Dixie Chicks

Garth Brooks may have taken the Entertainer of the Year and Artist of the Decade honors, and Faith Hill collected the most awards (four), but last night's Academy of Country Music Awards were all about the Dixie Chicks. The spunky country trio, who swapped their Grammy-night trash vampire costumes in favor of fun-fun-fun Frederick's of Hollywood-ish pastel gowns, claimed three of the evening's biggest kudos: Album of the Year, Top Group and Top New Group. Nevermind that sister's Emily Erwin and Martie Seidel formed the group ten years ago; their time is now. "We'd be lying if we said we didn't really, really want this one," Erwin said as the girls collected their Album of the Year trophy. Singer Natalie Maines, who joined the Chicks as frontwoman in time to record their quintuple platinum breakthrough, Wide Open Spaces, summed up the moment with her characteristic, faux-Valley Girl Texan charm: "Oh...Mah...Gawd!" The Chicks have been collecting awards this year at a wholesale rate. At the Grammy Awards in February, they won Best Country Album for Wide Open Spaces and Best Country Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocal. At the 1998 Country Music Awards, they won the Vocal Group of the Year and the distinguished Horizon Award. In a Rollingstone.com interview last September, Maines, who is the daughter of noted steel guitar player/producer Lloyd Maines (Jerry Jeff Walker, Joe Ely, Uncle Tupelo), credited the group's Texas upbringing as playing a crucial role in their success. "The Texas music industry is very honest...you don't compromise things when it has to do with your soul or your belief," said the singer. "I think that's why we have the album that we have -- we stuck to our guns about a lot of stuff. We were ready to put up our dukes with Sony, and it turned out we didn't have to at all. They were sort of laughing at us because we thought they'd say we couldn't play on the album, and they were saying 'Well of course you can play on the album, that's why we're signing you -- because you *can* play on your album.'" Singer Faith Hill's four wins for the evening included Top Female Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year (for the ubiquitous "This Kiss"), Top Country Video of the Year ("This Kiss" again) and Top Vocal Event of the Year (for her duet with husband Tim McGraw on "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me"). Perhaps in the interest of maintaining family harmony, McGraw was named Male Vocalist of the Year. Other winners of note were: Steve Wariner (Song of the Year for "Holes in the Floor of the Heaven"), Mark Wills (Top New Male Vocalist) and Jo Dee Messina (Top New Female Vocalist). Glen Campbell was honored with a Pioneer Award. Noticeable non-winners (sort-of) were Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. Although Twain was acknowledged for her historic feat of being the first woman in music history to win two back-to-back Diamond Awards (for sales of 10 million albums), she lost out in Top Female Vocalist and Single of the Year. Brooks, who vocally deferred his Artist of the Decade recognition to George Strait and Reba McEntire, fell short of winning Album of the Year and Top Male Vocalist. RICHARD SKANSE(May 6, 1999)