Pure Country

[ksquared]

Here shao...

This'll really fry your onions...

THE DIXIE STRIPS

By BILL HOFFMANN and ADAM BUCKMAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COUNTRY FRIED:
Controversial country crooners the Dixie Chicks - Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire (left to right) - talk with ABC's Diane Sawyer for "Primetime Thursday" about their alleged anti-American comments at a concert in London.
- AP

April 24, 2003 -- The Bush-bashing Dixie Chicks have struck back at their critics by baring their souls - and their bodies.
The country stars appear nude on the cover of next week's "Entertainment Weekly," with contradicting slogans painted on their skin: Saddam's Angels, Dixie Sluts, Patriot, Proud Americans.

Band members Martie Maguire, Emily Robison and Natalie Maines say they dreamed up the gimmick to defend themselves against the backlash over Maines' crack at a London concert: "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the president of United States is from Texas."

The remark - made just before the start of the war in Iraq and seen by many as unpatriotic - caused the band's record sales to fall and radio stations in the South to yank their songs off the air.



"We wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us," Maguire said about the band's cheeky pose for photographer James White.

"How do you look at the three of us and think, ‘Those are ‘Saddam's Angels?

"We don't want people to think that we're being provocative. It's not about the nakedness. It's that the clothes got in the way of the labels. We're not defined by who we are anymore - other people are doing that for us."

The Grammy-winning performers insist the Bush snub was misunderstood and not meant to be anti-American.

"I feel patriotic - and strong" says Maines, 28. "If Bush was here right in front of me, I wouldn't degrade him. I have a lot of questions that I would ask."

But the Chicks, despite having issued an apology earlier this month, fall short of saying they're sorry in an interview with Diane Sawyer, set to air tonight on "Primetime Thursday" (10 p.m., WABC/Channel 7).

"The wording I used, the way I said it, that was disrespectful," Maines tells Sawyer.

"I feel regret for, you know, the choice of words. Or the non-choice of words . . . Am I sorry that I asked questions and that I don't just follow? No."

Maguire even claims that the singers' grandparents back in Lubbock, Texas, have been affected by the fallout.

"[Maines] was concerned for her grandmother, who's catching [flak] from all her friends, and our grandfather is catching [flak] at the nursing home," Maguire gripes.

Backpedaling, she adds: "No I'm not truly embarrassed that, you know, President Bush is from my state. That's not really what I care about."

The Chicks got a boost last night from Bruce Springsteen, who wrote on his Web site: "To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations for speaking out is un-American."

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/74257.htm