Music: At Lilith, it's Dixie Chicks minus one

At one of the

Court Yard Hounds

' recent stints on the female-artist-celebrating Lilith Tour (landing here Wednesday),

Emily Robison

decided to introduce a favorite tune as "a classic chicks' song."

Uh, maybe that was not the best turn-of-phrase to deploy?

"The audience started to roar in anticipation," shared Martie Maguire, Emily's sister and the other harmonizing voice and fiddling dynamo of the duo. "I'm sure they thought we were going into a Dixie Chicks song, not one of our favorites by Joni Mitchell." ("This Flight Tonight," as it turns out.)

As two-thirds of the Dixie Chicks, Martie and Emily are clearly counting on a large and friendly fan base coming out to greet them. Here, they're second billed on the 11-act cavalcade only to festival organizer Sarah McLachlan, slotted over up-and-comers like acoustic-guitar strummers Sara Bareilles and Missy Higgins, the bluesy rocking Serena Ryder and the highly theatrical, space-funk powerhouse Janelle Monae, a protege of OutKast and Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Yet at the same time, Martie and Emily are trying hard to distance themselves from their other musical group, at least for the time being, to establish a separate recording and touring life with the folksier, more intimate music of the Court Yard Hounds, which dropped its self-titled debut album in May.

So how's that all going so far?

"If I look out in the crowd and see maybe 20 people singing along to 'The Coast' [the perkiest tune from the CYH collection], I know we're getting some airplay from the local 'Triple A' [adult alternative album] station. That's the format that's interested in us," said Maguire. "To everyone else, to most people in the audience, we're a brand new band."

Unless you're from Mars, you know that the Dixie Chicks were the hottest thing in country music a few years ago, until the other third of the Texas-based triumvirate, outspoken lead singer Natalie Maines, declared one night in England that she was ashamed to hail from the same state as President George W. Bush and was set upon with a wicked (truly un-American) vengeance by the "my country right or wrong" crowd.

The Chicks were banned from country radio, their CDs burned and their concert attendance plummeted even though the 2006 album that came out of all that turmoil, "Taking the Long Way," was hailed by critics as one of their best and won them five Grammys.

Natalie retreated to her home in Hawaii; Emily and Martie went back to Texas, each to raise children. "But after four years of laying dormant, Emily and I were itching to make new music," said Maguire.

Martie went back into the studio "with a bunch of really hot bluegrass pickers and started recording an album of traditional fiddle tunes, which is now pretty much ready to go." Then Emily started sending over some of the autobiographically minded songs she was churning out, as a way of dealing with the breakup of her marriage to country singer/songwriter Charlie Robison.

"I told Emily the songs were too good for her to shop [to other artists], that we ought to try doing them ourselves, even though we never considered ourselves lead singers," Maguire recalls. But with the help of a favored producer and musicians, their duo sessions came out good enough to get the sisters a major label deal and now back on the road.

"We're working in a stripped-down fashion, with a smaller band and crew, basically breaking even. That's OK for a while. We're recharging our batteries."

Clearly, participating in the comeback of Lilith (no longer "Lilith Fair") after its 10-year layoff has also stepped up their enthusiasm for starting over.

"There's been a lot of talk about the ticket sales being down, shows being canceled, but the crowds seem big to me, very enthusiastic," said Maguire. "The lineup each night has been great and interesting, with lots of diversity, and there's always a local act [here, Pittsburgh-based Joy Ike] opening that's super excited.

"It's a very outspoken group of women. At the news conference before the shows, everybody has a statement to make, and it's very progressive. There's a lot of causes being espoused from the stage and on the fairgrounds. And the event feels very supportive. Because we all come out for the finale, there's no retreating to the bus after your set. Musicians are hanging out, watching each other perform."

"And this isn't just for women," Maguire insisted. "The men are loving it, too. I see a lot of couples, men and women, in the crowd. And there are so many men in the bands, I forget this is a 'women's' music festival."

2010 Lilith Tour, Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, 3 p.m. Wednesday, $107.25-$37.75 (lawn), $18.75 (4-pack lawn, individually), 800-745-3000, www.livenation.com.