Watch The Civil Wars cover Michael Jackson's hit song, "Billie Jean," from VH1 Unplugged - available on iTunes November 13th.
Production of VH1
Directed by Jeff Baumgardner
Recorded & Mixed by Jason Gates & Eric Spring
On November 13, two-time Grammy award-winning duo The Civil Wars will release the audio and video from their acclaimed "VH1 Unplugged" performance exclusively on iTunes (Sensibility Music). The 7-track EP features duo partners John Paul White and Joy Williams (who is the first known musician to perform pregnant on "Unplugged") and includes material from the band's RIAA certified Gold album, Barton Hollow, as well as their song "Kingdom Come" from The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12. The release also includes never-before-released renditions of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and Portishead's "Sour Times" (see below for complete track-listing).
This latest release adds to an already widely successful few years for the duo, who won "Best Folk Album" and "Best Country Duo/Group Performance" at 54th annual GRAMMY Awards and "Duo/Group of the Year" at the 2012 Americana Music Association's Honors & Awards. The band also performed 60 seconds of the album's title track on the live GRAMMY Award's broadcast. The band is also nominated for two CMA Awards— for "Vocal Duo of the Year" and "Musical Event of the Year" (for their collaboration with Taylor Swift on "Safe & Sound" from The Hunger Games soundtrack).
In addition to performing on "VH1 Unplugged," the band has also appeared on "Good Morning America," "Late Show with David Letterman," "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," "Austin City Limits," BBC's "Later...with Jools Holland," "A Prairie Home Companion," "Morning Becomes Eclectic" and three times on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Moreover, the music video for "Barton Hollow" is currently featured on VH1's "Pop Up Video" program.
After taking a short summer hiatus following the birth of Williams' son, the duo will resume touring this fall, including appearances at San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and the Austin City Limits Music Festival. See reverse for complete details.
TRACK-LISTING
1. I've Got This Friend
2. Kingdom Come
3. Sour Times
4. Poison & Wine
5. Barton Hollow
6. 20 Years
7. Billie Jean
* On Nov. 13, singin'-songwritin' sensations The Civil Wars will release the audio and video from their VH1 Unplugged performance exclusively on iTunes. (Personally, I kind of thought the Wars were mostly unplugged from the get-go, but I suppose that's beside the point.) In advance of the release, they've posted their cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" on YouTube, further proving that
they dig all things Jackson. Watch the Jeff Baumgardner-directed performance above — which, if I may say, isn't particularly light on the histrionics ... but I suppose that's their whole bag to begin with — and see the track list from their Unplugged release after the jump.
* Local Daniel James describes his project Canon Blue as "electro-billy." And what goes better with a pair of stripped-down electro-billy tunes, I ask you, than a nice pair of pressed Dickies? Canon Blue played their tunes "Indian Summer (Des Moines)" and "Honeysuckle (Milwaukee)" for the In the Studio With Dickies series. Or as a Dickies rep might say, "Music band performs their music songs for Dickies. Buy Dickies." Seriously though, Canon Blue's pretty solid, so watch those two performances after the jump.
* Got any Keane fans in the house? Keane? Guys, any Keane fans? No? Anybody keen on Keane? Takers? All right, regardless, you may remember when they played at Marathon Music Works here in Nashville — since that crazy power outage went down during their set and everything. Well, while they were in town, Keane recorded the fifth installment in United Record Pressing's Upstairs at United series. As with all of the Upstairs releases, the all-analogue recordings were done in one take straight to tape. Chris Mara of Welcome to 1979 engineered the whole thing, and it features ... I don't know, some Keane songs. See more info here, and watch a video of the British piano-rockers playing "Silenced by the Night" at United after the jump.
