December 24, 2023

"Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country music group the Dixie Chicks, died in a car crash on Friday.... She was 65...."

I'm reading the New York Times obituary, which does not update the famous name "The Dixie Chicks" to the revised version of the name — "The Chicks" — that I'm seeing in some, but not all, other publications. We are told in paragraph 4 that the band is "now known as The Chicks," and Lynch left the group in 1995, long before the name change.

24 comments:

Marcus Carman said...

She was kicked out because she wasn't "cool" enough.

tim in vermont said...

It’s funny how all of the people who opposed the neocon war in Iraq and supported the Dixie Chicks in that falderal, now support the neocon war in Ukraine unblinkingly. I, to my shame, supported the Iraq War, and spent many years after that trying to understand how I had let myself be so deceived. The Dixie Chicks were right.

wild chicken said...

She's the one they replaced. It worked for them, commercially, but I always hated that about them.

RIP

Will Cate said...

...in fact, she left the group before they even had a recording contract.

rhhardin said...

Natalie Maines apparently replaced her, at which point the group took off. Imus spent time trying to sow discord in the group, Natalie being the one who could belt a song out. Father Lloyd Maines was an important country music guy. Natalie, Imus said, would be thinking she should be a solo act without the other two holding her back.

I don't know any of the original group songs. Cowboy Take Me Away is great but after she left.

narciso said...

So she was stuart sutcliffe

Steve said...

When Youseph Islam Dies you can bet the headline will say Cat Stevens.

Is this like Dead Naming? Muhammad Ali hated it when people called him his birth name. Not sure how Lew Alcindor felt.

Big Mike said...

65 is a bit old to call yourself a “chick.”

Eva Marie said...

This part of her bio intrigued me:
“Lynch was . . . married to lottery winner Mac Tull, who was an old family friend. They became reacquainted after meeting at an open house and were married in 1997, the pair would go on to have a daughter called Asia.”
He had won 26.8 million dollars the previous August.
Looks like she had a very happy life. RIP

cassandra lite said...

“…Lynch left the group in 1995, long before the name change.”

I laugh and then weep every time I read that Caitlyn Jenner won the 1972 Olympics gold medal for the decathlon.

richlb said...

I was thinking about how to deal with the name change of this and Lady Antebellum recently. If you talk to someone about the song "Peace Train" do you call it a Cat Stevens song? What about Richard Bachman books - it's really Stephen King.

planetgeo said...

"Chicksy Dix" would be a great name for a transfemale rock band.

Joe Smith said...

Talk about destroying a brand.

Disney could take a hint but they won't...

Also, obligatory, "Today they'd be named "Chicks with Dix."

Mike Yancey said...

Yeah, that was a real gut punch reading that yesterday. She was a very sweet person but also had a very strong, west Texas character. I just thought she was gorgeous.

I met her in 1992, when the (Original) Chicks were busking and performing wherever their little van could take them. A friend got me on the Artfest ‘92 (in Dallas) entertainment committee so we made sure they were the featured artist that year.

Their first three albums were the ‘original’ Chicks. Their sweet harmony and heartfelt old-style country songs were different, and I think everyone knew that wasn’t going mainstream even though we’d sure like to have see it. Robin Lynn Macy left first, and I think she’d written a few of their songs. Laura became the lead singer and kept it going another few months. But the twins Martie and Emilie wanted to go big, and they merged with Natalie Maines who had the connections to go mainstream and Laura Lynch was out.

I never cared for the subsequent group. Interestingly Wikipedia doesn’t mention the Maines ‘Bush/Iraq’ comment, or address the album gap between 2006 and 2020.

Robin Lynn Macy had been performing in groups (Domestic Science Clun, Big Twang) , she runs an Arboretum in Kansas. Laura Lynch married a lottery winner and disappeared into quiet family life in west Texas.

Joe Bar said...

What an awful way to end. I suppose there are no good ways.

mikee said...

When I saw the news scroll about her death on the bottom of the screen this morning while watching a report about Gaza, I repeated it aloud to my wife. "Founding member of The Chicks dead in a car crash." A moment later my wife, sitting to my side, said, "Yes, Laura Lynch."

I was very impressed she knew the name (I didn't) until I looked over and saw her reading off her phone. Having all the knowledge in the world at your fingertips, or at least a large portion of it, is amazing.

Mike Yancey said...

Here's a photo of the Original Dixie Chicks from 'those times' back in 1992.

Here are a few "Original" Dixie Chicks songs you might find, after scrolling past the eleven million "Founder killed in car crash" news stories.

"West Texas Wind"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_PPGeB14qg
Very similar to a Nancy Griffith sound.

"Thunderheads", also co-written by Robin Lynn Macy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZg5keBYSg

"Shouldn'a Told You That", Laura Lynch lead singer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQnileLrdw


Big Mike said...

Reading the story of Laura Lynch made me recall Pete Best. He seems to have been a fairly competent drummer, but the Beatles didn’t take off until he was replaced by Ringo.

Jim at said...

The Dixie Chicks were right.

No. They weren't.

Taking the side of a butcher like Saddam Hussein - who invaded his neighbor and then violated the 1991 ceasefire countless times (to no response from Clinton) - is never the 'right' move.

M Jordan said...

The Dixie Chicks were wrong about Bush/Iraq according to the former me. The present me says they were totally right. The future me will probably call it a toss up.

But anyone who criticizes George W. Bush has the present Me’s strong support.

Wince said...

She was older than Clara Blandick, who was 63 when she played Aunt ‘Em in the Wizard of Oz.

Robert Cook said...

"It’s funny how all of the people who opposed the neocon war in Iraq and supported the Dixie Chicks in that falderal, now support the neocon war in Ukraine unblinkingly."

Don't count me in that number. I opposed the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) and I oppose our proxy war in Ukraine.

Robert Cook said...

"Taking the side of a butcher like Saddam Hussein - who invaded his neighbor and then violated the 1991 ceasefire countless times (to no response from Clinton) - is never the 'right' move."

A butcher Hussein was, and he was our butcher for many years. In 1990 our Ambassador April Glaspie told Hussein in a face to face meeting that the US had "no opinion" about his problem with Kuwait (who were slant-drilling into Iraq's oil fields, stealing their oil), leaving Hussein to believe (inadvertently or purposely) that he had our "OK" to do as he wished in resolving the dispute, including military action. I think we gulled him into thinking that to create a "legitimate" reason to attack Iraq. Why would we want that? There is debate about that, but some propose the US wanted to impose US hegemonic power over the region.

After Hussein had attacked Kuwait and we expressed our ire, threatening to attack Iraq, Hussein offered to withdraw his forces, with certain conditions attached, but Bush rejected his offer outright and we continued with our planned attack. This gives further cause to surmise the US purposely maneuvered Hussein into attacking Kuwait so we would have rationale to move in and assert our power in the region.

Most Americans were unaware Hussein had offered to withdraw, because it was only reported in (I believe) two or three newspapers in the US. One of the was Newsday, published on Long Island, and the paper I was reading daily at the time. I remember reading about Hussein's offer when they published the story, and before we commenced our attack on Iraq.

Robert Cook said...

This appears to be a dead discussion, but just to memorialize with more details (for those interested) my brief comment above--re: America's refusal to consider Hussein's offer to withdraw from Kuwait in order to avoid a military assault on Iraq by the US--I have provided Noam Chomsky's description of events, published at the time.