The Civil Wars had a great day at the Grammy awards Sunday, taking home two awards and performing live at the ceremony.

The duo, which include Florence resident John Paul White on guitar and vocals and Nashville’s Joy Williams on vocals and piano, won Grammys in both the categories they were nominated for: Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Folk Album.

The Best Country Duo/Group Performance award was for the single “Barton Hollow” and the Best Folk Album award was for their debut album “Barton Hollow.”

Various news outlets quoted White as joking afterward that he had made a wager that the duo would not win a Grammy.

“I just lost a bet,” the country music blog, the boot.com, quoted White as saying. “I bet a man a bottle of whiskey this would not happen, and he just called me out for it.”

The country site, tasteofcountry.com, quoted White thanking his family and dedicating the awards to his wife. “My wife and four kids never see me — this is for my wife, who’s here tonight.”

He also thanked each of his four children and joked, “I’m obviously home just enough.”

The Civil Wars continue to rise to stardom. According to a Sunday mtv.com article, MTV will premiere a music video tonight for a song The Civil Wars and Taylor Swift worked on together.

The song, “Safe And Sound,” is from the “Hunger Games” soundtrack. The video premiers at 6:54 p.m. local time, during the program, “MTV First: Taylor Swift,” according to MTV’s website.

CMT will air the video at 7 p.m.

The Civil Wars also are scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. The show airs at 10:37 p.m. on NBC.

In addition to this year’s Grammys, The Civil Wars were nominated in 2011 for a Country Music Television Video of the Year award for “Barton Hollow,” a Country Music Association award for Duo of the Year and Americans Music Association awards for Best New/Emerging Artist and Duo/Group of the Year.

Bernie Delinski can be reached at 256-740-5739 or bernie.delinski@timesdaily.com.