CMT Blog: Archive

What is rookie duo Steel Magnolia doing right? Apparently, everything. Sure, they have a Big Machine behind them and a big win from last season's Can You Duet on CMT. But still, if their schedule is any indication of what's to come, they are all good. Like tomorrow night (Feb. 11), you can catch their performance of their Top 20 hit, "Keep On Lovin' You," on Lopez Tonight. I talked to S-Mag (Meghan Linsey and Joshua Scott Jones) about what the taping was like because I'd heard they were treated like rock stars and that they each had their own trailer backstage at the Warner Bros. lot. They told me that even hearing Lopez announce them (as ACM nominees for top new vocal duo) was cool. Jones told me that because it was an acoustic show, the audience pitched in and helped them out by clapping along to the song. From there they rushed off to the Valentine's Day movie premiere in Hollywood because their single is on the film's soundtrack.

But I wanted to know what happened before all this buzz. Before they were Steel Magnolia, hot country duo. Here's what they told me: Linsey was running the karaoke at Ms. Kellie's in Nashville's Printer's Alley. Then Jones, who had just moved to town and was working in radio sales, wandered in after work. "Meghan was the main attraction," he gushed like a school boy in love. They were both doing their own thing musically, but they hit it off and hooked up. Then they wrote a song, "Edge of Goodbye." They both said that once they were performing that song, as a duo, it garnered much more attention than what they were doing separately. So, a duo was born.