Last Updated on March 8, 2023, 8:05 PM | Published: March 8, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — Few forms of entertainment carry a more cherished or tightly held love for traditionalism than American country music.
The classic “country singer” image has long ranged from the cowboy loner, all boots and wide hat, to the sad western wife, to the southern-fried frat guy and the defiant, empowered modern woman.
But in nearly all cases, the image has been white.
In nearly 100 years, the Grand Ole Opry, still country music’s most revered stage, showcase, and artist organization, has only ever seen three Black members, highlighting the shocking scarcity of respect that minorities and “outsiders” have experienced from the country community.
But according to husband-and-wife duo Michael and Tanya Trotter, known together as The War and Treaty, those old attitudes are rapidly changing.
“It’s time we open the doors to all the little nooks and crannies in our country and really partake of each other,” Michael told me over the phone from the home he and Tonya share in Michigan.
New release
The Trotters spoke to Free Press ahead of the March 10th release of new album “Lover’s Game” and the cross-country tour that will bring them to Beer City Music Hall on March 19th.
“I think this music, when you think about it, is a great reflection of how America is,” Tanya said of the War and Treaty’s penchant for crossing genres and introducing unexpected styles into the country space. “There’s really no way to define us as a country. When you look at it, it’s a country built with a bunch of immigrants, a bunch of different styles, a bunch of different cultures and opinions and even political views.”
All of those different, sometimes conflicting sounds and styles appear throughout “Lover’s Game” in equal measure. The songs don’t immediately scream “country.” Much of the album could just as easily be called southern soul or southern rock or roots rock or even just R&B.
Even their recent appearance at the 2022 Country Music Association Awards was a not-subtle reference to their persistent and confident mashing of styles, as they joined the Brothers Osbourne for a southern-tinged take on the Rolling Stones’ legendary rocker “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll.”
Why country?
Why, then, did the Trotters plant their flag in the country music industry, where tradition – and admittedly, traditional whiteness – has seemingly so often reigned supreme?
“The country space for us was the one space that we could be blues, we could be country, we could have faith and talk about our faith and say ‘Jesus’ in the song, and we could dance and have a good time,” Tanya explained. “It was the one space where we didn’t have to stay one way and stay in that lane. And we didn’t intentionally do it. The country music space actually opened their doors to us. They invited us in and said ‘you’re the soul-country we’ve been looking for.'”
While the borders and barriers between genres seems thinner than ever these days, the Trotters are happy to explore the spaces between, where styles overlap.
“When I was young, I never knew that Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’ was a country song. It sounded just like something Etta James would sing,” Michael said. “But it’s what we do as human beings, isn’t it? We always want to put lines in some place to screw things up.”
When The War and Treaty hits the Beer City stage on the 19th, they’ll be proudly dancing back forth across those lines with the full knowledge that what they’re offering is something audiences may never have seen before.
And the knowledge that they’ve earned their place there.
‘Inclusion and love’
“I was sitting backstage in the Country Music Hall of Fame just last night,” Michael said, recalling his invitation to a recent event honoring the Trotters’ friend Dierks Bentley. “And I looked at my hands, and realized that on all the posters in that room, there wasn’t one on the wall that had a man or a woman that looked like me. But I got extremely excited. Because I’m in that room. I’m in the room with the giants.”
For all of this heady talk of difficult subjects and institutionalized issues, both Michael and Tanya are quick to crack jokes and to reiterate that their primary goal is simply to perform a great, energetic show, sing their hearts out, and make sure their audiences feel the love.
“The responsibility of an artist is to remind people that inclusion and love are always the answers,” Tanya added. “When people come to a War and Treaty show, our job is to remind them.”
The album “Lover’s Game” by The War and Treaty drops everywhere on March 10th from UMG Recordings Inc.
They’ll be bringing “The Lovers Game Tour” to Beer City Music Hall on Sunday, March 19th. For tickets and more information, visit beercitymusichall.com.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
