Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country music group the Dixie Chicks — now simply the Chicks — was killed when the car she was driving collided head-on with a passing car on a highway in southern Texas, state authorities said Saturday.

Laura Lynch, a founding member of the popular Dallas band in 1989 along with Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Marty and Emily Erwin, died in a car accident Friday, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“We are shocked and saddened by the news of her death,” the female music group, which was renamed Chicks in 2020, said via social networking sites.

“Laura was a bright light (…) her contagious energy and humor were our spark in the early days of our band,” he added.

The 65-year-old bassist and singer was driving a Ford pickup truck on a freeway near El Paso when a car moving in the opposite lane, trying to pass, collided head-on with hers.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. The other driver was taken to hospital with injuries, however his life is not considered to be in danger.

Laura Lynch, who at one point was the band’s lead singer, had left in 1995.

The Dixie Chicks released their first major-label-produced record (and fourth in a row, titled Wide Open Spaces) in 1998 and were hugely successful, selling “more CDs than all other country music bands combined.”

The album earned the band their first Grammy Award out of 13 they have received in total.

However, in March 2003, a band member’s opposition to the war in Iraq and statements he made about former President George W. Bush had caused an uproar and sparked a boycott in the US, as a result of which its members decided to take a long hiatus.