from PR Newswire on prnewswire.com

Nearly a decade ago, 13-time Grammy Award® and 10-time CMA Award winners the Dixie Chicks became the first (and to date, only) female group in music history to earn two consecutive diamond album certifications by the RIAA, for U.S. sales in excess of 10 million copies each of Wide Open Spaces (released 1998) and Fly (1999).  Joel Whitburn ranks the Dixie Chicks – singers, prolific songwriters, and multi-instrumentalists Martie Maguire, Emily Robison and Natalie Maines – among the Top 20 country acts of the '90s and '00s.  But the bigger story is their broad populist following across the U.S. and Canada, the UK and Australia, every point on the global compass where country music is played.

This widespread appeal resounds on THE ESSENTIAL DIXIE CHICKS, their first double-CD anthology, covering all four of their studio albums at SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.  In addition to a dozen album tracks and concert favorites, the 30-song set rounds up 18 of their two dozen-plus Billboard country chart hits.  Fourteen of these reached the Top 10, a blazing chart record over the course of just five years.  This collection includes all six of their #1 country hits: "There's Your Trouble," "Wide Open Spaces," "You Were Mine," "Cowboy Take Me Away," "Without You," and "Travelin' Soldier."  It arrives at all physical and digital retail outlets on October 26, 2010, through Open Wide/Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

"THE ESSENTIAL DIXIE CHICKS gave us the opportunity to put together a collection that spans our career so far," says Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks.  "It not only brings together our hit singles to date, but it also represents some of our favorite album tracks, which we still perform in concert.  As we move into our second decade with Sony Music, this package is dedicated to all our fans and supporters."

Putting the Dixie Chicks' life and times into historical perspective is a detailed 1,300 word liner notes essay written by Bob Mehr, music editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and contributing editor for the UK's MOJO magazine. "Exploding into the collective consciousness in the late-'90s, the group shook country music from its pre-millennial doldrums with the force of a gale," he writes.  "A veritable revolution wrapped in feather boas and fiddle, colorful camisoles and clawhammer banjo, the Dixie Chicks became an artistic, commercial, and cultural juggernaut of singular importance – first in country, and eventually far beyond."

This widespread appeal resounds on THE ESSENTIAL DIXIE CHICKS, their first double-CD anthology, covering all four of their studio albums at SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.  In addition to a dozen album tracks and concert favorites, the 30-song set rounds up 18 of their two dozen-plus Billboard country chart hits.  Fourteen of these reached the Top 10, a blazing chart record over the course of just five years.  This collection includes all six of their #1 country hits: "There's Your Trouble," "Wide Open Spaces," "You Were Mine," "Cowboy Take Me Away," "Without You," and "Travelin' Soldier."  It arrives at all physical and digital retail outlets on October 26, 2010, through Open Wide/Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

"THE ESSENTIAL DIXIE CHICKS gave us the opportunity to put together a collection that spans our career so far," says Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks.  "It not only brings together our hit singles to date, but it also represents some of our favorite album tracks, which we still perform in concert.  As we move into our second decade with Sony Music, this package is dedicated to all our fans and supporters."

Putting the Dixie Chicks' life and times into historical perspective is a detailed 1,300 word liner notes essay written by Bob Mehr, music editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and contributing editor for the UK's MOJO magazine. "Exploding into the collective consciousness in the late-'90s, the group shook country music from its pre-millennial doldrums with the force of a gale," he writes.  "A veritable revolution wrapped in feather boas and fiddle, colorful camisoles and clawhammer banjo, the Dixie Chicks became an artistic, commercial, and cultural juggernaut of singular importance – first in country, and eventually far beyond."

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