The Dixie Chicks were going to be fun. Standing outside Shepherd's Bush Empire, clutching a bundle of press cuttings, I gleefully read about the renegade ladies of country. Outspoken Nashville Barbies on a mission to strike terror into the hearts of Hank Williams wannabes, they had kicked up their kitten-heeled boots to a diluted bluegrass sound and breathed life into a genre perversely proud of its death rattle. The Dixie Chicks were over-styled, over the top and over here.
I wasn't disappointed. The Texan trio were trashy and chatty. Natalie Maines had the big hair and the big voice, Martie Maguire played the fiddle in skin-tight leather trousers and Emily Robinson was demure but manic. Then Maines said it: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
There was an audible gasp and a roar of approval from the crowd. The UK and US were two days away from declaring war on Iraq and America's Grammy-winning sweethearts were denouncing George Bush. The review practically wrote itself.
In the early hours of last Friday, nearly two months on, I switched on BBC News 24 and recognised Maines. She and her fellow Chicks were being interviewed by the vampiric Barbara Walters, doyenne of US talk shows. Knowing that sinning American celebrities turn to Walters for redemption, I briefly wondered why such golden girls might waste their money-spinning time with her. I found out next morning. "You're famous!" a text message from a friend informed me. "'Dixie sluts' fight on with naked defiance" screamed the Guardian headline over an account of the Dixie Chicks' transformation from sexy southern she-devils to Saddam's angels. And it was all my fault. From CNN to hot-headed country music internet sites, the remark about Bush reported in my concert review had sparked a furious row that had been raging all over the US ever since. In response, the Chicks had posed naked for the cover of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
The cheap thrill at my front-page status as the new Maureen Cleave [famous for the 1966 interview with John Lennon in which he said, "We're more popular than Jesus now"] was tempered by fear. Reading how Maines's comment had led to death threats, record-burning bonfires and national condemnation, I began to wonder. Had I misheard? Why hadn't other critics mentioned her comment?
Reading Maines's unapologetic apology was reassuring. Staring at the cover of Entertainment Weekly amused me. So, I have reduced the biggest-selling act in America to posing naked, branded with the words "traitors" and "shut up". Will they forgive me? Maybe not. But more importantly, can I get any work out of this?
