Friday, July 11, 2025

FRIDAY MUSIC: Billy Strings, by JD

Billy Strings is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bluegrass musician. In fact he is more than just Bluegrass, he started out playing 'heavy metal' and his current stage performances will also include a couple of Beatles songs. He has released four studio albums, with his album Home winning the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021, an award he won again in 2025 for Live Vol. 1.

At just 32, Strings is the first acoustic bluegrass artist in a generation—22 years, to be exact—to land a record at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 Album chart: his burning 2024 LP, Highway Prayers. (The last to do it was the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, back in 2002.)

Strings’ success is surely a testament to his extraordinary guitar playing, his convincing vocal delivery and harmony-rich arrangements, and his high-energy performance style. But it’s equally rooted in his earthy, hooky songs, which transpose the world-weary yet whimsical and often homesick themes of classic bluegrass into distinctly modern contexts: hard drug addiction; the slow ruin of alcoholism; battles with negative self-talk. It’s why so many fans—some call themselves “Billy Goats”—refer to his music as their “daily bread.”

And the Strings phenomenon goes far beyond Nashville. His spring tour found him headlining arenas across the States and alongside Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan at the Outlaw Festival. Strings has also taken his post-psychedelic bluegrass gospel to sold-out crowds across Europe and is currently (July 2025) on tour in Australia.

https://acousticguitar.com/interview-billy-strings-electrifying-bluegrass/
https://www.billystrings.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Strings

Don't Think Twice - Billy Strings
Billy Strings - While I'm Waiting Here | Live from the Mishawaka Amphitheatre
Billy Strings - Ramblin' Man | Allman Brothers Band Cover | St. Augustine, FL | 4-19-2024
Billy Strings - In The Morning Light (Official Video)
Billy Strings "Turmoil and Tinfoil"

Billy Strings - Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot Cover) Cary NC 4-19-2025

No comments: