The Chicks (previously the Dixie Chicks) are an American country music band from Dallas, Texas. Since 1995, the band has consisted of Natalie Maines (lead vocals, guitar) and sisters Martie Maguire (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and Emily Strayer (vocals, guitar, banjo, Dobro). Maguire and Strayer, both née Erwin, founded the band in 1989 in Dallas, Texas, with bassist Laura Lynch and vocalist and guitarist Robin Lynn Macy. They performed bluegrass and country music, busking and touring the bluegrass festival circuits and small venues for six years without attracting a major label. In 1992, Macy left and Lynch became the lead vocalist.
Upon signing with Monument Records Nashville in 1997 and replacing Lynch with Maines, the Dixie Chicks achieved success with their albums Wide Open Spaces (1998) and Fly (1999). After Monument closed its Nashville branch, the Dixie Chicks moved to Columbia Records for Home (2002). These albums achieved multi-platinum sales in the United States, Canada, and Australia, along with several charting singles on the American Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. "There's Your Trouble", "Wide Open Spaces", "You Were Mine", "Cowboy Take Me Away", "Without You", and a cover of Bruce Robison's "Travelin' Soldier" reached number one. The Dixie Chicks also reached number one on the Adult Contemporary chart with their 2002 cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide".
Days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Maines told a London audience that the Dixie Chicks did not endorse the war and were ashamed of US President George W. Bush being from Texas. The remarks triggered boycotts in the US and a backlash from fans. After a hiatus, the Dixie Chicks released Taking the Long Way in 2006, an album informed by the backlash. "Not Ready to Make Nice" became their biggest crossover single, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100. After another hiatus, Maguire and Strayer released an album in 2009 as the Court Yard Hounds. The Dixie Chicks reunited to tour in the 2010s. In 2020, they removed "Dixie" from their name, citing negative connotations, and released their first album in 14 years, Gaslighter.
The Chicks have won 13 Grammy Awards, including five in 2007 for Taking the Long Way, which received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and its single "Not Ready to Make Nice", which received the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. By July 2020, with 33 million certified albums sold and sales of 27.9 million albums in the US, the Chicks had become the best-selling all-woman band and best-selling country group in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era (1991–present).
History
1989–1995: Original bluegrass group
The Chicks were founded as the Dixie Chicks by Laura Lynch on upright bass, Robin Lynn Macy on guitar and the multi-instrumentalist sisters Martie and Emily Erwin in 1989. The Erwin sisters later married and both changed their names twice (Martie to Martie Seidel, then Martie Maguire; Emily to Emily Robison, then Emily Strayer). The band name was taken from the album Dixie Chicken by Lowell George of Little Feat. They initially played predominantly bluegrass and a mix of country standards. All four women played and sang, though Maguire and Strayer provided most of the instrumental accompaniment for the band while Lynch and Macy shared lead vocals. Maguire primarily played fiddle, mandolin, and viola, while Strayer's specialties included five-stringed banjo and dobro.
In 1990, Penny Cook, the daughter of the senator John Tower, gave the Dixie Chicks $10,000 to record an album. Their first studio album, Thank Heavens for Dale Evans, was named after the pioneering performer Dale Evans. They paid $5,000 for the 14-track album. It included two instrumentals. In 1987, Maguire (still known then as Martie Erwin) had won second place, and in 1989, third place in the national fiddle championships held at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. A Christmas single was released at the end of the year – a 45 RPM vinyl record titled Home on the Radar Range with "Christmas Swing" on one side and the song on the flip side named "The Flip Side". The record titles were significant; during that period of time, the bandmates dressed up as "cowgirls", and publicity photos reflected this image. However, even with an appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, and Garrison Keillor's radio show A Prairie Home Companion, they did not get much national airplay.
The Dixie Chicks began building a fan base, winning the prize for "best band" at the 1990 Telluride Bluegrass Festival and opening for established country music artists, including such names as Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, and George Strait.