their next album Gaslighter which will be released on 2020. It will be their first album since their Taking the Long Way was released in 2006.
“Our last album was the most personal and autobiographical we’d ever been, and then this one is, like, 10 times that,” Maines said in a recent podcast.
The music is reportedly old-school Dixie Chicks. Which is exactly what the world needs right now. Listen to the band’s debut single from 1997, “I Can Love You Better.”