From Albion to the Grammys, the War and Treaty broker big time success

Michael Trotter Jr. was lost.

Spiritually, yes, but we'll get to that in a minute. More immediately, he was physically lost, on the road late one night while driving through Michigan with his wife, Tanya, and his eyelids were growing heavy.

So the army vet pulled off Interstate 94 to find a hotel to rest until morning and ended up at a Days Inn in Albion. And from that point on, nothing for the couple would ever be the same.

Trotter and his wife make up the rousing musical duo the War and Treaty, the fiery country-blues-rock-Americana twosome who have taken the music world by storm. The pair's major label debut album "Lover's Game" was released last March to wide acclaim and landed them two nominations at this year's Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist. The ceremony takes place Sunday in Los Angeles.

Trotter originally hails from the Cleveland area, his wife from Washington, D.C. But they both count Albion as the home of their group, and they spent several years in the closely knit south-central Michigan town, population 7,000, honing the sound that would eventually put them on the national and international stage.

"Albion grabbed us. It magnetized us. And we never let go," says Michael, on the phone earlier this month. "Albion is where it all happened for us."

Since their Grammy noms, the War and Treaty have been everywhere, performing at the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving day game, the Emmys, on the CMA Awards, on NBC's "Christmas at Graceland" special and on an episode of WWE's "Smackdown."

And it all stems from what they formed and fortified in Albion, as they wrapped their arms around a small community that embraced the couple right back.

Love and fear

Before Michael and Tanya found Albion, they found each other on Aug. 28, 2010, at a music festival outside of Baltimore, where they were both performing.

At the time, Trotter was an Iraq War veteran struggling with PTSD and trying to find his footing in the music business, and Tanya Blount was an industry veteran who had flirted with fame — that's her in 1993's "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit," performing "His Eye is on the Sparrow" alongside Lauryn Hill — but had never quite knocked down the door.

They were introduced by a mutual friend and their connection was immediate — phone numbers were quickly exchanged — but Michael says he initially backed off, out of fear.

"I wasn't looking for anything. I didn't have my life together," says Michael, who had already been married and divorced in his 20s. "I had low self-esteem, and I wasn't trying to approach Tanya. Tanya was damn near perfect, and I didn't want to mess it up. So I tossed her number in the garbage, and I walked away.

"I was just used to losing, and this was a win, a win I didn't feel like I deserved," he says. "So I wasn't going to trick myself into believing I belonged in her world."

Tanya, who had also been married previously, felt differently, and she reached out to him the following day, asking him to work on music. At the time, she was performing in a group with her brother.

"Michael come over the next day and he had a complete album written for my brother and I, which I had never seen before," Tanya says. "I've seen people write lyrics, but I've never seen someone have complete songs, I've never seen someone who hears every part, every note, from the drum patterns to the strings, to the keyboard, guitar, bass, everything. He had everything in his head."

Michael and Tanya sang together on a demo track, and when a friend heard their voices blend, "she said, 'You guys are going to have to consider doing that,'" Tanya says.

And that was that: They were married soon thereafter, and although they didn't know it at the time, they were on the road headed toward Albion.

Welcome to Mayberry

Albion is a quiet manufacturing city in Calhoun County off I-94, between Jackson and Marshall, where the north and south branches of the Kalamazoo River meet. It's a college town, home to Albion College, which enrolls approximately 1,500 students. It's a community measured in generations, where 30-year residents are considered newbies. If you ever played T-ball growing up, you have Albion to thank, as the kiddie sport was invented there in the 1950s.

Michael didn't know any of that when he pulled into town late one night in 2015 after a series of highway detours and an out-of-service GPS unit brought him to a hotel just off 28 Mile. He woke up the next morning and went exploring, and he felt like he was home.

"I went to get breakfast, and I fell in love. It reminded me of Mayberry," says Michael, noting the city's old-fashioned, small-town charm. "I was like, you know what? This is where I want to raise my son."

Michael and Tanya, who were touring and performing together under the moniker Trotter & Blount, were living in Baltimore at the time, where racial tensions were running high. The following year they packed up and headed to "little Detroit," as Tanya calls it, and moved into a house on Porter Street, a few blocks from downtown. They settled in and quickly became a part of the community.

"It just felt like a timeframe I've always wanted to live in," Michael says, noting the train tracks running through town, the brick-and-cobblestone-lined streets and the string of family-owned businesses on Superior Street in the city's downtown.

There's Dickerson Music Company, Stirling Books & Brew and Cascarelli’s of Albion, a 115-year-old neighborhood restaurant and bar, which roasts more than seven tons of redskin peanuts a year and ships them to customers around the country.

And then there's the Bohm Theatre, built in 1929, which hosts movies, stage productions and a monthly live music night, Blues at the Bohm. The city was calling out to them, and everything fell into place for the pair.

"In Albion, we saw an opportunity to not just live in peace and harmony but also to thrive and grow," Michael says. "And Albion is forever home."

Blues at the Bohm

It was at Blues at the Bohm where Cliff Harris first saw Michael perform and knew he had to meet the big-voiced belter. Harris, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Albion College, is also a musician, but the trajectory of his career changed after he heard Michael sing.

"I went from being the lead singer of my band to the manager of their band," says Harris, who along with his wife, Karen Erlandson, managed Michael and Tanya "for a hot minute," he says. They promoted the duo's first concert as the War and Treaty at Albion's Washington Gardner Elementary School, where the band was paid a whopping $75 for the performance.

Harris and Erlandson signed the group to a management contract, knowing full well they would soon be on to bigger and better things.

"When we signed the papers, we said, 'We know this is temporary; when you get the next offer, don't worry. Just let us know, we're happy for you,'" says Harris. When they eventually signed a deal with Universal Music Group, Harris vowed to never manage another group, "because now I can say every band I've ever managed has gone straight to Universal," he says with a hearty chuckle.

Harris says he remembers watching the War and Treaty — the name stems from a passionate argument and subsequent makeup between the couple — perform for 75 people at the Bohm, knowing there was a larger audience out there for them. Their sound is steeped in gospel and the blues, and it's undeniably powerful. It was just a matter of connecting the dots.

"The way that Michael and Tanya make you feel, it's like going to a church service. I'm not particularly religious, but after a War and Treaty concert, I feel renewed," he says.

Bohm Theatre executive director Shannon Aikins agrees. "Your soul just feels better," she says, of watching the duo perform. "There is something in the way they deliver the meaning behind their performance. It definitely changes you."

Harris has seen the group perform around the country and overseas, "and it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter what your musical background is, what they do is moving," he says. "I don't think I've ever made it through a War and Treaty concert a single time without crying. And I'm a little bit of a baby, but I'm not that much of a baby."

Local shows — playing the Bohm, inside Stirling, and at the town's brewpub, Albion Malleable Brewing Co., where the pint glasses read #herestoalbion — led to a refining of the group's sound and the release of the debut EP, "Down to the River," in 2017. A music video for the title track was filmed in and around Albion, including footage shot on the front porch of their home and inside and outside the Bohm Theatre.

The secret didn't last long.

Within a year, the group had released its debut album, "Healing Tide," recorded in Nashville and featuring a collaboration with Emmylou Harris. National bookings were pouring in, including slots at 2018's Newport Folk Festival and Bonnaroo. They played shows with Al Green and recorded with Jason Isbell. As much as they loved Albion, they were outgrowing it, not that the town held it against them, either then or now.

Ramona Kidder, who runs Dickerson Music Company along with her husband, Kelly, knows Michael for more than his powerful voice. "Michael gives the best hugs," she says warmly. She and her husband were there at those early performances in town and knew the War and Treaty would soon belong to the world. "We could tell that they were going to go places," she says.

That they did, and their adopted hometown has been proud of them every step of the way.

"They were regular folks that just connected with the community, and to see them skyrocket, it's been amazing to watch," says Albion mayor Victoria Snyder. "It's huge, that's like a feather in our cap for the community of Albion, knowing that they claim Albion as their home. Even though we all know they weren't born here" — again, there's that generational mentality — "but they attribute their success to their beginnings in Albion."

Heading for a homecoming

These days, Albion is Michael and Tanya's home away from home, as they now reside outside of Nashville in a house with their four kids and several nieces and nephews. They moved there after their career started taking off, and things are still on the upswing for the duo.

Last year was a banner year for the group, following the release of "Lover's Game." They recorded songs with the Brothers Osborne and Zach Bryan and were nominated for a slew of trophies at the CMT Music Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards.

At the Grammys, in addition to a nod for Best American Roots Song, they're in the crowded field for Best New Artist, alongside Jelly Roll, Ice Spice, Noah Kahan, Fred again ... , Gracie Abrams, Coco Jones and Victoria Monét.

Best New Artist is a relative term when it comes to a group that has been kicking around for years — they even performed at the Grammys in 2020 — but they'll gladly take it.

"It's a feeling that I can't really put into words. It's amazing that people are still discovering us, and that our peers have acknowledged us this time around," Tanya says. "We're new to a lot of people, and it's a pleasure to be able to live long enough to experience it, and to be able to celebrate just being nominated."

The War and Treaty is working on a new album set for release later this year and the group has tour dates set this year with Chris Stapleton and Zach Bryan. They'll perform at Indio, California's Stagecoach Festival on the last weekend in April. They're even shopping a script that would bring their love story to the big screen, with John Legend attached as a producer.

But there's one big shindig that hasn't yet been scheduled that the group looks forward to performing, when the timing is right: A long overdue homecoming celebration in the city that made them.

"One is in the works," Michael says, and he's looking forward to returning to the town where it all happened for them.

When he talks about Albion, he uses the term "we," the same way people talk about their alma mater or their favorite sports team. And he has that same level of pride for his former home.

"We are the best-kept secret in Michigan," he says, speaking for the town where he found himself, and so much more.

agraham@detroitnews.com

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