Martha "Martie" Elenor Erwin (before Maguire; born October 12, 1969) is an American musician who is a founding member of both the female alternative country band, Dixie Chicks and country blue grass duo, Court Yard Hounds. She won awards in national fiddle championships while still a teenager. Erwin is accomplished on several other instruments, including the mandolin, viola, double bass and guitar. She has written and co-written a number of the band\'s songs, some 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.\n', '

Erwin learned several instruments at a young age, honing her skills with her younger sister, Emily Strayer (born Emily Erwin) and two schoolmates (a brother and sister team, Troy and Sharon Gilchrist) for over five years as a part of a touring bluegrass quartet while in high school. After graduation, the sisters forged an alliance with two other women they had met 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 Natalie Maines, the band widened their musical repertoire 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, and awards that have set records in the music industry. Erwin subsequently stood by her bandmates as they were engulfed in political controversy.\n', '

Martha Elenor Erwin, nicknamed Martie, was born October 12, 1969, in York, Pennsylvania, to Barbara Trask and Paul Erwin. She was raised in Addison, a northern suburban town on the edge of Dallas, Texas. She has an elder sister, Julia Erwin-Weiner, born in 1967, her younger sister and band member Emily Strayer, born in 1972 and younger half-brother, R&B singer Ian Davis, born in 1996.\n', '

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