from Arts & Entertainment on philly.com

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."

(read full story on philly.com)