Charlie Daniels pushing his Soapbox Rightwing Tapes MTB members with Jimmy Carter in 76

The opening concert of the Dixie Chicks Tour was the focal point of a rightwing attempt to dent the DC's popularity. Rightwingnuts promoted a concert by the Marshall Tucker Band - a very popular all ex-marine band from Spartanburg-Greenville SC where the DC concert was taking place. Now we are talking Strom Thurmonds South Carolina here folks - where Paris Island leathernecks rule. I worked on the road with the MTB for my sound company Mountain Sound of Knoxville during their heyday from 1979 and 1982 (The CDB was also a Mountain Sound act but don't hold that against me). There were a total of 31 Dixie Chicks tickets traded for MTB tickets in the highly promoted and well organized protest in this bastion of Bush Marine Corps Military Strom Thurmond stronghold. People on the radio actually threatened physical violence and mayhem if people attended the concert. Only 31 people were swayed to stay away. The Dixie Chicks will be my favorite band for a long time. I just ordered another 10 copies of Home to give away to friends. I suggest we all do what we can to stop the Dixie Chick bashing. I bet they all look better than Bill Hobbs. 8^) Former Roadie who knows the truth that the MTB and the CDB got Jimmy Carter elected President before the hard life on the road killed all of Charlie Daniels brain cells and hardened his heart.
Actually it is amazing given the current situation that the Dixie Chicks sales did not plummet like a rock. With Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Liddy, North, Scarborough, Savage, Robertson, Fallwell, Carlson, Novak, and the entire rightwing spin machine taking time off from Clinton Crushing and Bush Boosting to chew on the Chicks. Since Sony Music and Francis Preston and the CMA heirarchy made Nashville the land of the RICH and Republican instead of the home of the Coal Miners Daughters the politics of country music have become the politics of fear. Country artists who hold Democratic views are afraid to perform on behalf of Democratic candidates for fear of reprisal by BMI ASCAP and Record Companies and Publishers. Prior to Reagan any Democrat could depend on a number of CMA artists to help but now only Steve Earle and very few others will stick their necks out. Nashville's once very cool and poetic music scene has become a bastion of plastic Lee Greenwood money for pseudo-patriotism. And regretfully I have a connection there in a brother who owns 25% of the former Lee Greenwood Theater in Sevierville. Bush one and Swartzkoff attended the grand opening.