The War and Treaty performs Litty at historic Woolworth Theatre in Nashville

The War and Treaty brought “Litty” to the historic Woolworth Theatre in Nashville as CBS used its July 4 primetime special to frame America’s 250th birthday with a multigenre, multigenerational cast. The performance aired during The Great American Block Party 250, a three-hour live broadcast hosted by Tony Dokoupil and Nischelle Turner and built around a finale fireworks display over the Washington Monument area in Washington, D.C.

The choice of The War and Treaty gave the special a distinctly contemporary national sound. Michael and Tanya Trotter are a husband-and-wife duo whose fifth studio album, The Story of Michael and Tanya, arrived on June 19 through Atlantic Outpost. Apple Music lists the 10-track record at 43 minutes, with “Litty” placed first and credited with Whoopi Goldberg. NPR-affiliated coverage has described the project as reflecting the couple’s 15-year marriage, and that personal foundation helps explain why the duo’s country, gospel, rock and R&B blend fits a celebration built around breadth rather than a single tradition.

That breadth mattered in CBS’s lineup. The network said the special featured exclusive performances by The War and Treaty, Zac Brown Band, Jon Batiste, Goo Goo Dolls and other artists, creating a stage where roots music, pop-rock and jazz could coexist in the same national broadcast. In that context, “Litty” served as more than an album opener: it carried the energy of a new release into a show designed to present American identity as expansive, cross-genre and current.

The setting added another layer. The Woolworth Theatre building at 221 and 223 Rep. John Lewis Way North dates to the 1890s, housed Woolworth beginning in 1913 and is tied to the 1960 sit-ins and Nashville’s Fifth Avenue Historic District. Putting a Black husband-and-wife duo inside that space for a July 4 performance folded civil-rights history into a program marking the country’s semiquincentennial. The result was a carefully assembled image of America that made room for Black artistry, partnership and pop culture inside one of Nashville’s most symbolically loaded buildings.