Martie Maguire

About Martie Maguire

Martie Maguire is an American songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and a founding member of the multiple Grammy Award-winning female alternative country band the Dixie Chicks. She is a master fiddler, having won awards in National fiddle championships while still a teenager. In addition to the fiddle, Maguire is accomplished on several other instruments including the mandolin, viola, acoustic bass, and guitar. She has written and co-written a generous number of the band's songs, many of which have become chart-topping hits. She also contributes her skills in vocal harmony and backing vocals, as well as orchestrating string arrangements for the band.

Maguire learned several instruments at a young age, honing her instrumental skills with her sister, Emily Robison (neé Emily Erwin), by playing together with two other schoolmates for over five years as a part of a high school touring bluegrass quartet. After graduation, the two forged an alliance with two other women they had known through the Dallas music scene; Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy, forming a bluegrass and country music band, busking and touring the bluegrass festival circuits for six years. After the departure of Macy, and the replacement of Lynch with singer-songwriter Natalie Maines, the band widened their musical repetoire and appearance. The result was a trio so commercially successful that it took the country music industry by surprise, with a number of hit songs, albums, awards and industry recognition that has set new records.

In 2003, lead vocalist Natalie Maines made a disparaging remark about United States President George W. Bush. This, on the eve of the United States' invasion of Iraq lost half of their North American fan base, with boycotts of their albums and the refusal of country music stations to play their songs. Maguire and Robison supported Maines for exercising her constitutional right to freedom of speech despite death threats verified by the FBI and Texas Rangers, and predictions of the end of the band. The Chicks toured overseas, and worked with Rick Rubin, who has become famous in the music industry in revitalizing and transforming artists' careers. The Dixie Chicks produced a "comeback" album; the first completely written or co-written by the trio, with a change in sound from primarily bluegrass and country music to one adding a larger measure of blues, folk, and rock music in their songs. It won five Grammy Awards in 2007, earning the band new respect, a feeling of vindication, and a somewhat different crossover fan base. The Dixie Chicks continue to be one of the most controversial, yet highest selling bands in history.