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Few of the millions and millions of people who bought the Dixie Chicks' major label debut Wide Open Spaces knew that the band had already been together for almost a decade, playing the folk and Bluegrass circuit. The band was started by championship fiddle player Martie Seidel and her banjo playing sister Emily Irwin. They went through a succession of lead singers before settling on Natalie Maines in the late 1990s. Maines' country pedigree includes her father Lloyd Maines, a legendary pedal steel guitarist and record producer who has produced and played with Uncle Tupelo, Richard Buckner and Joe Ely. The group dropped some of their Bluegrass trappings in favor of a more conventional New Country sound; their debut for the major label Monument rocketed to the top of the charts, as has their follow-up Fly. |