"Shut Up and Sing": Dixie Chicks’ Big Grammy Win Caps Comeback From Backlash Over Anti-War Stance

Over the past four years scores of popular musicians have spoken out against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. The list includes Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Jay Z, Missy Elliot, Sheryl Crow, Barbara Streisand and the list goes on. But perhaps no musical act has paid a bigger price for speaking out against the war than the Dixie Chicks – the biggest selling female music group of all time.

On Sunday night the group was the big winner at the Grammy Awards. The group won a total of five Grammys including Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Country Album. However if you tuned into many country radio stations today you won’t hear their music. They have been largely blacklisted for the past four years -- ever since the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. That's when the group’s lead singer - Natalie Maines - told an audience in London the group was against the war and ashamed that the President Bush is from Texas.

* Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks.

As soon as word about the comment from the Dixie Chicks reached the United States, the backlash began. What happened next is chronicled in the new documentary Shut Up and Sing.

* Excerpt of “Shut Up and Sing.”

The backlash intensified in May 2003 when the Dixie Chicks started its U.S. tour in Greensville, South Carolina.

* Excerpt of “Shut Up and Sing.”

An excerpt from the documentary Shut Up and Sing about the Dixie Chicks. It is being released on DVD next week. The film’s director - Barbara Kopple - joins me now in the Firehouse studio. She is an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker. Her films include Harlan County, USA and American Dream. Welcome to Democracy Now.

* Barbara Kopple. Director of “Shut Up & Sing” - a documentary about the Dixie Chicks. Directed numerous films and television shows. She has won two Academy Awards; the first was for her documentary Harlan County, USA about a Kentucky miners' strike and the second for her documentary, “American Dream” about the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota. Kopple has also directed documentaries about Mike Tyson, Gregory Peck and Woody Allen.

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