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Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
Group Members: Joy Williams
All Music Guide:
A folk-pop duo made up of guitarist John Paul White and vocalist Joy Williams, the Civil Wars made a quick name for themselves with the release of a digital album, Live at Eddie's Attic, in 2009. The Poison & Wine EP followed later that year, and the duo partnered up with producer Charlie Peacock to begin recording a full-length album in 2010. The result, Barton Hollow, was released in February 2011, topping the iTunes charts and cracking Billboard's Top 20 during its first week.
Wikipedia:
The Civil Wars is a group composed of singer-songwriters Joy Williams and John Paul White. The two met during a Nashville, Tennessee songwriting session in 2008. After releasing a live performance album and a four song EP, their full length album, Barton Hollow, was released in 2011. The band won the Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Folk Album in 2012.
History
2008 – 2010
Williams and White met during a song writing session in support of Gloriana at a music studio in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008. Joy Williams said in a recent interview:
We met in 2008 at what, in Nashville, is known as a "writing camp", a gathering of songwriters for the purpose of writing radio singles for a band that didn't even have a name at that point. I thought it was going to be a waste of time, but my publisher wanted me to go, so I said OK. It was literally a drawing of straws to see which songwriters would be put into which room together, and by the time I got there the straws had been drawn. I was like, "OK, I'm going into this room with somebody named John Paul White." I had no idea what I was walking in to. After about half an hour of getting-to-know-yous, he started plucking at the guitar. In Nashville, it's not uncommon to harmonise with someone but what was strange was that when he started singing it was like I knew where he was going to go before he went there – it tightened my stomach and made me pay attention.According to the duo's web site, they recorded their second performance at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Georgia on April 8, 2009 and created a free Internet download called Live at Eddie's Attic, which has been downloaded over 400,000 times to date. In November, the duo released a digital extended play album, produced by Charlie Peacock, called Poison & Wine and the title song was featured on the TV show, Grey's Anatomy. In December 2010, the duo was featured in Paste's "Best of What's Next" column. The duo's web site says that the name of their band, The Civil Wars, and their thematic direction, is best summed up in the lyrics of the song "Poison & Wine". It is about the good, the bad, and the ugly of married life. Another inspiration for the band name is a famous quote, which says "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle".
2011
In 2011, The Civil Wars performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,at the Sundance Film Festival and ASCAP's Music Cafe. Their album Barton Hollow, produced by Charlie Peacock was released in 2011 reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 1 on the BillBoard Digital Albums chart, sold 25,000 copies in its first week and remained at No. 1 on the iTunes chart for nine days. The Civil Wars appeared on NPR's All Things Considered and were featured in the Los Angeles Times. They appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and their "Barton Hollow" video was played on VH1. They were nominated for a CMT Award in the Duo Video of the Year category and featured on the cover of Pollstar Magazine. The Civil Wars appeared a second time on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in May, were the opening act for singer Adele's North American tour, were nominated for the Americana Music Awards in the Duo/Group of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year categories, and performed a benefit concert for victims of the 2011 Alabama tornado. In June, they were The Guardian's 'New Band of the Day'.
In the summer of 2011 the duo performed on the Los Angeles radio station KCRW, opened several shows for Emmylou Harris, and performed at Rhode Island's Newport Folk Festival. In September they rejoined Adele's UK Tour and were nominated for a Country Music Association Award in the Vocal Duo of the Year category. They performed on the UK television show Later... Live in October and their Barton Hollow album debuted at No. 22 on the UK Download Chart and No. 54 on the UK Albums Chart.
In October the duo was featured in The New York Times, appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and were featured in Interview. They received the Vanguard Award at the 49th Annual ASCAP Country Music Awards in November.
The duo appeared on the cover of the November issue of Nashville Scene and were a topic of conversation on the radio talk show Sound Opinions. The Civil Wars released the Holiday single "Tracks in the Snow" on 10" white vinyl and the digital version's B-side "O Come O Come Emmanuel", was iTunes's Holiday Single of the Week.
On November 30, 2011, Barton Hollow received Grammy nominations in the Best Folk Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance categories. Numerous publications noted that The Civil Wars were snubbed a Best New Artist nomination by The Grammys.
In December, The Civil Wars performed at the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, and released the single "Safe & Sound" with Taylor Swift and T Bone Burnett for the film The Hunger Games. The Civil Wars also recorded another song for The Hunger Games soundtrack (The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond), called "Kingdom Come". The soundtrack was released in the U.S. on March 20, 2012.
Barton Hollow was included on several Best Albums of 2011 lists, including NPR Music, Paste, American Songwriter, Rough Trade, Amazon.com, Time Magazine, iTunes, The Huffington Post, Associated Press, The Tennesseean, AllMusic.com and The Wall Street Journal.
Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today and Yahoo Music picked the duo as their Best New Artists and Breakout Stars of 2011.
2012
In 2012, the group received Grammy Awards for Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Folk Album and were listed at number 15 in Entertainment Weekly's The 30 Greatest Artists Right Now issue. They were featured on the cover of Billboard, their song "Poison and Wine" was featured on an episode of "The Vampire Diaries", and were nominated for three 2012 CMT Music Awards.
