The Chicks re-release their wonderful 2026 ‘comeback’ album on triple vinyl and streaming platforms, with extra tracks and demos.
In 2006, after a four-year break (ostensibly for family and parenting reasons), The Dixie Chicks, as they were then named before dropping Dixie from their name in response to the association of the word with historical slavery in the US, released Taking the Long Way. The album was hugely successful and won 5 Grammys, every one for which they were nominated. Who knows why this was so, but it may well have been that, with their seventh album, they moved away somewhat from the bluegrassy country albums of the past, into the realms of country rock and what has now become known as Americana. Produced by the esteemed and multi-genre producer Rick Rubin, the acoustic guitar, fiddle, violin, mandolin and banjo sound that had dominated previous albums was enhanced by some roots heavy hitters such as Mike Campbell, John Mayer, Gary Louris and Jonny Polonsky on electric guitars, Larry Knechtel and Benmont Tench on piano and other keys, Steve Berlin with horn arrangements and so on. The expansive sound, perhaps rather more polished than critics were used to, met with a broadly positive response, although some felt that the fiery edge of their music, for it was interpreted as a somewhat angry album, was dissipated by the production gloss. Fans, however, lapped it up and it topped, or very nearly topped, many of the world’s album charts. The angry part of the album was most exemplified by its most famous track Not Ready to Make Nice, a kickback against the negative response to a comment made by lead singer Natalie Maines at a London concert in 2023, immediately after the decision by George Bush to go to war as a consequence of the 9/11 Twin Towers bombing; she spoke of the band’s shame that Bush came from Texas, where the Chicks also came from.
The negative response was remarkable given that it was ‘just a comment’; radio stations stopped playing their records, some were burned in public, and critics felt that Maines had gone too far. The longest-lasting and most entrenched negativity came from the town of Lubbock in Texas, where Maines actually came from, and the track Lubbock or Leave it was something of a riposte. However, for all the attention that was paid to the two above-mentioned tracks, the album is an almost perfectly executed, finely paced piece of country rock with some pop and roots rock elements and some exploration into Celtic folk and gospel, such as I Hope (written in response to Hurricane Katrina), which ended the original album and has some wonderful organ, a soulful guitar solo (John Mayer) and great call-and-response vocals from the other Chicks, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison.
The biggest interests in this re-release will be a) listeners’ response to the album twenty years later, to assess whether it has aged well (it has), b) whether two of the 5 additional tracks which were not on the original album are a match for the original songs (they are). Thin Line is a mid-up tempo song with banjo in strong evidence, organ and mandolin to the fore in the outro and brilliant harmonies (as always with The Chicks), and Live Wire is a fast, rollicking song with a melange of instruments fighting towards a furious finish) c) what is the newly discovered track Flowers like. It’s the final track and is a beautiful, heartbreaking love song (produced by Linda Perry, so sounds a little different to the Rubin-produced tracks), with a very emotional reading by Maines and 60s-style wordless backing vocals; and d) what the two demo tracks are like compared with the originals. Not Ready to Make Nice has much less production and a less strident vocal which, with its acoustic guitar and fiddle instrumentation, makes the track more appealing and more effective than the album version. Similarly, So Hard, in its demo form, is a far more interesting track than the one that appeared on the original album, with some lovely gentler harmonies.
Listeners will have their favourites, and they’ll likely change from listen to listen. There is no filler on the album, but there are some highlights for these ears: Taking the Long Way kicks off with its slightly 60s sound, on a song that explores how the band responded and worked through the four ‘lost’ years between albums; Easy Silence is a great ballad that explores the difference between the public outcry and backlash and the private sanctuary granted by a loved one; Everybody Knows takes issue with living life under public scrutiny; the Celtic-feeling Bitter End has a stunning chorus; and Voice in My Head is almost a power pop ballad about choices made in the past. The aforementioned Flowers is a really excellent addition to the original album, even if the sound is less pop-rock oriented than the original album. But of the two standouts, one is the demo version of Not Ready to Make Nice, softer, as discussed above, than the album version and Lullaby, track six on the album, a beautiful and emotional ballad about unconditional love and maternal devotion, which takes the album in a different direction.
All in all, it’s great to return to this album, and the extra tracks are well worth it and should sound wonderful on vinyl.
