By Geoffrey HimesThere’s a scene in Barbara Kopple’s documentary film, Shut Up & Sing, where the three Dixie Chicks and their manager Simon Renshaw are plotting how to promote the group’s soon-to-be-released album, The Long Way Home. When Renshaw asks if they should pick a single to send to country radio, lead singer Natalie Maines, sprawled on a black couch, perks up her head and reacts sharply. Country radio abandoned us and attacked us, she exclaims—why should we go back to them just to get hurt again?She spells out her reasons, but the tone in her voice recalls every 16-year-old girl who has ever been abandoned by a caddish boyfriend: the more she insists that she never wants to see her ex again, the clearer it becomes that she still longs for him. And the more Maines fumes about country music, the more obvious it is that she yearns for reconciliation with the music she grew up on. What else can she do? Every time she opens her big Texan mouth, she sounds country. Every time her bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison play their fiddle and banjo, they sound country.The Dixie Chicks need country music and country music needs the Dixie Chicks, though neither side in the squabble is willing to admit it. So it falls to the 84 writers from all over the nation who voted in the seventh annual Country Music Critics’ Poll to point out the obvious. They named The Long Way Home the best country album of the year and “Not Ready to Make Nice Yet” the best single. They voted the Dixie Chicks the best group and the best overall act in country music. Maines was named the fourth-best female vocalist, Robison the 10th-best instrumentalist, and the Dixie Chicks the second-best live act.This year’s poll is dominated not by alternative-country outsiders who have never even sniffed the country charts, nor by Music Row insiders who control the charts today. Instead the poll belongs to insiders-turned-outsiders—the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash—five acts who once ruled the charts but who haven’t had a Top 20 country single between them since 2002. The voters preferred those artists who demonstrated an ability to connect with a broad country audience but who are also determined to challenge that audience rather than pander to it.Three generations of country music are represented here. Johnny Cash and his three bandmates in the Highwaymen—Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, who all did well in the poll—flourished in the ’70s. Cash’s daughter Rosanne and her studio collaborators such as Gill, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris prospered in the ’80s, as the Chicks did in the ’90s. Running through country-music history is a current of such musicians—they have No. 1 hits, push the limits of the genre, feud with the industry, get exiled from country radio and create some of their best art afterward. In other words, the Dixie Chicks aren’t an isolated incident—they’re heirs to a tradition.The thread that strings this lineage together is an unwillingness to “make nice.” On the Chicks’ poll-topping single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” Maines sings, “Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should.” That sentiment could easily have been sung by Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson or Jessi Colter or by anyone in the extended Cash/Carter clan. Music Row is forever pressuring artists to “make nice” with radio programmers, Republican presidents, cartoonish gender roles and last year’s production formula, and it punishes those who resist. But country music needs those resisters if it’s going to stay vital.And those resisters need country music. Where else can the Dixie Chicks and Rosanne Cash explore the roles of working wives and ambivalent daughters? Where else can Vince Gill and the Chicks explore the interaction between bluegrass instruments and rock ’n’ roll rhythms? Not in indie rock, which doesn’t care about marriage, children or fiddles. Not in adult-contemporary pop, which doesn’t care about ambivalence or banjos. Not in singer-songwriter folk, which doesn’t care about work or drums. No, these artists have to make country music if they’re going to express themselves.Rosanne Cash—the poll’s best female vocalist, second-best songwriter and fourth-best overall act—has learned that. She spent much of the ’90s pursuing public-radio pop before her father’s illness and death forced her to confront her own roots. The result has been two terrific country albums, 2003’s Rules of Travel and 2006’s Black Cadillac, the poll’s No. 3 album. On “House on the Lake,” the poll’s No. 6 single, she sings of her father, “I hear his voice / I follow down the velvet undertow back to the place where I was born, back to my Southern home.” But even when she’s returned to country music, she’s still unwilling to “make nice.” Instead of the sentimental homage you might expect for a dead father, she explores the messy mix of genuine affection and lingering resentment that most of us harbor for our parents.Country radio ignored Rosanne’s return to the fold. It’s always harder for a woman to step outside the “make nice” expectations. After all, Willie Nelson’s politics are far more radical and cogent than Maines’, but Toby Keith didn’t photo-shop Nelson’s face into a picture with Saddam Hussein. Instead Keith sang a duet with the pony-tailed left-winger. It wasn’t just that Maines made a joke about the president, it was that she was the “girl next door” and the “sweetheart of the rodeo” when she said it.Nonetheless there’s a portion of the country audience that needs to hear sassy, independent women singing to them and for them. How else to explain the success of the poll’s Best New Act, The Wreckers, who are the safer, younger version of the Dixie Chicks and whose debut album was co-produced and co-written by Rosanne Cash’s husband/producer John Leventhal? Not only does the album contain a Chicks-like song about killing an abusive lover (“Crazy People”) and a Rosanne-like song about revealing “the real me” (“The Good Kind”), but the title track, “Stand Still, Look Pretty,” cleverly critiques The Wreckers’ own marketing as photogenic babes.Even more impressive as a female role model is Julie Roberts (No. 2 female vocalist, No. 7 single and No. 10 album), who possesses a voice as strong as Carrie Underwood’s but has far better taste in songs. Like Lee Ann Womack, last year’s big poll winner, Roberts has both the pipes and the courage to transform troubled marriages into country hits, even in this “make nice” climate.Alison Krauss & Union Station, the best overall act of the 2001 poll, didn’t release any records this year, but the band was recognized as the No. 8 live act, while Krauss was voted the No. 9 female vocalist and Dobroist Jerry Douglas was voted best instrumentalist for the fourth consecutive year. But Krauss made her biggest mark this year by producing Alan Jackson’s Like Red on a Rose, the title of both the No. 2 single and the No. 4 album. This wasn’t the expected cliché—a fading country star makes a bluegrass album—but rather an exquisite country-pop album whose understated arrangements provided a welcome contrast to the Music Row norm.Jackson, who was also voted the best male vocalist and second-best overall act, actually had two albums in the poll’s top 10: the Krauss production and the gospel record Precious Memories. Jackson and George Strait (No. 6 overall artist, No. 8 male vocalist and No. 11 album) are the George Jones and Buck Owens of our time, and we should appreciate these great singers while they’re still making hits. We shouldn’t wait till they’re pushed off radio and reduced to making eccentric records with Rick Rubin and Ryan Adams.Johnny Cash’s posthumous record with Rubin, American V: A Hundred Highways, was the poll’s No. 5 album, while the album’s video single, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” was the No. 4 single. Nelson’s Ryan Adams-produced album Songbird was the No. 17 album, but voters preferred his salute to Cindy Walker’s songwriting, You Don’t Know Me, which came in at No. 7.
by Geoffrey Himes
There’s a scene in Barbara Kopple’s documentary film, Shut Up & Sing, where the three Dixie Chicks and their manager Simon Renshaw are plotting how to promote the group’s soon-to-be-released album, Taking the Long Way. When Renshaw asks if they should pick a single to send to country radio, lead singer Natalie Maines, sprawled on a black couch, perks up her head and reacts sharply. Country radio abandoned us and attacked us, she exclaims—why should we go back to them just to get hurt again?
She spells out her reasons, but the tone in her voice recalls every 16-year-old girl who has ever been abandoned by a caddish boyfriend: the more she insists that she never wants to see her ex again, the clearer it becomes that she still longs for him. And the more Maines fumes about country music, the more obvious it is that she yearns for reconciliation with the music she grew up on. What else can she do? Every time she opens her big Texan mouth, she sounds country. Every time her bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison play their fiddle and banjo, they sound country.
The Dixie Chicks need country music and country music needs the Dixie Chicks, though neither side in the squabble is willing to admit it. So it falls to the 84 writers from all over the nation who voted in the seventh annual Country Music Critics’ Poll to point out the obvious. They named Taking the Long Way the best country album of the year and “Not Ready to Make Nice Yet” the best single. They voted the Dixie Chicks the best group and the best overall act in country music. Maines was named the fourth-best female vocalist, Robison the 10th-best instrumentalist, and the Dixie Chicks the second-best live act.
This year’s poll is dominated not by alternative-country outsiders who have never even sniffed the country charts, nor by Music Row insiders who control the charts today. Instead the poll belongs to insiders-turned-outsiders—the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash—five acts who once ruled the charts but who haven’t had a Top 20 country single between them since 2002. The voters preferred those artists who demonstrated an ability to connect with a broad country audience but who are also determined to challenge that audience rather than pander to it.
Three generations of country music are represented here. Johnny Cash and his three bandmates in the Highwaymen—Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, who all did well in the poll—flourished in the ’70s. Cash’s daughter Rosanne and her studio collaborators such as Gill, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris prospered in the ’80s, as the Chicks did in the ’90s. Running through country-music history is a current of such musicians—they have No. 1 hits, push the limits of the genre, feud with the industry, get exiled from country radio and create some of their best art afterward. In other words, the Dixie Chicks aren’t an isolated incident—they’re heirs to a tradition.
The thread that strings this lineage together is an unwillingness to “make nice.” On the Chicks’ poll-topping single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” Maines sings, “Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should.” That sentiment could easily have been sung by Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson or Jessi Colter or by anyone in the extended Cash/Carter clan. Music Row is forever pressuring artists to “make nice” with radio programmers, Republican presidents, cartoonish gender roles and last year’s production formula, and it punishes those who resist. But country music needs those resisters if it’s going to stay vital.
And those resisters need country music. Where else can the Dixie Chicks and Rosanne Cash explore the roles of working wives and ambivalent daughters? Where else can Vince Gill and the Chicks explore the interaction between bluegrass instruments and rock ’n’ roll rhythms? Not in indie rock, which doesn’t care about marriage, children or fiddles. Not in adult-contemporary pop, which doesn’t care about ambivalence or banjos. Not in singer-songwriter folk, which doesn’t care about work or drums. No, these artists have to make country music if they’re going to express themselves.
Rosanne Cash—the poll’s best female vocalist, second-best songwriter and fourth-best overall act—has learned that. She spent much of the ’90s pursuing public-radio pop before her father’s illness and death forced her to confront her own roots. The result has been two terrific country albums, 2003’s Rules of Travel and 2006’s Black Cadillac, the poll’s No. 3 album. On “House on the Lake,” the poll’s No. 6 single, she sings of her father, “I hear his voice / I follow down the velvet undertow back to the place where I was born, back to my Southern home.” But even when she’s returned to country music, she’s still unwilling to “make nice.” Instead of the sentimental homage you might expect for a dead father, she explores the messy mix of genuine affection and lingering resentment that most of us harbor for our parents.
Country radio ignored Rosanne’s return to the fold. It’s always harder for a woman to step outside the “make nice” expectations. After all, Willie Nelson’s politics are far more radical and cogent than Maines’, but Toby Keith didn’t photo-shop Nelson’s face into a picture with Saddam Hussein. Instead Keith sang a duet with the pony-tailed left-winger. It wasn’t just that Maines made a joke about the president, it was that she was the “girl next door” and the “sweetheart of the rodeo” when she said it.
Nonetheless there’s a portion of the country audience that needs to hear sassy, independent women singing to them and for them. How else to explain the success of the poll’s Best New Act, The Wreckers, who are the safer, younger version of the Dixie Chicks and whose debut album was co-produced and co-written by Rosanne Cash’s husband/producer John Leventhal? Not only does the album contain a Chicks-like song about killing an abusive lover (“Crazy People”) and a Rosanne-like song about revealing “the real me” (“The Good Kind”), but the title track, “Stand Still, Look Pretty,” cleverly critiques The Wreckers’ own marketing as photogenic babes.
Even more impressive as a female role model is Julie Roberts (No. 2 female vocalist, No. 7 single and No. 10 album), who possesses a voice as strong as Carrie Underwood’s but has far better taste in songs. Like Lee Ann Womack, last year’s big poll winner, Roberts has both the pipes and the courage to transform troubled marriages into country hits, even in this “make nice” climate.
Alison Krauss & Union Station, the best overall act of the 2001 poll, didn’t release any records this year, but the band was recognized as the No. 8 live act, while Krauss was voted the No. 9 female vocalist and Dobroist Jerry Douglas was voted best instrumentalist for the fourth consecutive year. But Krauss made her biggest mark this year by producing Alan Jackson’s Like Red on a Rose, the title of both the No. 2 single and the No. 4 album. This wasn’t the expected cliché—a fading country star makes a bluegrass album—but rather an exquisite country-pop album whose understated arrangements provided a welcome contrast to the Music Row norm.
Jackson, who was also voted the best male vocalist and second-best overall act, actually had two albums in the poll’s top 10: the Krauss production and the gospel record Precious Memories. Jackson and George Strait (No. 6 overall artist, No. 8 male vocalist and No. 11 album) are the George Jones and Buck Owens of our time, and we should appreciate these great singers while they’re still making hits. We shouldn’t wait till they’re pushed off radio and reduced to making eccentric records with Rick Rubin and Ryan Adams.
Johnny Cash’s posthumous record with Rubin, American V: A Hundred Highways, was the poll’s No. 5 album, while the album’s video single, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” was the No. 4 single. Nelson’s Ryan Adams-produced album Songbird was the No. 17 album, but voters preferred his salute to Cindy Walker’s songwriting, You Don’t Know Me, which came in at No. 7.
The seemingly bottomless well of Johnny Cash reissues continued to pour forth, with Live at San Quentin voted the No. 2 reissue and Personal File coming in at No. 6. Johnny’s old bandmates in the Highwaymen also did well. Waylon Jennings’ Nashville Rebel box set was voted the best reissue, and Willie Nelson’s The Complete Atlantic Sessions was No. 4. Kris Kristofferson was voted the No. 5 songwriter and his This Old Road was the No. 11 album. Out of the Ashes, the comeback record by Jennings’ wife, Jessi Colter, was voted the No. 20 album.
If those artists earned the title of Outlaws, their heirs in the ’80s could be called the In-Laws, if only because they were married to each other and played so incestuously on each other’s records. Rosanne Cash was married to Rodney Crowell; Emmylou Harris to producer Brian Ahern; Vince Gill to singer Janis Gill; Guy Clark to songwriter Susanna Clark, and Ricky Skaggs to singer Sharon White. Harris, who gave Crowell his first real job, was saluted in this year’s poll for the No. 17 album and the No. 18 single, both for her collaboration with Mark Knopfler, who once offered Gill a job in Dire Straits. Gill, who sang harmony for Cash, Harris and Crowell, was hailed by the voters as the best songwriter, the second-best instrumentalist, the third-best overall act, the sixth-best male vocalist and the sixth-best live act (see sidebar). Guy Clark was voted the third-best songwriter.
Who are the likely heirs of this Johnny Cash/Rosanne Cash/Dixie Chicks tradition? Maybe The Wreckers. Maybe Julie Roberts. Maybe Eric Church, the No. 2 new act, who seemed to blend Steve Earle and Toby Keith in his rough-edged lyrics, mainstream production and willingness to explore his own sins and failures. Maybe Dierks Bentley, the best new artist of the 2003 poll, who was voted the No. 4 male vocalist and No. 5 overall act this year as he continued to balance bluegrass tangents, frank sexuality and radio-ready hits.
Maybe Lee Ann Womack, the traditionalist who records songs by Julie Miller, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Robison. Maybe Alison Krauss, the bluegrass angel who worms her way deeper into the country music industry each year. Maybe Sunny Sweeney, who was voted the No. 4 new act and the No. 10 female vocalist on the strength of a self-released debut album that won’t even have national distribution until Big Machine re-releases it in March. Maybe Gretchen Wilson, whose ambitious live show this summer included songs by Billie Holiday, Led Zeppelin, Loretta Lynn, Heart and The Stanley Brothers.
Whoever they prove to be, these heirs will keep alive an outsider/insider tradition that has been as important to country music as pop-crossover acts and die-hard traditionalists. Like Johnny, Rosanne and Natalie, these nonconformist artists will find a way to break into the country mainstream—and when they’re inevitably booted out again, they’ll go on to make some of the best music of their careers.
Alison Krauss & Union Station, the best overall act of the 2001 poll, didn’t release any records this year, but the band was recognized as the No. 8 live act, while Krauss was voted the No. 9 female vocalist and Dobroist Jerry Douglas was voted best instrumentalist for the fourth consecutive year. But Krauss made her biggest mark this year by producing Alan Jackson’s Like Red on a Rose, the title of both the No. 2 single and the No. 4 album. This wasn’t the expected cliché—a fading country star makes a bluegrass album—but rather an exquisite country-pop album whose understated arrangements provided a welcome contrast to the Music Row norm.
Jackson, who was also voted the best male vocalist and second-best overall act, actually had two albums in the poll’s top 10: the Krauss production and the gospel record Precious Memories. Jackson and George Strait (No. 6 overall artist, No. 8 male vocalist and No. 11 album) are the George Jones and Buck Owens of our time, and we should appreciate these great singers while they’re still making hits. We shouldn’t wait till they’re pushed off radio and reduced to making eccentric records with Rick Rubin and Ryan Adams.
Johnny Cash’s posthumous record with Rubin, American V: A Hundred Highways, was the poll’s No. 5 album, while the album’s video single, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” was the No. 4 single. Nelson’s Ryan Adams-produced album Songbird was the No. 17 album, but voters preferred his salute to Cindy Walker’s songwriting, You Don’t Know Me, which came in at No. 7. The seemingly bottomless well of Johnny Cash reissues continued to pour forth, with Live at San Quentin voted the No. 2 reissue and Personal File coming in at No. 6. Johnny’s old bandmates in the Highwaymen also did well. Waylon Jennings’ Nashville Rebel box set was voted the best reissue, and Willie Nelson’s The Complete Atlantic Sessions was No. 4. Kris Kristofferson was voted the No. 5 songwriter and his This Old Road was the No. 11 album. Out of the Ashes, the comeback record by Jennings’ wife, Jessi Colter, was voted the No. 20 album.
If those artists earned the title of Outlaws, their heirs in the ’80s could be called the In-Laws, if only because they were married to each other and played so incestuously on each other’s records. Rosanne Cash was married to Rodney Crowell; Emmylou Harris to producer Brian Ahern; Vince Gill to singer Janis Gill; Guy Clark to songwriter Susanna Clark, and Ricky Skaggs to singer Sharon White. Harris, who gave Crowell his first real job, was saluted in this year’s poll for the No. 17 album and the No. 18 single, both for her collaboration with Mark Knopfler, who once offered Gill a job in Dire Straits. Gill, who sang harmony for Cash, Harris and Crowell, was hailed by the voters as the best songwriter, the second-best instrumentalist, the third-best overall act, the sixth-best male vocalist and the sixth-best live act (see sidebar). Guy Clark was voted the third-best songwriter.
Who are the likely heirs of this Johnny Cash/Rosanne Cash/Dixie Chicks tradition? Maybe The Wreckers. Maybe Julie Roberts. Maybe Eric Church, the No. 2 new act, who seemed to blend Steve Earle and Toby Keith in his rough-edged lyrics, mainstream production and willingness to explore his own sins and failures. Maybe Dierks Bentley, the best new artist of the 2003 poll, who was voted the No. 4 male vocalist and No. 5 overall act this year as he continued to balance bluegrass tangents, frank sexuality and radio-ready hits.
Maybe Lee Ann Womack, the traditionalist who records songs by Julie Miller, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Robison. Maybe Alison Krauss, the bluegrass angel who worms her way deeper into the country music industry each year. Maybe Sunny Sweeney, who was voted the No. 4 new act and the No. 10 female vocalist on the strength of a self-released debut album that won’t even have national distribution until Big Machine re-releases it in March. Maybe Gretchen Wilson, whose ambitious live show this summer included songs by Billie Holiday, Led Zeppelin, Loretta Lynn, Heart and The Stanley Brothers.
Whoever they prove to be, these heirs will keep alive an outsider/insider tradition that has been as important to country music as pop-crossover acts and die-hard traditionalists. Like Johnny, Rosanne and Natalie, these nonconformist artists will find a way to break into the country mainstream—and when they’re inevitably booted out again, they’ll go on to make some of the best music of their careers.
