Dixie Chicken

Long before the Dixie Chicks there was the Dixie Chicken (and the Tennessee lamb of course). For people with a sometimes more down to earth musical taste like us here in Jamaica, the song was one of the highlights in any Little Feat concert. Lowell George († June 29, 1979) played and sang it in a way that one could only love. And thanks to YTBS we can also not just write about it but simply show it to you, the p.t. audience.

This version also has the then still young but now surviving and still going strong Emmylou Harris and the fabulous Bonnie Lynn Raitt who had already provided backing vocals in the studio, two ladies that we adore, in it. The third Little Feat studio album took its title from that signature song and was also the first one we really perceived and then bought, we must admit. If you like white New Orleans style Rythm and Blues, that record could be called a must. So here's the beef:

Lowell George was born in Hollywood, California and had his first appearance on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour at the tender age of six. He joined Frank Zappa's The Mothers of Invention at age 23 and at 24, upon being either fired or leaving by mutual agreement, formed his own band Little Feat.

Mr. George seems to have led an indulgent lifestyle of binge eating, alcoholism, and throwing speedballs (if you know what that is). He died from a heart attack at Arlington, Virginia and age 34 and was cremated in Washington D.C.. His ashes were then flown back to Los Angeles, where they were scattered from his fishing boat into the Pacific Ocean.

From Chicken to Chicks and 30 years back to the future

Speaking of Dixie Chicken, it is a shame that there are no articles on the Dixie Chicks yet in this magazine. We were sure we had praised them in 2003 when they harshly spoke out against the Bush jr. administration and the President o' th' UnitedStates himself.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the band performed a concert in March of that year at the Shepherd's Bush Empire Theatre in London. During the introduction to their song "Travelin' Soldier", Natalie Maines, a native of Texas, said: "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."

Not Ready To Make Nice

What followed was everything from death threats to radio bans. And although their royalties slimmed down quite a bit and the venues they sold out were reduced in numbers and size the Dixie Chicks did not give in. The good country girl sisters Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison stood by their outspoken singer. It took Neil Young and other great protesters in rock and country some years and many news programs to come out against the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them while 3 girls from Texas publicly denounced it even before it had begun to ruin every bit of stability in the middle east and more than half of America including nearly all of the press and TV stations had nothing to say but "hurray for America and democracy export".

The Dixie Chicks responded in their own style with a song and published Not Ready To Make Nice which we deem a more than adequate answer. But here we will show you a different song that we like a lot, for it touches so nicely on when we left the province that is not quite but definitely was our Texas equivalent back there in Austria:

And us, us, we've been a long time gone an' will be gone even more, soon.

Said she could hear me singin' in the choir, me, I heard another song. I caught wind and hit the road runnin', and Lord, I've been a long time gone.

Now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard. They've got money but they don't have Cash. They've got junior but they don't have Hank. I think, I think, I think, the rest is a long time gone.

Post Scriptum: It will be about Bonnie Raitt soon, a guitar playing and singing redhead who looked the same in the 90ies and early 2000s as she did in the 70ies. Marvelous. And Emmylou of course, our darling of all times. Both deserve a post anytime but we have missed out on it so far. Here's a glimpse of Bonnie performing "one of her favorites from Luck of the Draw" with Allison Krauss on the fiddle and harmony. plink, nix,    praise or blame!