Dixie Chicks Music Group

The Dixie Chicks are Nashville refugees for reasons of politics and personality -- after stinging comments about President Bush, country radio banned them and country fans shunned them -- but on Sunday the trio found blue-state redemption at the 49th annual Grammy Awards with five awards, including song, record and album of the year. Intense R&B singer Mary J.

In the wake of the Dixie Chicks' big night at the Grammy Awards, where they won three of the top four Grammys and all five for which they were nominated, much of the media coverage presented their Sunday sweep as purely a political statement by the music industry hubs of Los Angeles and New York City.

Country radio may be ready to make nice with the Dixie Chicks. The grudge dates back to 2003, when many country stations stopped playing the popular trio after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush. The Chicks' new single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," is now in rotation in several major markets, pushing it to No. 36 on Billboard's country singles chart after its first full week of airplay.

WARS are rarely won with words, but they usually begin with them. Natalie Maines was on a concert stage in England, more than 5,000 miles away from the cotton fields of Lubbock County, but the Lone Star state heard the hometown girl when she took a poke at President Bush. "Just so you know," the Dixie Chicks singer said, "we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

The Dixie Chicks' deeply personal new CD, "Taking the Long Way," appears solidly on track to enter the national sales chart at No. 1 next week with sales estimated to be somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 units, according to music industry projections based on the album's first-day sales.

After declaring themselves "Not Ready to Make Nice" with fans and radio programmers who had criticized the Dixie Chicks for a jab at President Bush on the eve of the war in Iraq, the controversial trio may be paying the price at the concert box office. Early sales of tickets have been so slow in several cities on the group's imminent Accidents & Accusations tour that the tour is being significantly revamped, resulting in the cancellation of some shows and the addition of others.

The Dixie Chicks and their camp will continue their struggle this week to figure out where their own Mason-Dixon Line lies on a map of America's arenas. The reason is that ticket sales for their upcoming road run, the Accidents & Accusations Tour, have not as gone as they expected; basically, in many Southern states and Midwest markets, the Chicks have not been forgiven for perceived political sins of the past.

The Dixie Chicks have changed their concert date at Staples Center to Nov. 24, part of a major shuffling and reduction of their Accidents & Accusations tour. Shows in 14 cities were deleted from the itinerary altogether, including previously announced stops in Houston, Kansas City, Mo., and Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn.

A new documentary on the backlash against the Dixie Chicks after critical remarks the group's lead singer made about President Bush has brought disharmony between the film's distributor and two TV networks. On Thursday, Weinstein Co. alleged that NBC and the CW had refused to air nationwide commercials to promote "Shut Up & Sing." Weinstein said NBC wrote that the network "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush."

THE DIXIE CHICKS are now officially an L.A. band. The trio started in Texas and soared to fame in Nashville but, after their well-documented odyssey through partisan politics, they were frozen out of the country music establishment, which denied them radio airplay and awards.