Has anyone else discovered Billy Strings within the last couple years? Has it led to anything for any of ya’all?
For me, it’s opened some doors. I never really cared for bluegrass much, but Billy Strings is freaking amazing as a player and as a songwriter. I connect with a lot of his music. If you’ve never heard of this cat, you should at least check him out. Great songwriting and playing once again casts aside what I thought were my genre prejudices.
But thanks to YouTube algorithms, I have now been exposed to some artists I never had heard of, or thought that there was a chance in hell I would like their music…Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, Colter Wall and others are finding their way into my regular rotation.
Anyone else have this sort of eye (or, ear) opening experience with Billy…or other musicians from other genres that got bent sideways by the music?
And he’s found a niche at that intersection where Deadheads, bluegrass fans and country fans all meet. Good for him. He’s amazing.
Also, if you get a chance, check out his buddy Molly Tuttle. She’s a better guitar player than he is. She’s working a different path, and I don’t always relate to what she seems to want to be, but she is one of the finest guitar players ever to pick up an accoustic guitar (unlike Billy, on those few occasions when I’ve seen her pick up an electric, she doesn’t really seem to know what to do with it).
Cool! FWICT String’s rise to fame has been pretty meteoric and you’re right, he’s bringing people across genres. For me at first it was the playing. Like most, I heard “Dust…” first and was blown away by the playing, and I typically gravitate towards heavier melodic hard rock but that was the first thing that grabbed me: the speed.
But I dug more and discovered that great, intelligent and topical pop songwriting existed within. I really like his songs, man. They resonate with me. Well, not all of them but to me, so many of them focus on the drumbeat of things that are literally happening around us (“Taking Water”, “Watch It Fall”, “Wargasm”, “Seven”, etc. A personal favorite is “Running”.
Anyway, I’ve got tickets for myself and my 19 year old son to go to Indy on Aug 21st to see him finally. FInally scored low price ones as the distanced pod-based shows were always sold out and hella expensive.
I have only seen Billy play with Molly, I need to listen to that song again, I cannot recall it. And it was recent I think. Never heard her by herself. She’s been onstage with Billy’s band before I think I saw once as well.
I just like this melding. I’m 51, I have zero problems hanging out with old Deadheads, tripping balls Stu fans or whom the hell ever as we’ll all be there for the tunage.
Hell yes to this. At the risk of this thread devolving into a technique discussion, her right hand technique and precision is mindblowing, all the more so because she doesn’t use the method where you anchor your picking hand with your pinky so as to have a reference to where the strings are. Her right hand just floats and I have no idea how she does it. Look at this…
He is absolutely fucking amazing. I saw him a few years ago and he’s totally gone through the roof. I have tickets to see him in a couple months in L.A.
You’re right, it doesn’t, but it’s going to be cool to see such a mix of ages in the crowd. Looking forward to meeting cool people.
I just checked his tour dates, yeah, no NYC, not sure why either, but I hope you get to go. This will be my first time seeing him and his band. I look forward to it very much.
Why not turn it into a thread about technique? Billy and Molly have technique in spades.
Here’s Molly doing her cross-picking thing:
And just to prove it isn’t studio trickery, here she is doing it live and solo:
And here’s her weird banjo-style clawhammer thing:
Which works incredibly well with modal bluegrass stuff.
You’re right about her right hand – it just floats there, as if it had a mind of its own.
She’s brilliant. She doesn’t have the stage presence that Billy has, and she’s going in some directions that aren’t really my thing, but as a guitarist, she’s without peer.
To come – when I get some time, some thoughts (and links) about Billy, who I also love.
Thanks for those links. That’s just otherworldly talent. I believe that today is the day I take my guitars out back and burn 'em. I rewatched that White Freightliner video with the ‘hand-cam’ again, but this time on a big screen. I just don’t know what to make of that first instrumental break. It’s just not possible.
As I may or may not have mentioned, I love Billy too, although I’m nervous about the Grateful Dead intersection. My next door neighbor is a hard core Deadhead and I get enough of that coming through the fence.
I’m interested in your take on Billy. Comparing Molly’s technique with Billy’s, what I see is that Billy is incredibly talented, but mostly doing what guys before him did with an added dose of ferocity. I watch him and think, “Damn, that guy is good!” but not with the same sense of joy and despair when I see Molly play.
I’m a long time Deadhead but an almost as long time bluegrass fan. Billy has been doing Dead (and Phish) covers for years and recently collaborated with Bill Krueztmann for some legendary shows at Red Rocks. Billy Strings is a Deadhead from birth.
@pork_rind are you going to see him in LA on Sept 8th?
Yep, all true. Old Deadhead myself. I’ve seen the Dead, I’ve seen Rat Dog, I’ve seen The Other Ones, I’ve seen Dead & Company.
And a big bluegrass fan, from back before I even knew who the Grateful Dead were. Whenever possible, I’d catch live bluegrass (not that easy here in NYC).
And Billy Strings is just carrying on an old tradition. Jerry Garcia loved bluegrass (as evidenced by his collaborations with David Grisman). Billy Strings is just working that common ground, and good for him. I love it.
I’m a long-time bluegrass fan, back from when I was very small and my dad would play Bill Monroe albums on our giant console stereo. I had any joy the Dead brought burned out of me one unpleasant year in college where I shared an apartment with two Deadheads that apparently were majoring in 24 by 7 Comparative Tape Analysis. Nothing like hearing 15 different renditions of the same song followed by 15 renditions of another song, followed by…
Anyway, I’m not going to the Billy Strings show as I’m hoping to travel that week to visit a friend, assuming things don’t collapse on up from a public health perspective. In which case I wouldn’t be attending either. Totally unrelated, but also something I’m sad to miss, I won’t be seeing what is almost certainly the last King Crimson tour at their LA appearance in a couple of weeks.
I know Bela well. Or I should say I know his work well. Amazing and also I have no idea what he’s doing in terms of categorization.
Doc is foundational to me. One of my all-time favorite albums is the live Smithsonian Folkways recording of him and Bill Monroe performing. I’m not sure I’d compare Billy or Molly to him, other than to say they built on something that he in some ways invented.
Sure, yes. You get Doc Watson, then you get Tony Rice, then you get Bryan Sutton, then you get Billy Strings. It’s like one of those long strings of “begats” in the Old Testament.
Or something. I’m no expert, and it’s probably not a straight line, but there are generations of players learning from the past generations.
Yes! I love this way of looking at it. Another angle is that each new generation of player incorporates their surrounding environment into what they’ve learned from previous players. And one thing that I think about Billy Strings is that he brings some of that intensity of the hard rock and metal world that he’s said he loves into the way he attacks his runs and rhythm playing.
