Steel Magnolia emerged as a country duo after embracing a distinctly modern route to visibility: victory on the television competition Can You Duet? The group comprises Meghan Linsey, a Ponchatoula, Louisiana native, and Joshua Scott Jones. Linsey assembled the partnership with Jones, her boyfriend, after crossing paths with him during her tenure as a karaoke host at a Nashville establishment. The pair entered the second season of Can You Duet? as contestants, captured the top prize, and leveraged the resulting spotlight to secure a deal with Big Machine Records. That label issued their first single, “Keep on Lovin’ You,” in August 2009. Nearly twelve months afterward, in July 2010, the follow-up “Just by Being You (Halo and Wings)” arrived; in the interim the duo put out a self-titled EP in early 2010 and several additional tracks, among them the download-exclusive offerings “Just By Being You,” “It’s Christmas Time,” and “Last Night Again.” On January 4, 2011, Steel Magnolia earned an Association of Country Music (ACM) nomination for Best New Duo or Group, and their self-titled debut album reached stores one week later.
