Unlike most of Middle America, we here at Country Music Pride refuse to give up on The Dixie Chicks, even though we haven’t heard from the girls since 2007, when their last album, Taking the Long Way, scored a couple of big Grammy Awards, including an unexpected Album of the Year. But they’re not touring and haven’t announced a new album as of late.
And people seem to be talking about them, if by “people” you mean “cable news pundits” and if by “talking about them” you mean “comparing Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist to that time Natalie Maines said that one thing about the Iraq War.”
But analogies aside, we’re wondering what the Chicks are up to in 2009 and beyond. This is the best we could do, with our composite Google and Wikipedia knowledge.
What We Do Know:
- They’re alive. The last update on the official website is dated June 19th, 2009, a message from Martie Maguire extolling the values of an up-and-comer named Jill Hennessy. So they’re still out there.
- There’s been some family affairs. Multi-instrumentalist Emily Erwin divorced from her husband, musician Charlie Robison, in 2008. Many of the songs on Robison’s new album, out this month, deal with the subject, but no word yet from Erwin. Maguire has been busy with daughter Rosie, who celebrated her first birthday last week.
- There have been some guest appearances. In addition to devoting much of 2008 to philanthropy work, Natalie Maines Pasdar appeared on Neil Diamond’s Home Before Dark and, strangely enough, on the Howard Stern show. Maguire played fiddle on tracks from Deryl Dodd and The Flatlanders.
- They’re posed to reach the gamer crowd. The upcoming Rock Band: Unplugged for the PlayStation Portable will feature the Chicks’ hit “Sin Wagon,” from Fly.
In conclusion, The Dixie Chicks > Glenn Beck. And unlike Glenn Beck, who we here at CMP could care less about (this is true of all cable news pundits on the Right and the Left), we’d really, really like to know what The Dixie Chicks are up to. If anyone has any information about the whereabouts of Natalie, Emily and Martie, please contact us or leave a comment.
