Martie Maguire is an American musician best known for being one of the founding members of the ‘alternative country’ music band Dixie Chicks. She is also acclaimed for setting up a Bluegrass band Court Yard Hounds with her younger sister Emily Robison Strayer. Martie was instinctively drawn towards music as a child and started taking violin lessons when she was only five. Receiving fiddle lessons as a gift on her 12th birth anniversary, she attempted to master several stringed instruments including acoustic guitar, double bass, viola, and the mandolin with Emily. She even tried her hand in composing songs, setting the score for her composed tracks, and lending her vocals to them. She participated in a string of national fiddle competitions as a teenager and won numerous awards as well. While she was in school, she created a bluegrass band, ‘Blue Night Express’ with her classmates, Sharon and Troy Gilchrist, and Emily, and the group performed for more than five years. Martie and Emily teamed up with Robin Lynn Macy and Laura Lynch to create an alternative country and bluegrass crew, ‘Dixie Chicks’. After the departure of Macy and Lynch, Emily and Martie established the folk and country music duo, ‘Court Yard Hounds’. She has won countless awards as a Dixie Chick member, including the most coveted ‘Grammy’.