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The Dixie Chicks are a multiple Grammy Award-winning country music group, composed of three women: Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines, and Emily Robison. They are the highest-selling female musical group in any genre, having sold over 36 million albums as of May 2008.

The group formed in 1989 in Dallas, Texas, and was originally composed of four women performing bluegrass and country music, busking and touring the bluegrass festival circuits and small venues for six years, without attracting a major label. After the departure of one bandmate, the replacement of their lead singer, and a slight change in their repertoire, the Dixie Chicks achieved massive country music and pop success, beginning in 1998 with hit songs like "Wide Open Spaces", "Cowboy Take Me Away", and "Long Time Gone". The women became well-known for their independent spirit, instrumental virtuosity, thoughtful song compositions, fierce loyalty, and outspoken comments on controversial subjects, including politics.

Ten days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Natalie Maines said "We don't want this war, this violence; and, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas", (the Dixie Chicks' home State). The ensuing controversy, by people who supported an invasion and war in Iraq, cost the group half of their concert audience attendance in the United States and led to charges of the three female bandmates being un-American and enduring hate mail, the destruction of their albums as a protest against the bandmates, terrorization, and death threats. As of 2008, they have won thirteen Grammy Awards, with five of them earned in 2007 including the coveted Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Taking The Long Way.