Elenowen

Forming the Nashville-based country-folk-rock duo Elenowen—named for Josh's mother and Nicole's father and pronounced "ellen-owen"—are the husband-and-wife songwriting and vocal team of Josh and Nicole Johnson. The pair first met and fell in love while still in high school, then married during Josh's freshman year at Belmont University in Nashville. Each continued building an independent singing and music career until 2009, when the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss album Raising Sand prompted them to begin working together. With a sound they envisioned as occupying the space between country, folk, and pop, the duo issued their debut album, Pulling Back the Veil, in 2010. Chosen as contestants on the television program The Voice, Josh and Nicole received coaching from country singer Blake Shelton and attracted large numbers of new listeners through their performances, despite being eliminated from the show by Shelton himself. Although never strictly a country act, Elenowen refined a haunting folk-rock approach while composing both separately and together, resulting in the self-titled EP Elenowen, released by Dualtone Records in 2012.