The Chicks
Formed in Dallas in 1989 as a bluegrass-rooted busking quartet, the group — fronted since 1995 by Natalie Maines alongside sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer — became country music's best-selling all-woman act, with Wide Open Spaces (1998) and Fly (1999) both reaching diamond certification. Known until 2020 as the Dixie Chicks, the trio combined virtuosic bluegrass instrumentation with pointed, often controversial songwriting, and dropped "Dixie" from their name amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests over the word's associations with slavery.
The band's founding members started out busking as a bluegrass string act, and they have named Bill Monroe, the genre's founding figure, among the traditional artists they drew on for that early acoustic sound.
listen forPlay "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and listen to the driving mandolin and high, close harmonies, then put on "Cowboy Take Me Away" — the Chicks keep that same string-band interplay and vocal blend, just built for a country-radio chorus.
The Chicks have named Bob Wills, the architect of western swing, among their musical influences — audible in the fiddle-driven, dance-hall energy that runs through their more uptempo, twangy songs.
listen forPlay "New San Antonio Rose" and hear the swinging fiddle lead pushing the groove, then put on "White Trash Wedding" — the Chicks lean on that same rollicking, fiddle-forward western-swing feel.
As a bluegrass- and folk-steeped string band, the Chicks work in a lineage that traces directly back to the Carter Family's close vocal harmony and acoustic picking, the foundational sound of American country and bluegrass music.
listen forListen to the plain, tightly blended harmony singing on "Wildwood Flower," then play "Wide Open Spaces" — the Chicks carry that same close-harmony vocal tradition into a fuller, radio-ready country-pop arrangement.