Just Shut Up and,.....Well, Just Shut Up - PERIOD!

Why is it these days,..when I think Ditzy Chicks,..I also think of MacBeth?

Dixie Chicks Lead Singer Natalie Maines Blasts Bush Again in New Documentary
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
By Roger Friedman

Dixie Chicks Lead Singer Blasts Bush

Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, has not changed her tune.

In a new documentary premiered last night at the Toronto Film Festival, Maines says of President Bush: "What a dumbf—-."

The film, "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing," received a standing ovation and thunderous applause. Directed by Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple with Cecilia Peck, daughter of late film legend Gregory, "Shut Up and Sing" chronicles the group's journey since igniting a political firestorm in 2003 when they told a London audience they were embarrassed that Bush came from Texas.

Overnight the Dixie Chicks became politicized, and they've never looked back. The film ends with a return to the same London concert hall, where Maines repeats her original statement.

Maines told this reporter there never was a time when she thought of asking Kopple to edit her latest statement about Bush.

"Nope, we never would have done that," she said.

(snip)

Indeed, when it’s released next month, "Shut Up and Sing" should be a gigantic hit for the Weinstein Company and seems destined for an Oscar nomination. Famed documentary director Albert Maysles, who attended the premiere, told me: “It’s just what we needed and with music.”

(snip)

The movie does trace without censure how the Chicks’ decision to never backtrack from their initial criticism of Bush hurts them financially. One of the permeating storylines of the film is their dealings with a corporate sponsor — Lipton Tea — and the country radio stations that immediately dropped their songs.

(snip)

Of course in the end, the Dixie Chicks resolution to stay their course only makes them bigger than ever before. They concede the loss of their largely right-wing country audience, but in doing so, pick up a whole new audience as they cross over into rock and country-pop. They turn into politicians as clever as John McCain, who makes a cameo defending them during a Senate hearing to determine if the group has been blackballed by country radio stations.

(snip)

So will the Dixie Chicks ever just “shut up and sing”? It’s doubtful. After this movie hits, they will be even more visible as spokeswomen for a generation. Depending on how the midterm elections go, the Chicks could find themselves as important purveyors of a new kind of protest music, the female Bob Dylans of 2006.