Once-shunned Dixie Chicks get 5 Grammys

Early in the Grammys show Sunday night, the Dixie Chicks defiantly sang they were “still waiting” to make nice after the uproar that greeted Natalie Maines’ negative comments about President Bush in 2003. At least they got some satisfaction by evening’s end: The Chicks, who had been shut out of other recent country music awards shows, took home five trophies. “For the first time in my life I’m speechless,” Maines said.

The evening also belonged to a woman whose 15-year wait to be not just the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul but the queen of music’s biggest awards night was over – a difficult, street-tough diva who, as she said again and again in her acceptance speeches, has learned to make nice: Mary J. Blige.

“I want to use this success to build bridges, not to burn them,” Blige said as she accepted the award for best female R&B vocal performance, one of three trophies she took home from L.A.’s Staples Center for songs from her appropriately named album, “The Breakthrough.”

Other multiple award winners at the 49th annual Grammys were the Red Hot Chili Peppers (three, all in categories not presented on the CBS telecast), John Mayer (two), and Justin Timberlake (two).

The Chicks set an unusually outspoken tone for a show known for either genteel musicianship or grand productions. They weren’t alone: songman John Legend sang “Coming Home,” a piano ballad about a soldier. The alternative soul duo Gnarls Barkley performed their haunting ballad “Crazy” to a martial beat while wearing flight uniforms that seemed to be an homage to the film “United 93,” especially when Cee-Lo sang, “My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on the limb.”

It was a vindication for the Chicks, who have been largely shut out of country radio since ‘03. But if Grammy voters delivered a message to country conservatism, they simultaneously embraced the music, honoring not just the Chicks but Carrie Underwood, the ‘05 “American Idol” winner who was named best new artist.

The show started with the reunion of the Police singing their ‘78 hit “Roxanne.” It was the first time the group had played together in two decades.