Bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings

David Bianculli (0:00)

This is Fresh Air, I'm David Bianculli. Today, singer, songwriter and guitarist Billy Strings. He's one of the younger generation of musicians carrying the torch for traditional acoustic bluegrass. Even as his music incorporates exploratory improvisational jams and the occasional heavy metal guitar riff. He's been celebrated by both audiences and the music industry. His concerts fill huge arenas, and he's won three Grammys.

Highway Prayers, released in 2024, is the first bluegrass album in over 20 years to reach number one on Billboard's all genre top 100 album sales chart.

That album showcases the songwriting of Billy Strings and his terrific band. He has a new album inspired by the death of his mother last year from an overdose. It's titled So Much for Goodbyes. Here's the song Still I Crash, which he wrote about her.

Last year, Billy Strings released a live album with another ace bluegrass guitarist, Brian Sutton, called Live at the Legion. The duo performed in a more intimate setting than the arenas at which Strings usually plays. The American Legion, post-82 in East Nashville. Playing a lot of music associated with Doc Watson. Billy Strings spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Briger last year after that album was released. Let's hear the lead-off track from Live at the Legion, Nashville Blues, originally by the Delmore Brothers.

Sam Briger (3:24)

That's Billy Strings and Brian Sudden on the new album Live at the Legion. Billy Strings, welcome to Fresh Air.

Billy Strings (3:30)

Hey, thank you so much. Good to be here.

Sam Briger (3:33)

So how did the idea for this show and album come about?

Billy Strings (3:38)

Well, we did a live record, I don't know how long ago it was now, but we did one of our shows, you know, of our big jam grass stuff in the arenas. And it's just a different kind of energy, big psychedelic jams and big screaming audiences. And a lot of my favorite live recordings are tiny little small crowds where you can you can hear somebody knock over a beer bottle or, you know, you can hear the crowd what they're saying. Yeah, we just kind of pulled up into the Legion Hall and they were really cool to let us do that. And we had a small crowd there and we played a bunch of music that we love. And Brian Sutton is, he's been one of my good friends for quite a few years now and mentors and heroes. And he is one of the greatest guitar players ever.

Sam Briger (4:32)

Yeah, he's like a generation older than you. But he's, I think he's perhaps like the go-to bluegrass session guitar player in Nashville these days. And so there's a long tradition of bluegrass guitar duos. There's of course, Doc Watson and his son Murl. There's Norman Blake and Tony Rice, Tony Rice and his brother Wyatt. It seems like kind of like a no brainer, just two people playing guitar together, but it's actually like a little tricky.

Your instruments are right in the same range, obviously. You're playing a lot of open strings. There's a lot of fast notes. It can get a little muddy. What do you do so you're making sure you're not stepping on the other person?

Billy Strings (5:15)

You just try to listen. If he's down low, I'll go high or there's things like that. You can do a lot of these tunes too. A beautiful thing about Doc and Murl and T. Michael Coleman. With those three instruments, they could make a big fat chord.

Like when they ended a song and they played a chord, there's just this huge chord because it's almost like hitting a piano in a couple of different spots. You get these guitars to open up and sound big.

Sam Briger (5:45)

A lot of this material comes from Doc Watson, like some of these songs are songs that are part of his repertoire.

You said that most everything you do comes from Doc Watson. Can you talk about his influence on you?

Billy Strings (6:01)

Yeah, he's like the ground upon which I stand. You know, my dad played his music all around the house growing up, and by the time I could play guitar, you know, five, six years old, I was learning those tunes too.

I might have been able to play some of them before I knew how to tie my shoes or something. You know, it was like I was learning how to speak and talk and walk, and I was learning all these Doc Watson tunes at the same time, and it was just like a religion in my house. You know, his music is just, it's the best.