Three sisters from rural southwest Georgia are building momentum in Nashville with a sound that feels both timeless and fresh. The Castellows — Ellie, Powell and Lily Balkcom — stopped by The Tennessean offices for USA TODAY Acoustic, performing "I Know It'll Never End" and "Cowboy Kind of Love." The trio is promoting a fallHomecoming Touralongside a new six-song acoustic EP, a project that was born almost by accident. "We recorded some acoustic songs. It was originally just a plan for YouTube," Ellie said. "It wasn't supposed to be released on streaming platforms, but we really loved the way it captured our vocals." Her sister Lily pushed to make sure the project went beyond a casual upload. "I was listening to the recordings in the car driving and I called Ellie immediately and was like, this needs to be released," Lily said. "This is stupid if we don't release this just as a little taste of how we like to play when we're not playing. It's super indicative of who we are and how we grew up." Powell agreed: "It's just so comfortable for us, going back to our natural three-piece with our instruments. That's just how we did it growing up in our music room." Raised on a cattle farm along the Chattahoochee River, the Balkcom sisters were homeschooled and steeped in music as an everyday activity. Powell and Ellie are part of triplets with their brother Henry, and Lily arrived 17 months later. What began as a family pastime around their living room slowly grew into something bigger once songwriting entered the picture. " It was really only after we started writing songs that it kind of materialized because we always played and we always had a lot of fun playing covers," Ellie said. Asked what tracks serve as the best introduction to their catalog, the sisters pointed in different directions. "'I Know It'll Never End' is one of my favorites and I didn't even write it," Powell said. "I love just the recording and the lyrics, talking about all the places we've been now. That one's really special." Lily suggested diving into the acoustic EP first, then listening to songs like "Sober Sundays" or their swamp-tinged take on "Hurricane." Ellie recommended "The Flatland" and "Old Way." Their closeness as sisters shapes both their music and their personalities. In a rapid-fire session, they revealed Powell is the most organized — "She wakes up and folds all laundry in the morning," Lily said — Ellie is the fastest at finishing assignments and it's Lily "all day, every day" when it comes to who's most likely to forget something. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Castellows bring fine-tuned country harmonies to USA TODAY Acoustic
