No Chicks at the CMA’s

Despite their status as country music’s biggest stars, the Dixie Chicks will not be appearing on tonights CMA awards show as presenters or performers. Odd you say? Not really – the country music establishment has made its choice and his name is Toby Keith. My MSNBC.com commentary:

No room for dissent in country tent

Dixie Chicks’ brand of music, opinion no longer welcome

Nov. 4 – Country music singers have always been a real close family, But lately some of my kin folk have disowned a few others and me. – “Family Tradition” by Hank Williams, Jr.

THE Country Music Association’s 37th annual awards show, “country music’s biggest night,” rolls into Nashville this week, bristling even more than usual with contradictions. What was originally “down home” rural music is now mostly created in an urban setting by crack professionals for a primarily suburban audience. The awards show celebrating it is a hay wagon hauled by a limousine carrying aw-shucks millionaires in tuxedos and evening gowns, accessorized with cowboy hats and boots. And this year’s show ostentatiously excludes the industry’s biggest stars.

….But the eclectic Cash’s departure starkly underlines a rather uncomfortable fact: the Big Tent of country music, at least as sanctioned by the industry establishment, is shrinking. Of the remaining live performers on the show – Gary Allan, Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Terri Clark, Buddy Jewel, Toby Keith, Allison Krauss, Patty Loveless, Martina McBride, Tim McGraw, Joe Nichols, Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton, George Strait, Shania Twain, Darryl Worley – one name is glaring by its omission, the Dixie Chicks….

Please give it a read and let me know what you think.

UPDATE – The CMA finds its inner wuss.