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Dixie Chicks: Not country...folk

Published Friday, June 09, 2006 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

The Dixie Chicks have the best-selling CD in the country, but you cannot hear them on country radio. Curious, idn't it?

I asked Mike Brophey, program director at Boston's Country 99.5 (WKLB-FM), about that. The station lists the Chicks on its artists roster, but no longer plays any Chicks songs nor does it even include the Chicks local date at the TD Banknorth Garden (July 29) on its concert calendar. Brophey said Sony didn't even try to get his station to play the new songs. "I think nationally, they've reached such a roadblock with country radio," Brophey told me. Just look at the national airplay charts if you don't believe him. But folk station 91.9 (WUMB-FM) plays three of the new Dixie Chicks songs: "I Hope," "Everybody Knows" and "Heartbreak Town." At least according to their online playlists. As WUMB's program director, Brian Quinn, told me today, "It's really based on the sound of the record and the quality of the record than about the politics." So who is abandoning who here? Has country radio dumped the Dixie Chicks, or have the Chicks gone folk (and bluegrass)?