Roger,

I just didn't find this until later. I am in Fla. doing the Frank Brown Songwriter's festival, have done 8 shows in four days and a workshop preceeded by three weeks of tours and workshops in Nashville. Haven't been able to get on everything.

I have commented on this earlier. A lot of these topics pop up over and over again. Kind of forgot about it and due to my own thing about awards, (I stopped watching the CMA's in 1990, and I head to Fla. every year the night of the CMA's) I just don't pay any attention.

Where a lot of my information comes is from personal contacts. A very good friend of mine is Chuck Cannon, who is great friends and one of Toby' top cowriters. I remember very much this stuff happening because I also knew people who were working with the Dixie Chicks and with Toby. I even met Natalie and Emily a couple of years before they were signed.

Natalie was always a cantankerous woman. Did a lot of "I HATE MEN' songs which I never like. She was always very verbose and kind of like sand paper.

There was a Civil War in Nashville between conservatives and Liberals. Most songwriters are conservative because they are small businesses and have to live life in the real world. Most of the outsiders, those from LA, New York, Austin, etc. are very liberal because they often come from colleges or insulated circles of people. But both camps are very charitble, help each other and for the most part stay out of each other's way. We very much keep to our own business. There is plenty of that to keep us all busy.

The Dixie Chicks were from Austin so they always had their kind of "anti-Nashville" bias attitudes. They actually wanted to be more of a rock act. But they had to do what they had to do and did country and were successful. And they were mistreated. At one point they had to audit their record company, Sony and they found they were owed $12 million dollars. They got it and their own record company, Monument records.

When 9-11 happened everyone joined together for a few months. Everyone wanted to quit the music business at first, and emails,phone calls and conversations went on about how stupid writing, recording and performing music when there were so many other "serious" issues going on. That lasted about two months and then we got back to business.

The Toby Keith/Chicks fight came out of a series of statements that both of them made back and forth around some other award shows. I believe it was backstage at the ACM awards that it all got started. That led to some other interviews and all hell broke loose. Their publicists and record companies tried to dampen the controversy, because that doesn't sell in country music. The more negative stories,and things that work in rock and pop, getting publicity, drug problems, Lindsey Lohan/Britanny Spears, type meltdowns, don't have the same effect in country.

We don't believe all publicity is good publicity. Since our target audience tends to run more conservative, that can lose you more fans than you will get.

It built to a head when the Iraq war was going on. And the Dixie Chicks started being downright Nasty. They didn't get some nominations for the CMA"s and started spouting off about how backward and hicks the country music audience was. That started a firestorm and while the rest of the country and the news focused on the rift between them and Toby (Natalie wore a shirt that read "F**k Toby Keith" on a television show, and Toby did "Boot in Your A**) the country audience were the one's who felt dissed.

So there was push back. Gerry House,a Nationally syndicated DJ who had never really liked their attitudes, started talking back at them and that escalated a war of words. A lot of DJ's quit playing their music and they had "crush the Chicks CD' parties at local clubs. Since they had a very large tour going on at that time, there was a lot of speculation about how many people would tear up their tickets.This was dumb because when you have paid $128 each for tickets, pay for baby sitters, parking, etc. you are not going to just NOT show up at the shows. So the tour went on fine and they did well.

It culminated with them not showing up for the CMA's and Reba McEntire,who was one of the featured presenters on the CMA awards, said "It looks like the Dixie Chicks couldn't be here tonight. I guess they have their feet in their mouths.."

Was a big thing and from there on out, Nashville was pretty much done with them. They continued to bad mouth us for the next year and went into a hiatus and recorded their next record in Austin in Natalee's Dad's studio. When it was released it won some big pop awards, but a lot of that was due to the controversy, which works in the rock world. To us it was like the spoiled kids like Paris Hilton, who just take every opportunity to bad mouth you. And this was a community that LOVED the Chicks before all this started. Even when they were a little acerbic in statements and attitudes, the Nashville music business and the country community supported them.

The ceased to get country airplay, and rock has not embraced them either. They had children. Dropped out of the spotlight and have not returned. Emily and her sister released a CD last year I believe hit around number 98 with an anchor and dissapeared quickly.

This is what so much of this stuff is. Toby has had his own run in's with the Nashville establishment. Nearly getting into a fist fight with Label head Luke Lewis, then paying over a million dollars to buy his own record back, to release songs like "Wanna Talk About Me" and "How do You Like Me Now" which Luke thought were not the right songs, were all part of it. He formed his own label, Show Dog, and now is doing well.

So a lot of political,cultural, and behind the scenes wrangling have as much to do with who doesn't show up on awards or even participate in the game.Like everything in the music industry, it is an iceberg, most people only see a very small part of it.

We all have our quirks. When you get into higher positions, your words and deeds get magnified. Unfortunate but true. You can say anything you want about any subject. But also have to deal with alienating your fan base. And when you diss your fans, paybacks are HELL!

MAB