At one point or another, most people find themselves loving someone they shouldn't, often long after the consequences of their misplaced affections become clear. In "Can't Hold Me Back," Brothers and Sisters' Will Courtney sums it up in only a few words: "All the things I love about you outweigh the things that I do not."

Torn between staying trapped in a bad relationship and fleeing it at top speeds, Courtney comes to no easy conclusions here: "Only time will tell if I'll accept your situation," he sings in the telling chorus. But for all the inertia keeping him tethered to a troubled home life, "Can't Hold Me Back" is at heart a traveling song, well suited to a stretch of coastal or country highway. Unseen forces may keep Courtney from stomping the gas pedal — "Can't burn the clutch / 'cause I've got too many reservations" — but Brothers and Sisters' guitars are beautiful and powerful enough to make listeners want to do it for him.

In the 1960s and 1970s, groups like The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers explored the common ground between rock and country. Their best work in this hybrid genre showed that pedal-steel guitars and country-based song structures could find a home with rock audiences. The groups featured players with a sense of history. They wanted to create something fresh and new, yet they were unafraid to mine the best of what had come before them for ideas.

And so it is with Austin-based Brothers and Sisters. This group's original songs call to mind many of rock's heroes, great vocal groups and any assortment of country-influenced acts.

"We're all about the harmonies and the 1960s and '70s aesthetic: a lot of guitars, and even psychedelia," says guitarist Daniel Wilcox. "There are so many people in the band, but we have a lot of common threads."

Wilcox and Brothers and Sisters' drummer Greg McArthur met in Asheville some seven years ago-both played in reunited.

Brothers and Sisters' music is a little more sunshine-sounding and has more vocal harmony than the music of Wilcox's former Asheville bands. Wilcox describes The Luvsix. as "trashy" rock 'n'country, while the Ether Bunnies were a moody, instrumental group that often played at the now-defunct Lexington Avenue fixture, Vincent's Ear. "Austin is a happy place, very similar to Asheville-just a little bit bigger," Wilcox says. "Not to sound cliché, but people like to take it easy and hang out and have fun. Like Asheville."

McArthur introduced Wilcox to bandleader Will Courtney, and their influences and record collections seemed to match, from Gene Clark to George Jones to The Smoke.

That variety is reflected by the songs on their second album, Fortunately, released last month. There's plenty of uptempo rock and a fair share of high-lonesome singer/songwriter material as well.

It's often difficult to present such a varied set of songs-even when they're of uniformly high quality-in a live setting. "In the past, a lot of the 'quieter' songs didn't make it into the set," Wilcox admits. "You want to grab people's attention, so you go with the more rocking stuff, the more band-oriented songs. But recently, we've been trying to work in some of the folkier, more singer/songwriter type songs."Wilcox puts a lot of thought into getting the right guitar tone for each song. Will Courtney pens the music and lyrics, but arrangements are by the collective. Wilcox's guitar parts unfailingly strike the right vibe for Courtney's lyrics; for his part, Wilcox says that his guitar work is "all in service to Will's songs."

Despite the ace playing of Wilcox and the other multi-instrumentalists (live, you'll see and hear pedal-steel guitar, electric piano and much more), Brothers and Sisters are no jam band. "Live, we try to keep 'em short and sweet," Wilcox notes. "We're more into the song craft, more into the pop aspect rather than the jamming." Fans of classic pop might find themselves sporting a wide grin when listening to Fortunately: Co-lead vocalist Lily Courtney (Will's sister) isn't afraid to "ba ba ba," evoking the "sunshine pop" of groups like The Turtles and The Fifth Dimension.

Those sounds come from a natural place, Wilcox says.

"I think what you have to do is not think too much about it," he offers. "The 'ba ba bas' in our songs are a natural thing-that's what we listen to, and that's what we want to hear. We just naturally think, 'What belongs here?' But if you overthink it, it gets too self-conscious."

Rating: 7.0/10.0

Hank Williams had a gift for writing jaunty, hummable tunes wedded to some of the most broken-hearted lyrics imaginable. Songs like "Nobody's Lonesome For Me", "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "Why Don't You Love Me" communicated pain and longing over blithely up-tempo melodies, putting a brave face on his restless blues.

Austin-based indie pop combo Brothers and Sisters may be only part-time practitioners of country, but they're nonetheless adept at tying pretty bows around heartache and regret. The band's newest album, Fortunately, is grounded in the kind of clean, 1960s-influenced pop-rock and insurgent twang that, in most other hands, would be hard-pressed to transcend mere revivalist fare. In the care of siblings Will and Lily Courtney and their band, however, these shopworn building blocks are lent renewed vitality thanks to lyrics colored by experience and wisdom.

In this light, those sun-kissed harmonies and Byrdsian chord changes emerge as desperately held lifelines to innocence, rather than facile signposts of good vibes and easy loving. R.E.M.'s Out of Time feels like a crucial reference point here-- in particular the record's two opening cuts, "Mason City" and "You're Gone", manage Stipe and co.'s trick of suffusing harmonically genial college-pop with heartsick verbiage. "The Air Is Getting Thicker" reflects wistfully upon days when "things were so easy" and "time seemed to move so slow," amidst the band's most unabashed approximation of Roger McGuinn's songbook. "Can't Hold Me Back" finds the Courtneys betraying their sprightly melodies by carefully musing, "all the things I love about you outweigh the things I do not."

Brothers and Sisters do fine with strummy Rickenbacker pop, but Fortunately reveals the group to be more affecting when it ladles on the pedal steel. The very hint of that lonesome whine adds instant resonance to "I Don't Rely" and "California"-- the latter subtly echoing "Lay Lady Lay"-- and it gets even better when the band immerses itself in a refreshing kind of alt-country that eschews poetic antiquaries in favor of wry candor. "Lonely Man" drily asks the listener to "drink a barrel of Kentucky whiskey/ and spend an hour on a tilt-a-whirl" to understand the way he feels inside, an equation of love with physical burden likewise found in the titular refrain of the record's best song, "Make a Man's Body Hurt". Will Courtney, aware as always of the emotional realities of time's passage, narrates the tumultuous evolution of a love that begins with the bittersweet marvel, "I'd been searching for this feeling so long/ I thought it died with my youth."

Everything about Fortunately is deceptive; a half-hearted listen might lead you to believe the Courtneys and their mates were unvariegated paint-by-numbers throwbacks, yet the album finds room for a deliberately cheeky novelty number about the Texas heat as well as a seven-plus-minute dream-pop closer. Any old sadcore band can set you staring at your shoelaces, but getting listeners to contemplate mortality while happily humming and tapping their toes is something subversively special.

This goes from quite good to flat out great so fast it'll make your head spin. From the light West Coast twang of opener "Mason City" (a dead ringer for '70s Linda Ronstadt) onwards, Fortunately (released August 19 by Calla Lily Company) literally grows more interesting and appealing with each track, dipping into Athens, GA jangle, early '70s Byrds, a lil' SoCal hippie psych-country, a touch of Big Star and many flavors unique to the sibling synchronicity of Lily and Will Courtney. Will's compositions resonate with the same exposed poetry as Leonard Cohen but lifted from Len's somnambulant shuffle into colorful settings charged by gorgeous pedal steel and infinitely human harmonies. Their MySpace bio begins, "Watch Breaking Away, Being There, The Last Waltz, Five Easy Pieces and Harold and Maude and you will understand where we are coming from." These are definitely folks I want to spend time with!

When they turn inwards, slowing things to a thoughtful saunter, as on "Make A Man's Body Hurt" and "Lonely Man" (two of 2008's finest cuts), well, they give one a shiver. They take us down to times "when being poor was kind of fun" and tap into the ache of living with little, so that every small blessing or setback resonates powerfully. Repeat spins show prancing rockers like "Can't Hold Me Back" and "The Trees Are Bare" have almost as much power as the ballads, charmers that'll get you "drinking Hot Toddies in the middle of the day." The cover shot of the smiling, poncho wearing band resplendent on the grass, nestled between cliff walls with an exploding sky above them, all aurora borealis and big bang-y, offers a few hints of what's waiting inside their incredibly together grooves. Perhaps it's their sense of completeness and uniqueness despite elements we've encountered many times before that will sneak Fortunately onto a number of Best of 2008 lists and most certainly into the private stash of Cosmic American Music lovin' folks everywhere.

One of the last things you might expect to burst the cynical bubble of indie rock would be Austin's BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Yet this hippieish seven-piece, led by siblings Lily and Will Courtney, has found itself wowing black-clad teens and sharing the stage with bands like ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. The Courtneys' adoration of sixties pop makes their music play like something straight out of the Wayback Machine: Despite its modern guitar slash, this is the sound of the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, John Sebastian, Alex Chilton, and a thousand genre-bending one-hit wonders. FORTUNATELY (Calla Lily Music), the band's sophomore effort, manages to keep Brothers and Sisters' sunny pop from sounding sickly sweet. This is partly thanks to the arrangements, which retain the circuslike, cluttered atmosphere of the group's live shows. But it also has to do with the songs themselves, the best of which ("Mason City," "You're Gone") jangle without sounding like jingles. Armed with a boatload of hooks, the Courtneys harmonize effortlessly, and all of a sudden, it's 1966 all over again. What's not to like?

If there's one band that bucks the notion that there is no Austin sound, it's Brothers and Sisters. Something about the ATX sextet's not-quite-alt-country milieu is just what you'd expect to see on stage at a SXSW showcase. Call it hillbilly-infused indie pop, call it ProgTex, call it whatever you like. I'm calling it the indigenous sound of the Texas capital.

Their self-titled debut album was brimming over with gorgeous Tex-pop. Not a lot changed with Fortunately: B&S continue to craft heartfelt songs you'll include on mixtapes for people you're romantically interested in. Highlights include title track "California" [sic] and a souped-up version of "That's How it Goes," a formerly lackluster song they shined up to a real showpiece.

Although the poster children of the Austin sound haven't seen a lot of growth, no one will mind: Fortunately will win new listeners and appease older fans looking for more of the same.

Brothers and Sisters' Cutting-Edge Nostalgia

In Will Courtney's house in Austin, the members of Brothers and Sisters are surrounded by '60s and '70s era bricabrac, speaking through plumes of cigarette smoke. The rapidly-filling ashtray and the equally rapidly-emptying bottle of Crown Royal make it clear the band's tendency to refer to each other as "Brother" and "Sister" isn't part of some rigid devotion to old-time religion.

Will Courtney is the band's de facto leader and primary songwriter. He and sister Lily, who co-founded the group and also sings, are the only actual sibling connection. A few years ago, Will was living in Los Angeles and trying to make it in the music scene while Lily was working on a degree at the University of Texas. He was growing fed up and started to think of making a go of it someplace else. He had kicked around the idea of starting a project with his sister, and leaving L.A. made that a possibility. "When he was in L.A., we became best friends," says Lily. "We talked all the time. We liked the same music, and we thought, 'let's see what it would be like to sing together,' and next thing I knew, I was in this rock 'n' roll band."

After the decision was made, Will and Lily began working on a lineup. "I put out an ad on Craigslist, and I met Greg [McArthur] that way," Will says. "He introduced me to Dan [Wilcox], and my sister I knew already, and then we had a friend who introduced to Dave [Morgan], and then Ricky [Ray Jackson] found us on MySpace. It's all about Internet and that kind of stuff." Though Brothers and Sisters has weathered a number of personnel changes, the lineup has, at this point, solidified into a well-rounded six-piece act. "From the minute I joined this band, I could tell that there was something different about it," bassist Dave Morgan says. "There was a lot of back and forth-maybe I was going to join Brothers and Sisters, maybe I wasn't. I saw them play a show with another bass player... and it was like watching a girl I had a crush on on a date with someone else." The next day, Morgan called to say that his decision was made and that he would definitely be signing on.

Although Brothers and Sisters have a sound that reaches backwards to the golden harmonies of a bygone era, they have relied heavily on the web, not only to initiate contact with the musicians who have become band members, but also for publicity and to help build a fan base. They have benefited from the increasing hipness of television soundtracks, too. Their song "Without You" made it onto an episode of The O.C., and, while it didn't exactly launch them directly to fame and fortune, it did expand their audience. "We did notice a whole lot of new people joining [our page] on MySpace," Will says. "People I didn't expect to hear were saying 'Oh, you're on The O.C.' So that was cool. It was cool, because it was a big scene – I don't follow it enough – but the guy and the girl finally kiss, and I was like, 'there's my song playing in the background.'"

While all the band members feel good about the decision to license the song for use on the television program, Will readily acknowledges that, a decade ago, they may have made a different decision. "It's changed," he explains. "Ten years ago, it would have been like, 'No way, you can't do this.' But it's changed. You gotta do whatever you can to get your music out." Attracting a slew of O.C. viewers to the Brothers and Sisters MySpace page might not be a direct ticket to astronomical record sales, but it does increase the band's profile and help their sound reach the world outside of Austin.

Even if the particular program the song made it into might be an easy target for cheap jokes, the track makes a fitting background for romance. There is something deeply romantic running through much of what Brothers and Sisters do. It's both homey and earnest – like memories of a relationship with someone who let you down gently enough that you can still look back fondly. There's also something a little AM radio about their sound. It nods toward the richest folk acts of the 1960s as it also draws on the Lynyrd Skynyrd-fueled vision of the Drive-By Truckers and the ethereal country fantasy of the Jayhawks. "Everything kind of comes together naturally [during songwriting]," says Morgan. "There's some folky stuff, and some power pop, and the country thing, but I think the thing that kind of runs through it is a directness or an unpretentiousness." Their sound is nostalgic without being cloying, largely derived from the musical obsessions of the Courtney siblings and the individual musical styles of their band mates. "It's just Will's personality perfectly displayed," says guitarist Ricky Ray Jackson. "And, if you meet Will, it's no surprise-he's exactly what I thought he would be like. That, to me, is the common thread of the songs. Everybody's personality is very well represented."

The decision to self-release the record, like the decision to license "Without You", reflects a certain attunement to changes in the way that music is being made and distributed and the ways that bands are finding audiences. As much as Brothers and Sisters may sound like peers of the Mamas and the Papas or Love, their business sense is situated squarely in the age of digital. Selling songs to teen dramas and tracking down band members on Craigslist have increasingly become the rules of the game for bands in the early part of their careers. This change, compared with the band's backward-looking aesthetic, provides an interesting contrast. "The times have changed so much," says Will. "The way we're going to experience music in the future is online, and bands are going to become successful through their shows. You've just got to accept that. It's kind of come back. The artists never made their money on the record sales anyway."

Perhaps, at least in this case, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's been a while since a good country album has come out of Texas. Most of modern country rock has been emerging in states where cowboys never traveled in fields of grain and longhorns might be a football team and not a type of cattle. The Austin band Brothers and Sisters have sought to reverse that trend. With a self-titled album already under their belts, the band has come back with their sophomore album Fortunately". Real life brother and sister Will and Lily Courtney lead the way into a great country rock album full of heartache, love and whiskey.

Brothers and Sisters don't have a unique sound per se, but they know how to use it to enhance their lyrics. They have an indie rock sound combined with the sweet twang of country. It's a little different than the normal country rock genre, but not so much so that it's something completely new. Many of the songs have a similar beat, tempo, or sound to them, which gives the album cohesion - but at the same time it makes it hard to tell songs apart from each other. "That's How it Goes" has this dreamy echo effect to the guitar which makes it easier to stand out on Fortunately, but it's still similar to other slower tracks such as the one preceding it "California".

Despite this weakness, Brothers and Sisters are able to still create a great album. The Courtneys' song writing is the strongest part of Fortunately. The whole album is scattered with themes of love, loss and relationships old and new; but none of them sound mushy or typical. Will's voice becomes something more than words within a song because of the strength of the lyrics. They are simple but filled with emotion, giving it more meaning than some other country songs with subjects pertaining to tractors and dead dogs. On the track "Make a Man's Body Hurt", Will Courtney sings about learning how to love again after having his heart broken. It's never corny or cliché, and Courtney's words ring true to those who have experienced a broken heart. Their lyrics are sincere and simple. Each line is something we've felt before, such as the verse "The dreams we've been dreamin,' it's so damn hard to know you don't believe it now." The album closer "Fortunately" is another good example of this trend. Will and Lily's voices blend together with the echoed guitar to make a haunting end to Fortunately.

If there is any up-and-coming underground band with the potential to become a hugely popular supernova...it is most surely Brothers and Sisters. The folks in this band write and record super hummable soft pop tunes that have the same overall feeling and vibe of some of the tunes from the great lost bubblegum band The Mamas and Papas. But instead of being a 1960s rehash, Fortunately ends up coming across like a modern pop album that simply draws pure inspiration from the past. The songs on this album are, in a word...happy. That will probably be enough to scare off half of the younger listeners out there...but fortunately there are a lot of folks at this point in time who want and need music that provides escapism. The band is driven by the superlative songwriting skills of Will Courtney. There is no doubt that this guy writes some of the best upbeat catchy tunes around. Fantastic cuts include "Mason City," "You're Gone" (god, what a tune...!), "The Wind," "The Trees Are Bare," and "Fortunately." Highly recommended. (Rating: 5+++)

Younger Than Yesterday
Brothers and Sisters just wasn't made for these times

As Austin starts giving way to the flat, barren stretch of road to Houston, east on Highway 290, the metallic sheen of Uncle Bob's Self Storage glints in the dusky sunlight. The atmosphere is bleak inside the gated compound, one side flanked by a field of brown grass and the other by the industrial drabness of a lumberyard. A few straggling movers rush to unload trucks into the outside units before the light fails.

Behind the rows of generic garage doors, memories lie packed in boxes. Accumulated histories gather dust, everyday artifacts not quite abandoned but left to the half-life of homelessness. Halfway down a sweltering hallway, Brothers and Sisters unpacks the past with sonic abandon. Bright harmonies and jangling guitars ring out with an unexpected swell, careening off the concrete and metal facades. The music casts the entire complex in an incongruous glow.

The inside of the 25-by-20-foot practice space looks like a teenager's basement haven. A beaten, faded couch sits opposite a minifridge, freshly drained beer bottles scattered among the myriad of instruments. A crumpled banner of the Beatles stares down on the band from the corner, the only decoration save for a set list roughly staked into the carpet-coated walls with a screwdriver.

A box fan propped in the hallway struggles to circulate air as the Austin sextet bursts into "I Don't Rely," from the band's new sophomore album, Fortunately. With their backs to the doorway, Will and Lily Courtney pitch their harmonies toward the chorus, wisps of the latter's blond hair flirting with the breeze. An unlit cigarette hangs from Ricky Ray Jackson's mouth as he works his pedal steel alongside Daniel Wilcox's twanging lead guitar. Dave Morgan steadies the rhythm on bass while Greg McArthur rattles the thin walls with each drumbeat.

Brothers and Sisters is a band broken from time and place. Their music steeps in nostalgia for idyllic, 1960s California pop rock, where the Beach Boys meet the Byrds to sing alongside the Mamas & the Papas. It's a sound joyfully thriving in the slipstream of anachronism, more at home in the stacks of vinyl likely left sweating and forgotten inside the adjacent storage units.

Time Between

Pulling up a chair outside of Quack's on 38½ Street, Brother Will looks like he just wandered out of Topanga Canyon in the L.A. hills, circa 1970. Large, aviator-tinted sunglasses obscure the parts of his face not hidden by his long hair and thick beard. His domineering build, cloaked familiarly in denim, is offset by a soft smile and gregarious friendliness.

"You know, I wanted to make movies all my life," he says. "I got a video camera when I was 10 and just started making movies with all my neighborhood friends and sister. I really wanted to be a director. It's kind of the same thing with producing records. I never really wanted to be the actor or the lead singer in a band. Some people really thrive off of that kind of attention, but I really just like doing it all, being behind the scenes."

Both Courtney children seemed destined for music from birth. Their mother, award-winning Christian singer Cynthia Clawson (see "All in the Family"), went into labor with Will while recording in a Nashville studio. Lily, two years younger, was in utero on the Grammy stage as her mother performed six months pregnant to music's biggest names.

The family moved frequently when Will and Lily were young, their mother's career and father's writing shifting them between Nashville, Houston, and Louisville, Ky., until they eventually settled in Austin in 1999. Amid the constant relocation, the siblings absorbed a musical education rifling through their parents' piles of vinyl.

"We weren't afraid of our parents' records as kids. A lot of people get turned off by that, and we weren't," attests Will. "In seventh grade, I listened to Randy Newman exclusively, and looking back at it, I'm like, 'Man, what a dork!'"

If Will's California dreamin' originated with his parents' LPs, it was cemented when he moved to L.A. in 2001 to work as a production assistant in the film industry. Music soon took center stage as the glitz and glamour of the West Coast became less tenable with his plans.

"I decided I was tired of doing the L.A. thing," he says. "I mean, I love L.A., don't get me wrong, but it's just so expensive, and the music just wasn't working out the way that I wanted. I thought I was just going to come here and try to do a band and run a record label."

Will returned to Austin summer 2005 with a specific sound reverberating in his head and visions of the collective he wanted to build. He made prospective members show him their record collections, looking for the flourishes of psychedelic country and pop that he could already hear. He started with someone whose taste he knew was impeccably attuned to his own: Lily.

"When I moved here, I told her that we have to be in a band together and forced her to do it," Will laughs. "It was impossible to get her to go out and perform. She's just very shy. And the funny thing is she's a really good actress. She's got this natural ability to perform, but she's so shy that nobody would really know that."

By the end of the year, Will had assembled a loose ensemble of friends and artists to record Brothers and Sisters' eponymous debut, released early 2006 on the Courtney family's own Calla Lily imprint. Their shows were ebullient affairs, cramming the stage with harmonizers and tambourine shakers as they delivered easy back-porch anthems for hazy summer evenings.

My Back Pages

The band breaks from practice and gathers in the parking lot of Uncle Bob's Self Storage. Outside, they're like kids at recess, badgering each other as the conversation ambles freely. Though Brothers and Sisters has trimmed its revolving cast into a core sextet, solidifying the more psychedelic burned tones of their sound in the process, they maintain their casual and open aura.

"We practice every week, and somehow, maybe it's the beer, or maybe it's the friendship, we really just have a good time hanging out with one another," offers Will.

"We're never going to be the band that goes, 'Well, on the third beat of the fourth measure, you're a bit fast.' We don't do that, and we don't practice like that," adds Morgan. "We've played together long enough now that we can anticipate each other a lot of times, but it's more about the feel of the song. It's not ever going be metronome-like perfect."

"We're famous for our looseness," laughs Jackson.

That relaxed roughness is as hallmark to Brothers and Sisters' sound as their sun-ripened harmonies, though Fortunately fires with more confidence and precision. The guitars break from the debut's folk-pop mold into rockier terrain, corralling Crazy Horse riffs behind Will's nasally, Jawhawks croon, while Jackson's pedal steel melds into the arrangements with the ease of the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Fortunately is largely a live product, Will's retro sensibility extending equally to his production of the album. Recorded with Erik Wofford at Cacophony Recorders, the tracks were laid straight to tape and mixed completely on the board. They never touched a computer.

"I wanted that feeling of a live record; I definitely didn't want the Pro Tools, fixed perfect timing. I'm just really tired of that, man," sighs Will. "I think with modern day records, there are people that go for this raw sound, but it's a forced raw sound.

"With us, I wanted to go for that way the old records were made," he continues. "It wasn't like we were trying to be raw, but with those older records, when the bands would just go in and play, there's a spirit there that I feel is missing from records and culture as a whole. There's this staleness and mechanical thing going on now with art. We weren't trying to be superraw, punk rock. I just want it to be the way it used to be."

With 14 songs clocking almost an hour, Fortunately is a throwback to the halcyon days of epic LPs in every sense, and the group plans to follow the CD release with a four-sided, double vinyl edition by the end of summer.

"It's so weird that technology has gotten so far, and we're regressing in the sonic qualities of music. It's just so strange to me that we're settling for crappy digital quality," says Will. "It's hard to balance it all. The goal is to make it on record, and for the people that care about sitting down in their chair and listening to it with their headphones, I want it to be there for them, because that's the way I do it. And even though we might be in the days when nobody wants a full album, well, I do."

Nostalgia is an elusive mistress, the phantom lure of memory and imagination that draws its power from its very unattainability. Unpacked, reality never quite melds with the vision, time breaking the contours of context and revealing what was dreamed lost to be as much a wish for how things should be rather than what they are or ever were.

The band retreats back to their storage unit, and as the setting sun streaks across the lot, the call of "California" coats the fading day. Will's voice lilts with longing as Lily's soft hum shades the verses:

"I dream about you every night, in spite of what they said,

It's worth the fight, for this picture in my head ...

That's the way I want it to end."

-- Doug Freeman, Austin Chronicle Band Profile (July 18, 2008)

Cracking open the cellophane wrapping the cardboard sleeve of Fortunately, one can sense the sunshine within. The disc doesn't disappoint. Brothers and Sisters' second effort is big, bright, and balmy. It doesn't travel far from their debut, but it's a step up in songwriting, from the propulsive "You're Gone" to psychedelic soundscape "The Trees Are Bare." There's also the sense that although singer and songwriter Will Courtney steers this local ship, his band has matured in ways that anchor his boyish tendencies. AM radio pop sensibilities abound, catch the ba ba baa's of "That's How It Goes" and the sibling harmonies, with sister Lily Courtney, of "Wash Away." While the country-rock vibe and near orchestral vocals evoke comparisons to the Byrds and the Beach Boys, there's a subtle reflection of latter-day popsters like Let's Active and Continental Drifters, as well. With short bursts of delight and affecting moments of serenity, Fortunately doesn't time travel as much as expose the possibilities of today's pop music.

-- Jim Caligiuri, Austin Chronicle (July 18, 2008)

I've been enjoying Brothers and Sisters' new record Fortunately (out July 22nd) for a little while now. When I first put it on, I used the time to compose some emails that needed to be sent. I jerked back to actively listening to it when the first few seconds of "You're Gone" kicked on. Its a nice tune.

Like I said, the beginning of this song really caught me. It's like the Essex Green joined by Peter Buck or Alex Chilton. It's some great jangle-pop in line with some of the best of them. Plus his voice has a kind of country They Might Be Giants quality that I'm just eating up.

...Considering the record as whole [sic], The Beach Boys seem to have been a major influence, as manifested in the pervasive brightness of the lyrics and vocals. As for the instrumentation, the opening riff of "The Air is Getting Thicker" is something Roger McGuinn would covet...

..The change-of-season lament, "The Wind," is simply beautiful. And despite its marked difference in tone from its siblings, it sounds effortless. It's this potential for versatility that might distinguish Brothers and Sisters from their alt-country contemporaries.

-- Molly Fitzpatrick, The Aquarian (July 2008)

There's a song for every season, an intonation for every falling leaf. A riff for every angry thunderstorm. Austin's Brothers & Sisters recline in the burnt and sunny pastures of Texas summers and vacation on the breezy beaches of California. They make simple music, choruses slipping easily into the groove of a verse, but it's their feel-good attitude that's taken them from ideas floating around in Will Courtney's head to packed houses in Austin's notoriously fickle music scene.

"Things and ideas are classic for a reason," bassist David Morgan relates of Brothers & Sisters' familiar melodies. "There's the timeless, odd thing in music, and if you tap into that, which I think we do sometimes, people latch onto it."

The six brothers and two sisters that make up the core of the band are more kindred than even the name implies. Will and Lily Courtney were reared by music; mother Cynthia Clawson is a revered contemporary gospel singer, who - with father, preacher, and songwriter Ragan Courtney - released last year's Brothers & Sisters' eponymous debut on their Calla Lily Records [distributed by I Eat Records]. Will came home to Texas from L.A. two years ago and started making music with his sister. The rest of the unit - Morgan, guitarists James Olsen and Daniel Wilcox, pedal steelist Ray Jackson, tambourine player Courtney Chavanell, and drummer Greg McArthur - quickly clicked, and with the help of tours with Trail of Dead, Brothers & Sisters have become a hit with their Beach Boys harmonies and Byrds calls.

"Pop music is what brought everybody together," explains McArthur. "Simple songs, not hard to play."

Brothers & Sisters' smile and sway is a welcome respite from the often-contrived indie rock of the last decade. Instead of forced, complicated structure, B&S are accessible, sometimes even obvious. The songs on Brothers & Sisters (Texas Platters [below] , February 3, 2006) find Will and Lily fluctuating between key and feeling, each strum accentuated by the euphoria in songs like the jubilant "Sunday Living" and innocent "One Night." When the serene reverberation of "Without You" crosses into pop perfection, crystalline tambourine echoes timelessly. It might be vintage, but it's not weathered.

"What's really fun about playing in this type of band is that the songs are pretty easy," Morgan chuckles. "It's easy to play a show with one of your friends' bands and say, 'Hey, just come onstage and sing. You've heard it once; you can probably get by.'

"It's comfort food as music."

--Darcie Stevens, "SXSW Picks 2 Click 2007," The Austin Chronicle (March 2007)

The moniker of this Austin-based country-rock ensemble refers to siblings Will and Lily Courtney - respectively, the group's lead singer-songwriter and the harmony singer-tambourinist - as well as the "extended family" of musicians listed on the CD jacket (which includes Conrad Keely of ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead). This communal vibe contributes to the warm gather-round-the-fire feel of Brothers and Sisters' low-key debut. Most of the songs deal with the quiet sorrows of growing older with too much time and not enough money ("Purple mountains don't mean nothin' unless you're on top"). The gorgeous gem "One Night" couches a plea for nookie into a dappled Byrdsian chime and an irresistable chorus. The tear-in-beer ballad "Old Love Letters" could be a lost track from Grievous Angel. There is nothing pretentious or even ostentatious about this music; one can almost smell the tobacco and old Lone Star beer cans spiked with salt and lime.

-- Matthew Duersten, No Depression (Jan-Feb 2007)

Brotherly Love: Austin's best-kept, countrified secret

Brothers and Sisters bask in the same golden sunshine as the Mamas and The Papas and the Byrds, but the Austin-based collective also mines that era's darker side, combining sugar-sweet harmonies with foreboding, gloomy lyrics. It's a dichotomy that singer/songwriter Will Courtney (aka Brother Will) sees no problem with. "I don't set out to have that contrast in my songs, but it does happen a lot," he says. "The truth is, life, for the most part, is filled with hardships, heartache and disappointment. But for me, I really never lose hope that the good stuff is just around the corner." And the good stuff is everywhere on the group's self-titled debut (Cally Lily/I Eat Records): hazy strummed sing-a-longs, boy-girl harmonies, vibrant keys. Ask Brother Will what the band sounds like, however, and he'll most likely name cornerstone 70's cult films like Five Easy Pieces, Being There and Harold and Maude, instead of bands or instruments. "All of those movies have this sense of longing for the past, but are aware that the present, however painful or joyful, is only here for a moment and you really have no choice but to embrace it," he explains. That desire to embrace the world is also part of the inspiration behind the band's name. While Brothers and Sisters only contain one pair of blood siblings (Will and his sister Lily), the moniker, as well as the Brother/Sister prefix attached to each member, has a lot to do with Courtney's childhood: "Lily and I were raised to believe that we're all brothers and sisters in this world," he says. "I really wanted to have a band that would be so big that it was like an audience on the stage, and it would break down the barriers between audience and performer."

-- Jessica Suarez, "On the Verge," CMJ New Music Monthly no. 141

Austin, Texas' Brothers and Sisters remind me of a lot of great bands: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Whiskeytown, Beachwood Sparks, and even a little bit of the Grateful Dead. But that's not a bad thing; this country-rock collective make some seriously good music. Their debut album is merely the beginning for these folk-loving folk, and we were happy to get the chance to speak to Brother Will Courtney, the mastermind behind the band, shortly after he completed the band's first West Coast tour. His tale is an interesting one, and if you get a chance to see them on tour, I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you'd come and see them live. (INTERVIEW HERE)

--Joseph Kyle, Mundane Sounds (Oct. 2006)

Ah, California dreaming on such a summer's day. Brothers and Sisters effectively wrangle up the laid-back sunshine vibe of 1970s California AM radio pop/rock, but without being a retro throwback. For the record, this Austin septet actually features only one pair of siblings, leaders Will and Lily Courtney. Their five bandmates and another seven "extended family" members have pooled their resources to create a strong debut of acoustic guitar-driven, country-kissed songs. While they certainly draw from the Eagles and Neil Young, they also touch on the works of artists closer to being their contemporaries, such as Will Oldham and My Morning Jacket. Still, the band are too earnest to belong to modern times. Will Courtney denies the trappings of present day consumption-crazy culture in "New Life", with its groovy organ-fed shuffle and casual declaration: "All these luxuries, these extra things / They don't mean shit." The lyrical and musical straightforwardness of Brothers and Sisters is refreshing, as is the quality of the tunes all throughout this very good first album. We will soak it in and hope for more.

--Michael Keefe, PopMatters (Sept. 2006)

Austin, Texas produces more musicians than any other city in the United States, so it should come as very little surprise that many of the most highly regarded bands in rock hail from the Lone Star State's fine capital. Yet, with the state's rich history of cowboy culture and country music, it's amazing that there aren't more breakout acts with an ear for twang. Austin eight-piece Brothers and Sisters don't neglect their state's heritage, however, marrying sunny pop music with a laid back alt-country vibe on their self-titled debut, a 12 song set of dusty guitars, warm, crackling organ and ragged vocal harmonies. (READ MORE)

--Jeff Terich, Treble (Sept. 2006)

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Brothers and Sisters' mellow West Coast country-pop is the surprise local hit of 2006. Moreover, in an industry of artifice, they come by it honestly: Singer-songwriter Will Courtney started the supersized ensemble that he anchors with actual sister Lily last year after returning from a four-year sojourn in L.A., where he worked in the mail room of an A&R firm. "The president heard my demo, and it turned out he used to engineer Neil Young records in the Seventies," says Courtney. "He told me he wanted to help me get a deal, and that started to scare me because the way he was talking was all snaky and sneaky. I stepped away from him, and that ultimately cost me my job." Already driving an F-150 and wearing cowboy boots, Courtney figured he might as well move back to Texas, where he could start a band and help his parents run their record label, the Calla Lily Company. (His mother is a story all by herself: a gospel singer banned from Christian radio for her huge gay following.) Brothers and Sisters played their first show in October, and their earthy, honest sound struck an unlikely chord among local hipsters. "It's been really overwhelming," Courtney says. "I'm not saying I'm doing anything amazing or new, but I kind of feel like people are looking for that good, old feeling like those classic records. That's all I ever listen to, and I just want to keep that alive." Brothers and Sisters play the Whisky Bar tonight (Thursday) before heading west on a three-week tour.

--Christopher Gray, "TCB Music News," The Austin Chronicle (Aug. 2006)

Five boys. Two girls. Twelve tracks. One hell of an album

Everyone who is/was anyone appears to have influenced this engaging debut--not surprising considering the band's seven members came together in Texas from points as far afield as Hawaii, California, North Carolina and the deep South. The most obvious ghosts knocking around in here are 70's Neil Young, the gentler 'Who Loves The Sun'-era Velvet Underground' and vintage (is there any other?) Beach Boys. Pleasantly under-produced with quirky lyrics, some nice off-kilter guitar solos, laid-back vocals and plenty of old-fashioned melody, there just simply isn't any dead wood on this album. Despite all the influences at work, Brothers and Sisters bring to the mix as much as they borrow and when they occasionally sound derivative, they do so with unabashed pride. We like the sound of our musical heroes, so what?

There is something of The Magic Numbers about this retro-inspired band although Brothers and Sisters are far more diverse and seem more deserving of acclaim than that other beardy, mixed gender outfit. For those wishing to revel in jangly, chorus-kissed 70's California pop, there's 'Without You' and 'Lost and Found'. For those wanting to revisit Neil Young's more solemn side, go no further than 'Old Age' or 'Breathing Lessons'. The rest fall into a loose, sort of Green On Red category of rambling country rockiness although some real emotion kicks in on the country lament 'Old Love Letters' and the mournful, acoustic finale 'Going South'. Singer/writer Will Courtney seems to be running the show here and it's not clear exactly where the rest of the 'family' fit in but, however they do it, the results sing and sparkle for themselves.

-- Robin Cracknell, Americana-UK (May 2006)

God damn it I love pedal steel guitar! Two instruments possess the possibility to emulate drunkenness, the first is the pedal steel guitar, and the second is the violin. If only there were a band that had both of these instruments... oh wait, how about Brothers and Sisters from Austin? Yes that's right, a violin, pedal steel, and lyrics about booze and loss. Plus I should mention that the violinist on the full length is none other than Conrad Keely from ...Trail of the Dead. With a new release on Calla Lily/I Eat Records, you can get your 70's era country fix with a little of that "alt" sprinkled in there as well. Brothers and Sisters, as the name suggests, contains an actual brother and a sister, oh and gents, incidentally, the sister plays an autoharp. No, you're not mistaken, that is a wet spot on your jeans, and a desire in your heart to drink Lone Star and commiserate with Brothers and Sisters live. The sound strikes me as similar to just about anything Gram Parsons was involved in (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers) but there is a bit of The Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies in there as well. However, I should warn you that listening to Brothers and Sisters will make you grow a beard and wonder why you ever called your Dad lame for trying to force that Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album on you.

--John Buglewicz, The Austin Independent (March 2006)

Brothers and Sisters' local debut isn't perfect: the harmonies aren't always in key, the vocals sound raw at times, and guitars go in and out of tune. That's what makes it a true repeat listen. Those imperfections grow on you, like opener "New Life," which trots along under keys, tambourine, and Will Courtney's dusty West Coast drawl. "One Night" sounds like a Carly Simon/James Taylor jam with more twang and less sexual tension: "Come on baby, gimme one night. I know it's crazy but it just feels so right." The pedal steeliness of "Los Angeles" turns anthemic as the whole family gets on the wagon and screams "L.A.!" over a burning guitar solo. The plaintive "Without You" expands like the spawn of the Mamas and the Papas, riding a gentle wave of guitar pitter-patter into a wall of vocals featuring sisters Marie Butcher and Lily Courtney, whose harmonies are especially striking. "Lost and Found" screams Beach Boys, with its Wilson-esque chorus, and "Old Age" cranks like Rust Never Sleeps era-Neil. There's no kitsch here, only charm.

-- Audra Schroeder, The Austin Chronicle (February 2006)

"Will Courtney On His Family Affair"

The story of Will Courtney's Brothers and Sisters starts like so many other Hollywood rock 'n' roll tales - but it's in reverse; For once, something starts in Los Angeles and ends in Texas. "I was this guy with a beard wearing boots, driving a truck in LA. I looked like a Texan. I started to wonder why the hell I was in LA. Why didn't I get back to where it all started, back to where country music really happened? So I moved back to Texas." Will Courtney sat back and lit up his Camel Light. Stroking his beard he let me in on the "played out game" called LA, what makes Austin's music scene perfect, and the origin of the sound that would later make and help define his band, one of the most talked about bands on the Austin music scene, Brothers and Sisters.

"My sister, Lily Courtney, and I were sitting on the couch one day and she got the tambourine out, and we just started jamming. Originally we were going to be called Brother and Sister, do a duet thing. But then we realized that we gotta get some more people on this, it was too good of an idea to pass up." Thanks to the modern marvels of the Internet, Will placed an advertisement on one of the most infamous websites known to date: Craigslist. "In the subject line I put all these band names and said you have to know and love all these bands." Those bands ranged from Neil Young to The Byrds.

The album was already recorded and produced, but what Will and Lily needed were musicians. Not just any musicians, musicians who were keen on the sound Will Courtney was trying to lay down. "I'm a huge fan of the West Coast sound. I wanted country music mixed with the Beach Boys. I wanted that California, 60's sounding pop band mixed with country. California country Beach Boys meets Gram Parsons."

After a few member rotations, the lineup was complete. Marie Butcher, Will and Lily Courtney, Greg McArthur, Dave Morgan, James Olsen, Dan Wilcox and most recently - the addition of And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead's own Conrad Keely, were now "Brothers and Sisters." After a few rehearsals, Will knew the Brothers and Sisters was set. "We'll have band rehearsals and at the end we'll all be smiling... just smiling knowing that it's good. That it feels right."

It would seem like having a band with eight members would be more than one could handle, but luckily that isn't the case for this band. Headstrong and focused, Will didn't lose any sleep over such a "petty" idea. "I wanted a band where it's not me telling everybody what to do. It's the first time I've found a band where everybody is on the same page. We've got the same idea." Obviously it is a great idea. The first show the group played was packed and since then, the last three have sold out. Along with sold out shows, the band has a video under their belt. Brothers and Sisters recorded a video for "One Night," which is in heavy rotation on Central Texas' Music Entertainment Television, or ME TV, and is ready to start recording a second one for "Sunday Living." If you just happened to be out and about during SXSW this year, you probably stumbled across Brothers and Sisters who were dominating the scene playing a total of seven shows. Currently labels are scoping them out and it wouldn't be a surprise if they had a couple offers on the table. That's how things work in this reverse Hollywood story; California talent scouts come running to get the Texas artists.

When asked what makes the music scene in Austin so great, Will responds with a grin and states, "the camaraderie." He follows up, "The music scene in Austin is so diverse. You have all these bands that are totally different, but come out and support each others' bands. That's what's cool about Austin. In LA it seems to be genre specific, here it's a camaraderie. That's what I've noticed and that's what I like."

Will seems optimistic about Brothers and Sisters' future, and why not? Four months into the new year, things are looking oh so good. Videos are up and more shows are in the works. "Everything fell into place. I've been following this same path for five years. I've been focused on doing it and it just happened. I've been very aware of how lucky I am."

All in all, the self-titled album captured everything Will had set out to do. What's done is done, and it was done well. Brothers and Sisters will be playing a series of shows throughout May. Visit their website for dates and to hear tracks from their album. There isn't a doubt that this CD will be the soundtrack for the summer nights to come - in Texas, California and the rest of the union.

-- Brandace Chatman, ATX Magazine

RECOMMENDED (05/10/06 @ The Parish)
...At least locals Brothers and Sisters came from the sun. The still-new folk mix met up in Austin just last year and are already filling rooms with good-time pop. The equally fizzy Belaire opens.

-- Darcie Stevens, The Austin Chronicle

RECOMMENDED (02/18/06 @ Longbranch Inn)
...Opening act the Brothers and Sisters are a groovy, Gram Parsons-flavored country-rock collective that makes getting out early for this all-star local trifecta a worthwhile proposition indeed.

-- Greg Beets, The Austin Chronicle

RECOMMENDED (02/03/06 @ Beerland)
The spirit of feel-good Seventies radio is alive and the signal is coming from Austin's Brothers and Sisters. On their self-titled debut (see "Texas Platters"), the handsome sevenpiece tears a page from the alt.country twang of Gram Parsons and the Band, all while radiating sunshine pop and L.A. hooks. The feel-good local album of the new year. Locals Lomita farm out big guitar sounds, Quien es Boom! picks choice jangle, and the Black's David Longoria cooks up hotlicks.

-- Audra Schroeder, The Austin Chronicle