The War and Treaty: Binding The Heart, Mind and Soul
Photo: Austin Hargrave
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In the run-up to the release of The War and Treaty’s fourth LP, Plus One, Michael and Tanya Trotter received an invitation to perform at the 98th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. When asked if appearing at such an historic event felt like a natural next step for the duo, Tanya’s answer is swift and succinct. “My first response was to say, ‘No,’ to be very honest,” she says with a laugh. “Because I wanted to be home for Thanksgiving.”
Her husband Michael, on the other hand, had other ideas. “My first reaction, and my only reaction, was, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ I didn’t know if we’d get this opportunity again and, in my head, it was a moment,” he says. “I’d already envisioned our children on that float, Tanya looking beautiful and waving at all the people. I was like, ‘What do you mean, no? We’re doing this. Honey, we’ve got to do this. Baby, you’ve got to give me this.’ I was pleading.”
Remembering all the Thanksgiving mornings she’d spent as a child watching the colorful procession of giant cartoon balloons, red-cheeked marching bands and bedazzled entertainers snaking through Manhattan, Tanya reconsidered. And so— through the bitter, cold drizzle of Turkey Day 2024 and with their children by their side—The War and Treaty delighted New York and a nationwide television audience with a scintillating performance of “Merry Christmas, Baby” on a float just ahead of the biggest star of them all, Santa Claus. “We made a thing out of it,” Tanya says. “Most of all, we got to sing to each other and spend time together as a couple in a way we had never done before.”
Doing things that have never been done before could well be The War and Treaty’s motto. A week after the parade, the couple is back home in Nashville, en route to dinner, having just wrapped a recording session with someone whom Michael describes only as “a country music legend.”
For both musicians, it’s been a long, circuitous road to stardom. From 2003 2011, Michael served in the United States Army, including deployments to Iraq. Encouraged by his commanding officer, he first learned to play piano in his downtime as a soldier, on an instrument stowed in the bowels of one of Saddam Hussein’s former fortresses. He met Tanya Blount in 2010 while he was performing at a music fest in Maryland.
As a teen, she was an actress and singer who caught her first break opposite Lauryn Hill in the 1993 movie Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. The role jump-started her music career as well, and Tanya signed a major-label deal with Polydor, releasing her debut, Natural Thing, in 1994. Parallel to her work as a recording artist, she scored steady gigs in a mix of regional musical theatre productions.
To hear her tell it, Tanya felt smitten when she first saw Michael perform at the festival. By his account, Michael had declared, many years earlier, that, someday, he’d marry that beauty he’d seen singing with Hill in Sister Act 2. In 2014, fate won out, and the Trotters tied the knot.
They formalized their musical partnership by forming Trotter & Blount, and the newly minted combo released their first LP, Love Affair, in 2016. A year later, they rebranded their union as The War and Treaty and dropped an EP, Down to the River, followed by Healing Tide in 2018. The albums, which showed off an immediate and effective cross-pollination of genres, grabbed the ears of new fans and industry veterans alike. Yet, Tanya and Michael also left many writers and promoters scrambling to ID their sound, eventually landing on the tidy, if limiting appellation of “country soul.”
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The Trotters’ music has always embraced a diverse mix of sounds, carrying influences of gospel, rock, blues and even bluegrass. Yet, it was the pairing of these two genres—country and soul—that indicated something bigger was happening. By joining together two styles of music built, and often divided, along racial lines, The War and Treaty started chipping away at some unnecessary walls.
In the fall of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, The War and Treaty released their sophomore studio set, Hearts Town and the following April, Michael and Tanya paired with contemporary country star Dierks Bentley for a rendition of U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Then, after issuing their major-label debut, Lover’s Game on Universal’s Nashville imprint in 2023, the duo knocked all the walls down.
The formal accolades first arrived in 2019 when the couple took home Emerging Artist of the Year and continued as they received back-to-back Duo of the Year trophies in 2022 and 2023 from the Americana Music Honors & Awards. In 2023, the pair also scored a Video of the Year nod at the CMT Music Awards.
What followed became history. Both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association made The War and Treaty the first Black act nominated for each’s Duo of the Year. They topped off the run with two Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist. Tanya rented a storage unit for their growing archive of awards, articles, touring wardrobes and memorabilia.
“I was very mindful of this once we started getting recognition. My mother was a first-generation American from Panama. Michael served his country. For us to be able to do this and be acknowledged by these longstanding organizations, who were not welcoming to people that looked like us, is absolutely astonishing. I’m totally in the moment, understanding what is happening. Tomorrow is not promised,” Tanya says. “We have children, and we want to leave this legacy for them.”
photo: Dean Budnick
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What the War And Treaty will leave next—which will likely top all that has come before—is their new 18-song double album, Plus One. It is, by any measure, an extensive and comprehensive opus, brimming with a palpable ferocity and commitment burnished into each of the collection’s dozen-and-a-half selections. “It’s a special moment for us,” Michael admits. “We’ve got an opportunity, as a team, to show what can happen when people are given a chance to do what we do.”
Of the 18 cuts on Plus One, Michael and Tanya share co-writing credit on 16, with Michael the sole writer of the remaining two. Their songs are reflexive and reflective, anchored by two of life’s more powerful and motivating concepts. “First, it is coming straight from the heart of Tanya and my relationships—the love we want to see, the love we want people to believe in again. We want to feel the intimacy and the emotion of love,” Michael explains. “Plus One is strictly about those times we felt it come, and we felt it go. But, no matter what, we felt it.”
It’s been a wonderful—and trying— journey for the Trotters, but a worthy one. They are particularly proud of the patience they had while composing this wide swath of songs. For Michael, he thanks the muse that has been right by his side.
“It starts with opening my eyes and looking at the one thing that inspires me more than anything, which is my wife, Tanya. I love Tanya’s story. I listen to her tell it. I play it over and over in my head,” Michael says. “There is one thing Tanya does better than anyone. Tanya knows how to end something. She knows how to say goodbye where it’s not gonna be an ugly, drawn-out, horrific moment in life. Rather, it’s just as elegant and graceful as it was when she said, ‘Hello.’”
The Trotters pooled their stories, matching form with emotion. “What you’re hearing on this record are the different styles of our love,” Michael says. “Sometimes our love sounds like the sacredness of gospel. Sometimes it’s the passionate lovemaking of R&B. Sometimes it’s the emergency of a soul song. Sometimes it’s the storytelling of a country song, three chords and the truth. Sometimes our love feels jazzy. And sometimes it’s the story of the blues, it’s heartbreak and pain. It’s all us.”
Tanya and Michael also collaborated with a mix of outside voices along the way. The couple wrote the album’s kickoff, “Love Like Whiskey,” with country superstar Miranda Lambert. The pair also matched pens with singer songwriter Kendell Marvel on a track and partnered with producer Jonathan Singleton for two others.
Singleton is one of four additional producers who teamed with Michael to helm the sessions. While Michael sat at the helm for the majority of the record, there were instances when a second or third influence became a strategic decision as much as a musical one. “The additional producers brought a little bit more perspective, especially as it pertains to country radio. We had a very specific thing we were going after. They brought in a different energy for the tracks. We had a big blast,” Michael says. “When I hear our songs played on country radio, I’ll shed a tear.”
That active pursuit of not only a country audience, but also a repertoire true to the spirit and intention of country music proved revelatory. Tanya discovered stylistic connections between her old and new musical flames. “I took some time to listen to Patsy Cline and to our queen of gospel, Mahalia Jackson. I listened to how Patsy evokes a song and enunciates her words. And I listened to Mahalia,” Tanya says. “To me, to my ears, there isn’t a difference in how they approach a song.”
The recurring presence of gospel mirrors the couple’s deeply rooted sense of faith. Alongside love, it is a predominant force in their lives and their art. Still, the Trotters chose to convey that influence without a hint of parochial dogma—more show than tell.
“Isn’t that our relationship with God?” Michael suggests. “Not the churches’ relationship, not religion and this God of religion that we’ve created, but more so a suggestive spirit. It’s one that says, ‘Hey, when you need an extra hand, I’m here.’ It’s one that says, ‘I love you, I love everyone, I love the world.’ It cannot be created by divisive behaviors, but rather by a unique devotion to one another. This is what Tanya and I bring to the space.”
Michael attests it’s a faith and a practice that has saved him on more than one occasion. “There are many days—and I can confirm this to you, one-hundred-million percent—that had it not been for that spirituality, Tanya would’ve killed me.”
“He’s right. He’s right,” Tanya says, laughing.
For the sessions, The War and Treaty booked FAME Recording Studios, the celebrated Muscle Shoals, Ala. locale where so many of their heros had recorded. “We felt the protection. We felt the creativity of Wilson Pickett, of Aretha Franklin—of the Allman Brothers, of Jason Isbell. Anybody who’s been there, we could feel it,” Michael says. “We could feel that we belonged there and wanted to be part of their story—and have their story be a part of ours.”
Likewise, Michael and Tanya aimed to bring the energy of their concerts into the studio. They utilized their live band, who were well-versed in the new repertoire after road-testing the material on tour, and welcomed bluegrass phenom Billy Strings to guest on “Drink on Me.” But, otherwise, the Trotters kept the players tight.
As for the touring that will follow in 2025, Tanya promises the same element of surprise as always. “We want to keep our sound and light guys going crazy,” she hints.
Recently, Michael internet-searched famous black country-music duos and realized that The War and Treaty led a list of one. Yet, the couple knows that’s changing, proud to name-check The Kentucky Gentlemen, the all-female O.N.E The Duo and the racially mixed Neon Union as the next pairings on the path they’ve paved.
“It’s something we acknowledge and take on because somebody is going to come behind us and walk in these same trails,” Michael says.
While The War and Treaty hears and sees Plus One as an extension of their inclusive live performances, it’s also an open door for anyone to walk in and simply feel the love. “The record is an invitation,” Tanya says. “That’s the highest form of love—a love that accepts you and doesn’t force itself upon you.”
“The intentional binding of the heart, mind and soul creates the human experience. This creates The War and Treaty,” Michael says. “This is what we are sharing with everybody.”
