The biz in showbiz shuns brave talent
Thursday, May 25, 2006
On the day Bob Dylan qualified for his Senior Citizen Pass by turning 65, I flew into what has somehow been allowed to call itself "Music City, USA" for fifty years now - and the Nashville skyline did seem to be blinking festively.
But it was an illusion, for this reactionary music business center maintains a sour attitude toward Dylan - and to other artists who are awkward or outspoken.
Nashville is the town for which one of the iconic singer-songwriter's greatest albums was named, and where of course he recorded it - in a decidely "country" fashion. Johnny Cash duetted with him (on "Girl from the North Country") and Kris Kristofferson played percussion (on "Lay, Lady, Lay") even though KK's actual job then was simply studio janitor. But Nashville paid scant attention to May 24th 2006, a major milestone in this major musician's life. Both the leading daily The Tennessean and the Nashville City Paper ignored the date - even with Bob's son Jakob Dylan in Nashville to perform at City Hall that very night. For a city almost congealing in memorabilia and the celebration of its musical lineage, its snubbing of the man who played such an enormous role in creating "country rock" was egregious.
Seasoned observers told me not to be surprised, and drew attention to a business community that's staunchly conservative and, even with national polls showing a massive approval slump for the "War Presidency", still solidly supportive of George W Bush. Nashville's music establishment still hates Dylan for his "Masters of War" diatribe - and not merely for its earliest 1963 incarnation when even many fans found the song gruesomely intemperate, with lines like "Not even Jesus would forgive what you do".
Dylan offended much more deeply by renewing the song for the first Iraq war in 1991 - perfoming it smack in the middle of that year's Grammy Awards telecast, when he was receiving the industry's Lifetime Achievement Award (and was introduced innocuously enough by Jack Nicolson as "Uncle Bobby"). He did it again, more fiercely, for the current Iraq operation, on election night, November 2, 2004. Many of us missed that provocative Oshkosh, Wisconsin rendering of the song, since it wasn't nationally televised. But it didn't escape notice among the nabobs of Nashville.
The industry's power-players have been more actively punitive with the country trio, The Dixie Chicks (above, right of Dylan) who have now summoned the strength to fight back.
Their new release "Taking the Long Way" reminds us of how, 10 days before the 2003 invasion, Natalie Maines stepped forward on a London stage, and on behalf of all three performers said: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States comes from Texas".
The conflagration that instantly blazed, and the litany of sanctions quickly enacted against the Chicks are extraordinary to look back on now. Radio stations dropped them like a stone, concert promoters offered refunds to ticket-buyers, blogs throughout the red states virulently condemned them, death threats followed, and sales of their records fell by almost a half.
It's taken them three years to come out with this new collection of songs, which are far from repentant. Indeed in the opener they declaim: "Not ready to make nice, not ready to back down ... I'm still mad as hell."
They don't expect much radio play. But the music industry is mercifully - thanks to the internet revolution - no longer strangle-held by the traditional commercial fatcats. The Chicks' record website Sonybmg.com is enjoying brisk traffic for the album, and even before it was released advance orders at Amazon.com had pushed it to number 5 in the top ten.