MARTIE: Hi

 

HARMON & EVANS: We first saw you live in front of my barber about 10 years ago. (Martie laughs) Your patience and all that hard work has really paid off for the Chicks.

 

MARTIE: Yeah, this has been an incredible year.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Yeah, we want to ask you about the past year. Now I was just backtracking. In 1995, I was trying to help Emily get some tickets for the CMA awards show. She didn't have any last year. You guys were in the back row and then this year, you won the Horizon Award and the Vocal Group of the Year Award. Congratulations. What's this past year been like for you.?

 

MARTIE: Oh, wow! Just awesome 'cause as y'all know, since I've known you all for years, we started in '89 on the street corners just playing for tips and then this past year was our 4th album but the first one on a major label and wow! It's like night and day from trying to get investors to invest in your independent albums and finally having a bonified, certified record label to do the right kind of promotion and have the money behind you to do the right kind of recording and stuff. So yeah, I think the biggest thing that's happened, one, was the CMA Awards. We were just shocked and stunned especially at the Group Of The Year, being so new. The second thing was just getting in the top 10 of the pop records in sales. Being up there with all the pop, rap acts and all the rock acts or whatever. There's the Dixie Chicks sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Why is that?

 

MARTIE: You know, I think maybe...I mean it seems like we're bringing people to our music that aren't maybe the typical country fans. We hear, the most common thing we hear at our shows, is 'I'm not a great big country listener. Ya know, I like the big ones. Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and stuff but I really don't listen to country but I really like y'all and it seems like y'all are almost a bridge act. Not really country but yet you've got these traditional roots and you hear a lot of the traditional music in what we do.' So I don't know, maybe we're bringing a younger hipper crowd to the format. I hope so.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Do you think maybe the reason for that is because you three ladies look so good?

 

MARTIE: (laughing) Thank you first of all. I hope that's not it. I hope that our music is deeper than that.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Now you and your sister Emily are two of the original members. It really started to happen though for you when Natalie came along. How did you meet Natalie?

 

MARTIE: We were doing a demo with her. She was gonna sing a song Emily and I wrote and we went out to Lubbock 'cause her dad's a steel guitar player and he had actually--we met him playing on some of our indy stuff and we went out there to do this demo of our song and she just sang her little buns off and we just thought 'Wow! She's awesome and she really seems to connect.' She liked the song number one, and we thought 'wow, if she's digging on this kind of music and we naturally are 'cause we wrote the song and she sings it so great, ya know, maybe someday she'll fit into the mix and so when our other singer was retiring we called her first off and said ' Do you want to be a Chick?' She said 'Sure. I'm in college and I got a big test tomorrow and if I'm a Chick, then I cannot take my big test tomorrow.

 

HARMON & EVANS: What did Natalie force out of you and your sister?

 

MARTIE: Ya know, I think she was a fresh look at everything. I'm the eldest Chick. The mother hen. I was already starting three years ago when Natalie joined --- I was already starting to kinda get a little tired of traveling in the RV and being away from home so much without really any light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Natalie was like just a new energy coming to the group and Emily and I really had to take some voice lessons and try to sing to Natalie's standard 'cause she just really has a great strong voice and in order for us to harmonize together, Emily and I really had to rise to the occasion. We went through a lot of vocal rehearsals to try to get that blend and finally we just, after about six months, we felt like it was ready and called the record label down to hear us and that night we got our deal.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Martie, where were you and the Chicks when you found out There's Your Trouble was your first #1 hit.

 

MARTIE: We were in Pittsburgh. We were gonna do a show and actually it was not till the next night so we had a night off to celebrate. So it was perfect. And we're each in our hotel rooms and all our lines were busy trying to call each other so we ended up having to just go down the hall and knock on the door and we were just jumping up and down, and promptly went out shopping.

 

HARMON & EVANS: You don't all three share a hotel room?

 

MARTIE: No. We figure we live so closely together, I mean, there's no way. We need our space.

 

HARMON & EVANS: See that. You went from traveling all together in a VW bus to your own rooms.

 

MARTIE: We used to do three in a room. Just a big king size bed or two double beds and we'd flip a coin for who had to sleep together. Nobody wanted to sleep with Emily 'cause Emily just stretches arms out, legs out, you know her big size 10 feet in your way so Natalie and I decided we'd usually have to sleep in the same bed since Emily just takes over.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Hey Martie, how about describing the scene to us backstage before we get ready to roll here.

 

MARTIE: Well, we keep peeking out the door to see who's all coimng in and they're just packing it in. We're so happy. And we heard a rumor and I think it's been confirmed that Rod Stewart is gonna come out and watch the show and Mark McGwire, who we met a few months ago when we threw the first opening pitch out at one of the St. Louis games, and I think he's coming to the show tonight. We're excited, a little bit nervous, and I don't know, we should be most nervous about Rod Stewart. Ya know, he's probably a big critic of music and probably not the biggest country fan but the fact that he would come out and know, have uttered the words Dixie Chicks, and be in the audience is pretty cool.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Hey Martie. You grab Emily and Natalie and go out and have a great time.

 

MARTIE: Alright. We always do.

 

HARMON & EVANS: Love ya Dixie Chicks!

 

MARTIE: Love ya Harmon and Evans!!

 

 

NATALIE: Hi y'all. We're the Dixie Chicks. How are you all doing tonight? Are you all ready to have a good time. We want to start this off right by doing one of our favorites off of our album cause it reminds us of the honky tonks back home in Texas

 

 

NATALIE: We want to do one right now that for some reason people keep calling autobiographical about sweet little innocent us and we just don't understand it.

 

 

NATALIE:  A couple of people asked us if we were going to do this next song and we felt it was appropriate 'cause we just found out that, hope we don't look stupid for just finding this out, but we just found out that Tammy Wynette played here and so we want to play a little tribute to her and do the song that we got to sing at the Academy of Country Music Awards. 'cause we we think Tammy Wynette was one of the coolest chicks in country music and we just put this out on an album called Tribute To Tradition and it's our little Texas Chick rendition of Stand By Your Man.

 

 

NATALIE (after the opening guitar riff by Tommy Nash) : It's only his first show and I don't think you'll make it quite to 15 Tommy. You're stealing the spotlight. Dad, tell him what he's supposed to do.

 

LLOYD MAINES (faintly in background) : You're doing fine. (Natalie laughs)

 

 

MARTIE (leading into Roanoke) : Well, are y'all ready to hear a hoedown. Y'all ready to hear her pick the 5 string banjo. That's my sister over there and she's awesome. Well --we grew up in Dallas, the big city and everything. You know, when you're growing up and you're a banjo picker and you got long stringy greasy hair parted down the middle and you go to a private school, you're not always like the most popular girl in school. But she blossomed -- I mean I really think she blossomed and everything. We grew up in a hillbilly family in the middle of Dallas Texas and actually Emily's big dream was to grow up and someday be on Hee Haw. And the show went off the air and she just wanted to pop out of that cornpatch and everything. It was really sad. She actually did the audition. Went to Nashville, did the audition and they wouldn't accept her cause she was a 32A. I'm soooo mean, I know. Anyway y'all, I love her to death. I wanna turn her loose on that banjo. Here's one we used to play on street corners for tips.

 

 

EMILY: This next one is one that we wrote and we get a lot of requests for it. It just might be the next single.

 

 

NATALIE: We want this song to become an anthem for all young people or people who have young hearts and want to go out there and chase your dreams 'cause it's never too late y'all. This is our favorite song and our single that's out right now.

 

Natalie (during I Can Love You Better): Well, LA are you all ready to sing this song with us. I gotta tell you though you've got some pretty tough competition. We've been to San francisco y'all and they are good. we've been to New York City and they're even better. But most importantly, we have been to Arkansas. Now do you all think you all can do it. Emily, what do you think? You think they can do it? You see it's tough to tell. it's really tough to tell because we do this every night and usually the men are lying and the woman are faking. But we're gonna give you all a shot now on the count of 4. That's 1, 2, 3, 4 in case any one here is from Arkansas. Hey did y'all know the President of The United States is from Arkansas? I did not know that. But what I did know is that people from Arkansas are very lucky people. Luck follows them wherever they go and they are the luckiest people in the world. Oh wait, I always get that wrong. The bleach gets to my brain. What I meant to say was people from Arkansas get lucky wherever they go. Alright now so y'all sing this song as loud as you can.

 

NATALIE: Well, whatta you know. We just happen to know one more song. Hit it Emily.