Billy Strings is a man of many talents: A preternaturally skilled guitarist, a soulful singer, a thoughtful interpreter, a crafty songwriter, a charismatic stage presence. But his greatest feat to date might be persuading Marc Maron to not talk over him.
The 31-year-old bluegrass phenom appeared on WTF With Marc Maron back in May, and it is truly one of the more enjoyable podcast episodes I’ve heard all year. For about 90 minutes, Strings shares his life story, which has already become an integral part of the Grammy winner’s mythos. He talks about growing up in rural Michigan as William Lee Apostol, a kid who started playing guitar practically out of the womb amid squalid trailer park surroundings as his parents succumbed to substance abuse. He outlines the musical education he received from stepfather (and future collaborator) Terry Barber, who raised him to appreciate both country pickers (Doc Watson and David Grisman) and classic rock stalwarts (Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath). All the while, Billy is charmingly lowkey, expressing a wealth of beyond-his-years music knowledge with self-effacing humor. He’s so engaging that Maron temporarily forgets to redirect the conversation back to himself, as is his custom, and instead listens intently.
In the episode’s final third, Strings reveals a critical turning point in his career: Meeting the veteran mandolinist Don Julin, who played with the much-younger Strings on his early records. A respected player and author with a long resumé going back to the eighties, Julin is credited by Strings with teaching him how to be a professional musician. “When I was in middle school, I thought I was going to be some ‘Jimi Hendrix’ guy. I quickly realized that isn’t reality,” Billy says. “What he showed me was, you might not be a guitar god, but you could make a living.”
The irony is that Billy Strings — in terms of the reverence he’s earned from a large and growing audience of fanatical admirers — essentially is a guitar god at the moment. He is the guitar god, in fact. Given how the culture these days generally is agnostic when it comes to six-string deities, the profundity of this achievement cannot be overstated. This simply is not an era in which guitarists become famous for playing with extreme speed, force, clarity, and agility. And yet that is precisely what Billy Strings has done. He’s so good at playing guitar that he can call himself “Billy Strings” and not look foolish. He’s so good at playing guitar that “Billy Strings” might as well be a moniker engraved in stone and passed down directly from the Guitar Center store in the sky.
I am a recent convert to the church of Billy. Until recently, I was aware of his music, respectful of his obvious ability, but mostly noncommittal. This stemmed from my general indifference to bluegrass music, as well as the jam-grass wing of the jam-band world. I don’t dislike bluegrass; as a person with a heart that beats and toes that tap, I can enjoy Flatt & Scruggs or Bill Monroe as much as the next cowboy-booted individual. But usually, I have my fill after about 20 minutes. My ears just get exhausted by all of those frenetic banjo runs and fiddle … fiddlin’. (Also — I apologize in advance to all traditionalists out there — I love drums in my music and miss them when they’re not there.) I once wrote about the concept of “jam ears” to describe how one can become acclimated to hearing 20-minute improvisations and actually enjoy them. You could say I was not equipped with strong “bluegrass ears.”
That started to change in July upon the release of Live Vol. 1, Strings’ first “official” concert album. (Scores of Billy Strings’ live recordings are also available on Nugs.net, not to mention the audience tapes posted for free on Live Archive.) Sometimes, if the right record clicks in your mind, it can unlock the rest of an artist’s work. That’s what Live Vol. 1 did for me with Billy Strings. On his studio albums, Strings dabbles in psychedelia but mostly sticks to succinct songs and orderly arrangements. But on Live Vol. 1, he goes full Deadhead, taking already expansive numbers like “Away From The Mire” and “Heartbeat Of America” to the tripped-out “Dark Star” zone. Along the way, he uses effects pedals to wring acid-soaked electric solos out of his otherwise crisp acoustic guitar. These lines are exploratory, mesmerizing, and frequently surprising. But above all, it’s the combination of physicality, energy, precision, and curiosity that dazzles. Strings leaves himself open to in-the-moment discovery in ways that don’t feel self-indulgent or tedious. He might not know exactly where he’s going, but his success rate at uncovering musical gold along the way is very high.
On WTF, Strings says that his early attempts at bluegrass amounted to him attempting Hendrix-style leads against an old-timey musical landscape. He had to get over that, he says, though some of that vibe (thankfully) remains on Live Vol. 1. (His excellent backing band, particularly mandolinist Jarrod Walker and fiddle player Alex Hargreaves, must also be praised for keeping up with Billy as well as grounding him.)
For me, Live Vol. 1 is Exhibit A in the case for Billy Strings being a generational talent. After hearing this record, I became hopelessly Billy-pilled.
But like the guitar gods before him, Billy Strings wants to be known for more than unspooling exploratory, mesmerizing, and frequently surprising solos. He also cares about albums that work as albums, and not just as adjuncts to the live show. On record, he tends to downplay his blazing leads and instead focus on his “singer-songwriter” side. This is especially true of Highway Prayers, his 20-song major label debut out today.
In light of the jam-heavy Live Vol. 1, Highway Prayers feels like code-switching, with Strings deftly transitioning from his most far-out music on record to his most carefully considered. A key to Billy Strings’ popularity is that he’s a musical Rorschach test — he appeals to Americana lovers, bluegrass purists, and jam-band scenesters equally, but often in ways that don’t necessarily overlap. His music is big enough that people can take what they want from it and disregard the rest.
Highway Prayers is a record made primarily for the jam-averse portion of the Billy congregation. Even in comparison to previous efforts like 2019’s Home and 2021’s Renewal, which allowed for the occasional lysergic instrumental passage, Highway Prayers sticks mostly to a back-porch, folk-country lane. (The exceptions are two prog-grass instrumentals, “Malfunction Junction” and “Seney Stretch,” as well as the two-part mind-melter “Stratosphere Blues/I Believe In You.”) As the album title suggests, Strings’ extensive tour schedule has inspired him to write about life on the road. Sometimes he reflects on his existence as an in-demand budding superstar musician (the pensive “Gone A Long Time”), but he’s just as likely to spin a good-time number about fast cars and the small-town ne’er-do-wells that pilot them (“Leadfoot,” in which Billy plays guitar, banjo, bass, Ebow electric guitar, and a “1972 Chevrolet Chevelle”).
Highway Prayers was co-produced by Jon Brion, an L.A. music scene legend most famous for his sonically adventurous work on albums by Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and Rufus Wainwright. So, it’s surprising that Highway Prayers mostly sounds straightforward and unadorned. (The most eccentric production occurs on the pro-weed drawler “MORBUD4M3,” in which the rhythm section is composed of lighter flicks and bong gurgles.) The idea, apparently, was to put Billy in a room with his band and some A-list session players — including drummer Matt Chamberlain, pianist Cory Henry, and dobro master Jerry Douglas — and let the songs shine.
And that, mostly, is a smart strategy. As a songwriter, Strings resembles the rock-solid craftsmen who scored numerous AM radio hits in the seventies, artists like Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver that could meld traditional sounds with catchy song structures and unforgettable acoustic-guitar hooks. In that mode, Strings moves from dusty strummers like the murder ballad “My Alice” to the sly pop-country of “Don’t Be Calling Me (At 4 AM)” with ease. On these songs, Strings leans on his most underrated attribute: his voice. It has that natural, inherent grit that all singers from Michigan seem to have. (I hear traces of Bob Seger, with 75 percent less raspiness.) While you can feel the velocity of his fingers every time he touches his ax, Billy’s vocals always sound relaxed and conversational. It’s a disarming instrument, as soothing as his guitar is incendiary.
Speaking of incendiary guitar playing: I wish Highway Prayers had more of it. I can appreciate that my gods don’t always want to summon their showiest displays of fire and brimstone. But Highway Prayers, for all its strengths, doesn’t have the same “knock you on your ass” power of Live Vol. 1. The music is laidback, and that suits the mostly contented vibe of the lyrics, which don’t reflect as much on Strings’ checkered past as his previous records do. Billy’s present, after all, seems to be pretty damn good. On the first track, he wonders, “How much longer now before I’m in the clear?” And then the rest of the record affirms that he is.
Which, of course, is great. Billy Strings is an easy person to root for. And Highway Prayers should only strengthen his standing in the current generation of young, ascendant Americana artists. As for me, I’m going to keep preaching about Live Vol. 1. It’s just that kind of record — it has the capacity to turn casual listeners into evangelists.
