Michael and Tanya Trotter took distinctly different paths to becoming The War and Treaty.

After winning a talent show when she was 13, Tanya knew singing would be her life. Michael started writing later, when he was serving in the US Army stationed in one of Saddam Hussein’s rubbled palaces. There, with access to a piano that had emerged miraculously unscathed, a captain heard Michael play and sing, and he encouraged him to pursue music. When that same captain was killed, Michael sat down to write––really write––for the first time. Officers noticed the tribute and gave him a new charge: write and perform songs for the fallen. So whenever a brother or sister in arms died, Michael spoke to buddies, uncovered the story, and penned a song for the memorial.

Now, as The War and Treaty, Michael and Tanya deliver live shows and records that make the hairs on the back of necks stand up. Funky bass lines, keys, lap steel, acoustic strings, and stripped-down percussion create a swampy Southern soul bed for the couple’s transcendent vocals.

A part of the BIG IDEA project We The People: Protest and Patriotism