The Staves

The Staves are sisters, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor and formerly Emily too, and they learned their trade at open-mic nights at The Horns, a pub in their hometown of Watford, first billed simply as The Staveley-Taylors. The name got shorter and the harmonies got tighter, the kind of close, family blend that no amount of rehearsal can fake.

Big names came calling early. They sang on Tom Jones's Praise and Blame in July 2010, supported Mt. Desolation around the UK late that year (Jessica also sang on that band's album) and turned up on Fionn Regan's 100 Acres of Sycamore, while putting out two EPs of their own in 2011, Live at Cecil Sharp House and Mexico. In 2012 they crossed to the States to open for The Civil Wars, played South by Southwest, toured with Bear's Den, Nathaniel Rateliff and Ben Howard on a run captured in Marcus Haney's documentary Austin to Boston, and supported Bon Iver that summer.

If I Was, their 2015 album for Atlantic Records, is where "Black & White" and "Teeth White" come from, the songs that reached the countdowns: three voices knotted together over guitars that are not afraid to raise their own voice.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.