The Dixie Chicks
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: Country Music's top band
two years running.
 It's
been said too many times about too many people, but for
once it's true: the Dixie Chicks are one of a kind. Since
exploding onto the national country music scene just three
years ago, the Texas-by-way-of-Nashville trio has won
millions of fans and an avalanche of awards and critical
acclaim. Blending bluegrass skills, pop accessibility,
rock beats and stone country music with a brash,
irreverent attitude, the Chicks have created a fresh new
sound that's instantly recognizable and always engaging.
 Tracing
their roots back to the days when Emily Robison and Martie
Maguire sang on the streets of Dallas, the Chicks took
flight when feisty Natalie Maines came on board,
complementing the sisters' formidable prowess as singers -
and pickers - with what one critic called "one of the
most powerful voices in the business." Framing Maines'
stunning vocals with elegant harmonies and plenty of
banjo, fiddle and dobro, the Chicks' debut CD, Wide Open
Spaces, took the country music world by storm in 1998,
earning the group top awards, including a Grammy for
Country Album Of The Year, and selling more than 11
million copies - the best performance by a debut album in
the history of country music. Their follow-up, Fly,
released in late 1999, proved that the trio was no one-hit
wonder, as it reaped an even greater harvest of honors,
including more Grammys and the Country Music Association's
marquee award, Entertainer of the Year.
 Yet
as spectacularly as the Dixie Chicks' recordings have been
received, their brilliance in the studio has found a
counterpart on stage. Their reputation as adept musicians
and spectacular performers led them from sharing the stage
with country music's finest on the George Strait Country
Music Festival and the Tim McGraw tour to being
enthusiastically welcomed by pop audiences while playing
alongside Sara McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks and
others on the 1999 Lilith Fair tour as well as the
televised "Sheryl Crow & Friends Live From
Central Park" event.
Their "Fly" tour of 2000 saw audiences around
the country flocking to catch the dynamic trio in action -
and in a departure from the country music norm, they were
as likely to include young girls dressed as their favorite
Chick as they were adults. "Chicks Rule!" and
"Chicks Kick Ass!" were the slogans of choice as
the group not only delivered their own irresistible hits
but introduced fans to friends and influences such as
Willie Nelson, Ricky Scaggs and Patty Griffin. And the
trio lived up to the shouts. When the tour came to a
triumphant close, shortly after the broadcast of their own
NBC concert special, it had become the biggest of the year
by a single country headlining act.
With a unique combination of respect for country's musical
traditions and an unwillingness to be bound by its social
ones, it's natural that the Chicks have earned recognition
far beyond the genre. Profiled - and acclaimed -
everywhere from 60 Minutes with Dan Rather to the pages of
USA Today Entertainment Weekly, and Rolling Stone, with TV
appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, the
Tonight Show, the Rosie O'Donnell Show, the prestigious
Sessions at W. 54th series and many more, it's no
exaggeration to say that the Dixie Chicks are among the
foremost - and most provocative - ambassadors country
music has today.
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