''Fly'' is the fifth studio album (second major label) by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

band

The Chicks The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) are an American country music band from Dallas, Texas. The band consists of Natalie Maines (lead vocals, guitar, bass guitar) and sisters Martie Maguire (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and Emily Strayer ...

, released on August 31, 1999 through

Monument Records Monument Records is an American record label co-founded in 1958 by Fred Foster. Originally founded in Washington, D.C., the label moved to Nashville in 1960, and experienced success over the next two decades with a number of artists including ...

. Compared to their previous album and breakthrough ''Wide Open Spaces'' (1998), the group had a stronger hand in writing, co-writing five of the fourteen tracks. The album was produced by Blake Chancey and

Paul Worley Paul Worley (born February 16, 1950 in Nashville) is an American record producer and session guitarist, known primarily for his work in country music. Formerly a vice president at Sony BMG, he later joined the staff of Warner Bros. Records' Nashv ...

, both of whom had already produced ''Wide Open Spaces''. The album was widely praised, even more so than their prior album and has been regarded as one of the best country albums of the '90s decade. The album was a massive commercial success for the group, debuting at the top of the

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a rec ...

and

Top Country Albums Top Country Albums is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. The 50-position chart lists the most popular country music albums in the country, calculated weekly by Broadcast Data Systems based on physical sales ...

with 341,000 copies sold first week, becoming the most successful country album of 2000 and making the group the first ever country group in history to debut at number one on the former chart. The album was also moderately successful internationally, debuting atop the Canadian country albums chart and peaking at number six on the

Canadian Albums Chart The ''Billboard'' Canadian Albums is the official record chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music according to certain criteria during a given ...

, while also peaking within the top 40 in the album charts in Australia, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Eight singles were released from ''Fly'', including the

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

number one hits " Cowboy Take Me Away" and " Without You", along with their then-highest charting entry on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, " Goodbye Earl", which peaked at number 19. Other successful hits from the record include country top ten hits " Ready to Run" from the ''Runaway Bride'' soundtrack, " Cold Day in July", " If I Fall You're Going Down with Me", and " Some Days You Gotta Dance", with the latter having been originally recorded by The Ranch for their only studio album. Original member

Keith Urban Keith Lionel Urban ( né Urbahn; 26 October 1967) is an Australian and American country singer, songwriter and guitarist. Recognised with four Grammy Awards, he has also received 15 Academy of Country Music Awards, including the Jim Reeves Int ...

plays guitar on the Dixie Chicks's version. The album earned four Grammy nominations in 2000:

Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance The Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. It was first awarded in 2012, after a major overhaul of Gram ...

for "Ready to Run", Best Country Album, Album of the Year, and Best Country Song also for "Ready to Run" and its two writers

Marcus Hummon Marcus Spencer Hummon (born December 28, 1960) is an American country music singer-songwriter. Notable songs written or co-written by Hummon include " Ready to Run" and " Cowboy Take Me Away", recorded by The Chicks; "Born to Fly", recorded by S ...

and member Martie Maguire (then Martie Seidel), with the group winning Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Album. On June 25, 2002, the album was certified

Diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

by the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

for selling ten million copies, making the Chicks the only country group to have two diamond albums after ''Wide Open Spaces''. In 2020, the album was ranked at 224 on ''Rolling Stone'''s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Commercial performance

''Fly'' debuted at number one on both the ''Billboard'' 200 and the

chart the week of September 18, 1999, selling 341,000 copies in its debut week, giving the Dixie Chicks the second biggest opening week for any country act in the 90's only behind

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American Country music, country singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him his immense popularity, particularly in the United States, ...

and the third overall in any week behind Brooks and

LeAnn Rimes Margaret LeAnn Rimes Cibrian (born August 28, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She originally rose to success as a country music artist at the age of 13 and has since crossed over into pop, contemporary Christian, and o ...

. ''Fly'' would go on to spend 131 weeks on the former chart, being the group's second consecutive album to spend more than two years on the chart after '' Wide Open Spaces'' (1998) spend 134 weeks. Internationally, the album performed decently well. ''Fly'' debuted at number six on the

and topped the ''RPM'' Canada Country Albums chart. The album was also successful in Australia, debuting the week of September 19, 1999 at its peak position of number 16 and spent eight weeks in total. The album performed poorly in the United Kingdom, where country music already isn't that popular. It debuted on September 11, 1999 at its peak position of number 38 and only spent five weeks on the chart in total. However, ''Fly'' performed much better in the UK's country albums chart, where it peaked at number two and would go on to spend 70 weeks in the top ten.

Track listing

Note Track 13 is unlisted on the back cover and disc, though it is listed as "Ain't No Thang But a Chicken Wang" in the booklet. On some pressings of the CD, "Heartbreak Town" lasts 3:47 on track 12 and fades into track 13, which plays the last six seconds of the song. On other pressings of the CD, track 12 lasts for the full 3:53 seconds, and track 13 contains no audio, only lasting for 0:01. Digital versions of the album remove the blank track completely, bumping "Let Him Fly" up to track 13.

Personnel

Compiled from liner notes. Dixie Chicks * Natalie Maines – lead vocals, background vocals, handclapping * Emily Robison – acoustic guitar,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

, background vocals,

dobro Dobro () is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a gui ...

, handclapping,

lap steel guitar The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar or lap slide guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of pla ...

* Martie Seidel – fiddle, viola, background vocals String section on "Without You" *Strings conducted and arranged by Dennis Burnside. * Violins – Martie Seidel, Carl Gorodetsky, Pamela Sixfin, Lee Larrison, Connie Ellisor, Alan Umstead, David Davidson, Mary Katherine Van Osdale, David Angell, Janet Askey, Karen Winkelman, Cate Myer, Catherine Umstead * Violas – Kris Wilkinson, Jim Grosjean, Gary Van Osdale, Monisa Angell * Cellos – Bob Mason, John Catchings Additional musicians *

Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph Buchanan ( ; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative author, political commentator, and politician. He was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He ...

– electric guitar * Blake Chancey – handclapping * Steve Conn –

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

* Mike Henderson – electric guitar on "Hole in My Head" *

– acoustic guitar on "Ready to Run" *

Dennis Linde Dennis Linde (pronounced LIN-dee, March 18, 1943December 22, 2006) was an American musician and songwriter based in Nashville who has had over 250 of his songs recorded. He is best known for writing the 1972 Elvis Presley song, "Burning Love", ...

– acoustic guitar on "Goodbye Earl" *

Lloyd Maines Lloyd Wayne Maines (born June 28, 1951) is an American country music record producer, musician and songwriter. He was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame as one of the first three members, the other two being Willie Nelson and Stev ...

–

steel guitar A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...

* George Marinelli – electric guitar on "Cold Day in July" & "Hello Mr. Heartache" * Bob Mason – cello * Terry McMillan – percussion * John Mock –

concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

bodhrán The bodhrán (, ; plural ''bodhráin'') is a frame drum used in Irish music ranging from in diameter, with most drums measuring . The sides of the drum are deep. A Goatskin (material), goatskin head is tacked to one side (synthetic heads or ot ...

tin whistle The tin whistle, also known as the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, a class of instrument which also includes the recorder and Native American flute. A tin whistle player is called a whistl ...

* Greg Morrow – drums * Steve Nathan –

Hammond B-3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created from rotat ...

, keyboards * Michael Rhodes – bass guitar * Tom Roady – percussion * Charlie Robison – handclapping * Matt Rollings – Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards * Randy Scruggs – acoustic guitar * Adam Steinberg – acoustic guitar on "Let Him Fly" & "Without You" * Bryan Sutton – acoustic guitar on "Sin Wagon" *

– electric guitar on "Some Days You Gotta Dance" * Billy Joe Walker Jr. – acoustic guitar on "Ready to Run" & Without You" *

– acoustic guitar, background vocals *"Iffy harmony" vocals on "Goodbye Earl" performed by the "Do-Wrongs": Blake Chancey, Paul Worley, Charlie Robison. Production * Producers: Blake Chancey, Paul Worley * Engineers: Tony Castle, Mark Martin, Chris Rowe, Clarke Schleicher, Billy Sherrill * Assistant engineer: Tony Castle * Mixing: John Guess, Patrick Murphy * Mastering: Denny Purcell * Assistant mastering engineer: Jonathan Russell * Editing: Tony Castle * Art direction: Tracy Baskette-Fleaner, Bill Johnson * Design: Gina R. Binkley * Photography: Ed Rode, Albert Sanchez * Photo consultant: Dari Marder * Stylist: Renee Fowler * Hair stylists: Jennifer Davis, Alex Dizon, Daniel Erdman, Melanie Shelley, Michael Silva * Make-up: Debra Ferullo, Stacey Martin, Maital Sabbon *Cover lettering from '' Butterfly Alphabet'' by Kjell Bloch Sandved.

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Accolades

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

References

{{Authority control 1999 albums Albums produced by Paul Worley The Chicks albums Monument Records albums Albums produced by Blake Chancey Grammy Award for Best Country Album Canadian Country Music Association Top Selling Album albums