Natalie Maines recorded Free Life as tribute to West Memphis Three
Dixie Chicks star Natalie Maines included a cover of Dan Wilson's Free Life on her new solo album as a tribute to former incarcerated West Memphis Three member Damien Echols and his wife Lorri.
The singer was one of the leading celebrity campaigners fighting for the release of the three Arkansas men imprisoned for the murders of three boy scouts in 1993.
Echols, who was sentenced to death in 1994, and friends Jessie
Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin were released in 2011 after
serving 18 years behind bars for a crime most people - including
Maines and Pearl Jam star Eddie Vedder - believe they did not
commit.
The singer admits Wilson's anthem has meant a lot to her ever since
the day her friend Echols won his freedom.
She tells The Hollywood Reporter, "That song is about the West
Memphis Three. The words, to me, speak to their first year of
freedom. I sang that song at a rally for them in Arkansas when they
were still in prison, and Damien Echols' wife Lorri said she
listened to the board tape of that song every day until his
release. So I put that song on there for her and for them, and to
speak to that time of my life.
"The day they got released was the greatest day of my life. I hate
to say even more than the birth of my children. Don't tell them
that! But it's something else to witness people get their lives
back after 18 years of false imprisonment."
The West Memphis Three didn't win their freedom outright with
pardons - Echols, Miskelley, Jr. and Baldwin had to enter Alford
pleas, which allowed them to assert their innocence while
acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict
them, before they were released. They were freed with 10-year
suspended sentences.