People talk 03/24/03

Host wants to send message to Dixie Chicks

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Talk radio host Mike Gallagher is proposing an alternative concert to a May 1 show by the Dixie Chicks, under fire for lead singer Natalie Maines' criticism of President Bush.

There's just one small problem: Gallagher doesn't have an act, though he said he's talking with some well-known country acts.

"I think people are so upset about the Dixie Chicks that if I have to get a banjo and stand up there on stage and sing 'On Top of Old Smokey' people will stand up and cheer," he said. "They don't care."

Gallagher, whose program is syndicated nationwide, said he'll donate all proceeds from the concert to military families from South Carolina. And anyone with a ticket to the Dixie Chicks' gig gets in for free.

"Obviously, this is designed to send a message that it's not OK to run down our president during this time of war," he said. "They insulted their core audience. Country music fans are red-blooded, patriotic Americans who support our military and support our commander in chief."

Maines upset many of the trio's fans when she told a London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

She apologized a few days later.

McGraw fans get two shows for price of one

PONTIAC, Mich. -- More than two hours on stage wasn't enough for Tim McGraw.

The country superstar played a concert Friday night in Auburn Hills, then teamed up with Kid Rock for a two-hour charity gig in nearby Pontiac.

About 400 people showed up for the impromptu show, announced on local radio while McGraw was on his concert stage.

Fans paid $20 each for admission, snapped up $10 T-shirts and and forked over money to have McGraw sing their requests. All the money -- $9,000 to $10,000 -- went to the Red Cross.

Among the requests were McGraw's "Sing Me Home," "Tickin' Away," "Illegal" and "Watch the Wind Blow."

Kid Rock joined in for Bob Seger's "The Fire Down Below," then brought three members of his Twisted Brown Trucker Band on stage for a set that included a medley of the Allman Brothers Band's "Midnight Rider," his own "Cowboy" and Waylon Jennings' "Good Ol' Boys."

Folk singer refuses to perform during war

MADISON, Wis. -- Folk singer Iris DeMent stunned 600 people at Madison's Barrymore Theater by taking to the stage and announcing she could not perform while war raged.

"It would be trivializing the fact that my tax dollars are causing great suffering and sending a message to the world that might is right," DeMent told the crowd Friday night.

DeMent said she had struggled over her decision for hours in her dressing room. Opening act Greg Trooper had already performed when she told the audience she could not sing.

Some audience members stood and applauded, but a few grumbled in the lobby afterward as they waited for refunds.

"I think it's the most courageous thing. I don't want my money back. Absolutely not," said Patty Allen, 51, who has seen DeMent at least three times in Madison and has traveled to New Orleans for a show.

"I think it's kind of a cop-out, really," said George Robertson, 43, who drove 80 miles from Milwaukee to see DeMent. "Her songs deal with a lot of personal things. If she can sing about all that stuff that has happened in her life, she can sing tonight."

Promoter Tag Evers said he wished DeMent had made her decision a couple of days earlier.

"I'm not mad. I even clapped," he said. "But I think she could have done more good by singing than not singing."

Lithgow braves blizzard to help Reeve

VAIL, Colo. -- A little thing like a blizzard couldn't keep actor John Lithgow from raising money for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

He simply had to take a slight detour -- through Texas -- to get from his home in Los Angeles to this ski resort town.

Last week's snowstorm shut down the Denver airport so he had to plot an alternate route, flying through Dallas and eventually landing at Eagle, about 30 miles west of Vail. He arrived in plenty of time to play host to the foundation's "Hope in Motion" weekend.

"Chris asked me personally to come and I couldn't say yes fast enough. I found out early on that Denver was going to be a hopeless case so I got rerouted to the Eagle airport," Lithgow said Saturday in a telephone interview from Vail.

"Chris has turned tragedy into a story of triumph. I hadn't talked to him for a couple of years when he called. The difference is amazing. His voice is getting so much stronger," he said.

This was the fifth year for "Hope in Motion," which has raised more than $1 million to support research on spinal cord injury paralysis.

-- From wire reports