In one corner stands Toby Keith: the all-man, loud-mouth king of macho country-western.
In the other stand the Dixie Chicks: the feminist, liberal, tattooed trio of bad-girl princesses in a genre that loves tough women but not left-wing politics.
The Chicks are wounded but still flying after the trio's feisty lead singer Natalie Maines delivered an anti-war sound bite dissing President Bush at a London concert last spring.
Keith - who became a favorite of supporters of military action with the song "The Angry American," which promised revenge in blunt working-class terms to anyone who messes with the "Red, White and Blue" - led the charge against Maines for her comment.
A feud between the Chicks and Keith has been simmering ever since. In May, the country-music establishment - or at least the audience at the Academy of Country Music Awards show - booed the Chicks at every mention of their name. A defiant Maines wore a T-shirt cryptically aiming a four-letter barb at Keith during performances in a satellite hookup from Austin. Keith punched back hard in an ABC interview the following day, all but accusing Maines of treason.
Even without the Iraq war brouhaha, a rivalry between Keith and the Chicks was inevitable. While country music these days is rife with talent, the Chicks and Keith tower above the field. With Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson meandering into the sunset, the Chicks and Keith are Brobdingnagians in Lilliput.
And countryland is lucky to have these two opposing towers of genius, who contrast on several levels. Masculine vs. feminine is obvious. Liberal vs. conservative - or, if you wish, pinko vs. redneck - makes for even more compelling copy.
But that's not what makes this budding rivalry so potentially rich and rewarding: The Chicks and Keith, in very different ways, capture the heart-pounding rhythms, the humor and tragedy that have been the heart of country music through the decades - but less so recently, as crossing over to the pop charts has become a goal. And more than any of the current crop of country stars, they transcend the profit motive to create real art in a popular genre. Through their contrasting styles and goals, they just may end up pushing each other to even greater accomplishments.
Keith's from Oklahoma and grew up in the midst of oil fields and wheat fields, where boys play football for keeps, drive hot rods, guzzle the hard stuff when they can get it, go to church on Sunday and break out the fists for Mama and country.
The Chicks hail from Texas - not Larry McMurtry's small-town, dust-blown Texas, but glitzy prep-school Dallas, in a sheltered enclave where Latin finals are as important as the football game. For one, there was even a stop at Berklee College of Music in Boston, of all places; ask her about polyrhythms or a plagal cadence and she'll know what you're talking about.
Not Keith. Keith is an instinctive musician, and a naturally gifted singer who, given a different twist of the path, would probably have sung at the Metropolitan Opera House. He's what opera folks call a lyric baritone, with a gorgeous native tone quality and a range that floats from the low bass into the edges of the tenor zone.
For the Chicks, the strong point is instrumental, represented by their always top-notch, sometimes astounding, picking and fiddling. Vocal quality is often willfully ugly, as in the stubbornly twangy "Tonight, the Heartache's on Me" or "Sin Wagon," where a purposely strident singer's tone is part of the message of bitterness and jealousy.
Indeed, irony and dark humor are at the core of the Chicks' art, captured in the miniature, masterful psychological portraits they create in most of their songs. Though jealousy, abuse and murder - a legacy of Appalachian and British folksong - have been part of country music since it first found its way out of the hills and onto the airwaves, it takes on, for the Chicks, a chilling coolness. A prime example is the little gem "Goodbye, Earl," in which two former small-town 4-H clubbers off an abusive husband and live happily ever after while operating a roadside stand - with the silent collaboration of a whole town. Are they taking themselves seriously? Of course not; they tread the fine line of self-satire and pathos that has also long been at the core of country music.
Double and triple irony abound in the Chicks' output. "Ready To Run" sets up a false mood of romance, backed by an Irish pipe-and-fiddle tune, before launching into a modern, working-girl oath to run from the first sign of love. Hidden deep in the double-digit tracks of the disc "Fly," "Hole in My Head" offers up the multi-layer dilemma of falling in love with a bad boy, knowing it's the wrong thing to do and doing it anyway, pushed along with a hard-hitting but still swingy beat that revels in savvy sexuality.
But they're not above admitting to true love now and then; the myth of the knight on the white horse takes a magnificent country-western update in "Cowboy, Take Me Away."
While sexual politics and the accompanying emotional turmoil are the most fruitful field for the Chicks, Keith moves in multiple directions, with mixed success.
There's Keith the standup comic, working with lyrics that Cole Porter would have envied - as in the delicious "I Wanna Talk About Me," in which a despairing husband or boyfriend (or maybe a shrink?) gives up on self-deprecation and collapses into a perpetual refrain of "Me, me, me, me, me ...," set to an irresistibly danceable shuffle beat. Though he generally steers clear of bold satire, Keith has shown that he's capable of country-Western irony in his early "Double Wide Paradise," a not-entirely tongue-in-cheek hymn to trailer-park romance.
Then there's Keith the lover, always hopelessly transparent and adamantly manly. Sometimes, he attaches that velvety baritone to seduction lyrics worthy of Sinatra. Sometimes he admits to hopeless masculine weakness for female wiles, as in the brilliantly executed "Pull My Chain," in which he likens himself to a big dog that's been tamed. And he creates a gently humorous vignette about a woman who wants a relationship meeting a man who wants a one-night stand in "I'm Just Talkin' About Tonight." (We'll let Keith's analyst worry about the fairly frequent occurrence of parent-child metaphors in his love songs, from the saucy "Who's Your Daddy" to the dreamily romantic "Rock You Baby.")
While he's masterful as a comic and a crooner, Keith, like most instinctive geniuses, has his weak spots - namely his tendency to exploit politics in his art. In "Beer for My Horses," Keith collaborates with another genius of country music, Willie Nelson, to create an embarrassing paean to capital punishment and vigilantism, equating all with manliness and alcohol: In the end, the good guys hang the bad before retiring to the saloon to get drunk on whiskey. Have two great artists ever created a worse travesty?
And therein lies the key to the difference in the Chicks and Keith. The ancient Greeks had words for it: "Apollonian," after the god who favored reason and intellect in art, and "Dionysian," after the god of wine, who favored right-brain, unconscious art. Maines' ill-advised political comment to the contrary, the Apollonian Chicks, when they're recording or performing, know exactly what they're doing. The southwestern accent is cultivated and conscious, the music is carefully chosen.
Dionysian Keith makes no plans; he opens his mouth and creates, in the studio, in the arena and in interviews. The Oklahoma twang is for real; he couldn't change it if he wanted to. Jingoism and patriotism are as much a part of his makeup as the dust and storms of western Oklahoma. No fancy music colleges for him; he learned his art listening to the radio and to his own heart.
Are they sincere in their feud?
For now, he probably really does hate the Chicks. The Chicks, reeling from a decrease in all-important play time thanks to a boycott by some radio stations, are probably really mad at Keith, too. Ultimately, the feud couldn't be better for country music, highlighting the two best acts in the business at exactly the right time. In an era when what we still call country music is increasingly urban and urbane, Keith and the Chicks are unmistakably country - and they're the best we've got.
Reach the reporter at wlgay@star-telegram.com.
©2003, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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