Post by erik on Sept 18, 2021 17:16:42 GMT -5
The very first big hit for the most successful (and eventually the most controversial) all-female group in pop music history (and they're actually a country group) is in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight.
I CAN LOVE YOU BETTER (The Dixie Chicks; Monument; 1997)—The group that would become the most successful all-female group in American music history didn’t exactly have an auspicious start. The Dixie Chicks (shortened in 2020 to just “The Chicks”), whose name was taken from the song “Dixie Chicken” by the 1970’s cult rock band Little Feat, were formed in 1989 by sisters Emily and Martie Erwin, upright bassist Laura Lynch, and guitarist Robin Lynn Macy in Dallas, performing largely neo-traditional bluegrass music, with some Western swing standards. But while this may have given them cult success in the Lone Star State, their old-fashioned Dale Evans-inspired cowgirl dressage made them decidedly un-hip in a changing music world. When both Macy and Lynch left in 1994, Emily and Martie took the hint of their band’s legendary steel guitar player Lloyd Maines and hired his then twenty year-old daughter Natalie to be their lead vocalist. The Chicks’ sound, bolstered by the Erwin sisters’ mastery of banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, retained their bluegrass and traditionalist country roots, but Natalie’s vocals were more rock-oriented, very much in the vein of Linda Ronstadt and Pat Benatar with a West Texas drawl. This resulted in Sony Records signing them to their revived Monument Records imprint in 1996. Never exactly a part of the Nashville establishment, and thus perhaps the least predictable group in country music history, the three recorded their first major label debut album Wide Open Spaces throughout most of 1997, releasing it officially at the end of January 1998. But even before that, a preview single was released: “I Can Love You Better”, written by Pamela Brown Hayes (a relative of the Louvin Brothers) and veteran Nashville tunesmith Kostas. Despite some carping about this trio being more like a twanged-up version of the Spice Girls, “I Can Love You Better” was their breakthrough single when it was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in October 1997. It hit #7 on the Billboard C&W singles chart, and, with its close-knit harmonies and Emily’s down-home Dobro picking, managed to cross over to #77 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the second week of January 1998. Wide Open Spaces, when it came out at the same time, shot up to #1 on the Billboard C&W Album Chart, and #4 on the Top 200 Album Chart. While their independent streak and, eventually, Natalie’s penchant for speaking out would eventually get them ostracized in Nashville, especially after Natalie announced in London, just ten days before the start of America’s incursion into Iraq, that they were ashamed that then-president George W. Bush was from their home state of Texas, they would maintain a steady fan base among both country and rock fans, up to and including their 2020 album release Gaslighter.
I CAN LOVE YOU BETTER (The Dixie Chicks; Monument; 1997)—The group that would become the most successful all-female group in American music history didn’t exactly have an auspicious start. The Dixie Chicks (shortened in 2020 to just “The Chicks”), whose name was taken from the song “Dixie Chicken” by the 1970’s cult rock band Little Feat, were formed in 1989 by sisters Emily and Martie Erwin, upright bassist Laura Lynch, and guitarist Robin Lynn Macy in Dallas, performing largely neo-traditional bluegrass music, with some Western swing standards. But while this may have given them cult success in the Lone Star State, their old-fashioned Dale Evans-inspired cowgirl dressage made them decidedly un-hip in a changing music world. When both Macy and Lynch left in 1994, Emily and Martie took the hint of their band’s legendary steel guitar player Lloyd Maines and hired his then twenty year-old daughter Natalie to be their lead vocalist. The Chicks’ sound, bolstered by the Erwin sisters’ mastery of banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, retained their bluegrass and traditionalist country roots, but Natalie’s vocals were more rock-oriented, very much in the vein of Linda Ronstadt and Pat Benatar with a West Texas drawl. This resulted in Sony Records signing them to their revived Monument Records imprint in 1996. Never exactly a part of the Nashville establishment, and thus perhaps the least predictable group in country music history, the three recorded their first major label debut album Wide Open Spaces throughout most of 1997, releasing it officially at the end of January 1998. But even before that, a preview single was released: “I Can Love You Better”, written by Pamela Brown Hayes (a relative of the Louvin Brothers) and veteran Nashville tunesmith Kostas. Despite some carping about this trio being more like a twanged-up version of the Spice Girls, “I Can Love You Better” was their breakthrough single when it was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in October 1997. It hit #7 on the Billboard C&W singles chart, and, with its close-knit harmonies and Emily’s down-home Dobro picking, managed to cross over to #77 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the second week of January 1998. Wide Open Spaces, when it came out at the same time, shot up to #1 on the Billboard C&W Album Chart, and #4 on the Top 200 Album Chart. While their independent streak and, eventually, Natalie’s penchant for speaking out would eventually get them ostracized in Nashville, especially after Natalie announced in London, just ten days before the start of America’s incursion into Iraq, that they were ashamed that then-president George W. Bush was from their home state of Texas, they would maintain a steady fan base among both country and rock fans, up to and including their 2020 album release Gaslighter.