Billy Strings - Antsmarching.org Forums - Dave Matthews Band Discussion
Old 09-24-2021, 06:03 PM   #1
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Billy Strings

I just searched and was surprised Billy and his band don't have their own thread.

Anyone else get down? I started listening when the last album came out, and really got into them when they started covering more stuff from the Dead. I finally saw them this past summer and my jaw hit the floor, I'm already trying to figure out how to make the Boston / Portland ME shows work this fall.


New album out today for those looking to check it out: https://www.billystrings.com/music/renewal
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  • Old 09-24-2021, 08:24 PM   #2
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    Re: Billy Strings

    His new album is great. Listened this AM. Kid has a bright future.
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    Old 09-24-2021, 08:27 PM   #3
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    Re: Billy Strings

    I like him. Last album sounded very String Cheesy to me, but better.
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    Old 09-24-2021, 09:40 PM   #4
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Great artist, trying to see them soon
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    Old 09-24-2021, 11:11 PM   #5
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Wearing my Billy Strings shirt as we speak.

    Saw him with greensky at Red Rocks a few years ago, so much fun.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 05:19 AM   #6
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WidespreadMule3 View Post
    His new album is great. Listened this AM. Kid has a bright future.

    I think he's close to 30 now lol.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 05:59 AM   #7
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Really dig the new album. Took me a while to get into the grass, but his album Home is what did it for me.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 07:27 AM   #8
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    Re: Billy Strings

    He’s on Bela Fleck’s new album too. It’s pretty good if you haven’t checked that out
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    Old 09-25-2021, 08:27 AM   #9
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Good idea starting this. Love the new album. Waiting for a chance to see him, wasn’t in town when he was here last month.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 12:45 PM   #10
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Generational talent. Seriously.

    The only way he doesn’t take home another Grammy for Renewal is if it goes to Bela, which it probably will.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 01:46 PM   #11
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    Re: Billy Strings

    I like him too. The local jam band scene in my area seems to worship him over everyone, including Phish.
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    Old 09-25-2021, 02:12 PM   #12
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Didn't know a thing about him (other than having a couple friends who like him) until July, then saw him twice live at Newport Folk Fest. Totally blown away!

    Then crazy today, 1st woke up to him being interviewed on NPR (and heard the interview twice today), then a friend out of the blue, someone I haven't even talked to about Billy Strings, out of the blue he messages me today and says "I've got a ticket to his sold out upcoming how but just figured out I have to go see my mom that weekend. Want a free ticket?"

    And now out of the blue you guys start this convo here. Billy Strings is ALL up in my conscience right now! And yeah he's truly talented, and a great great showman. And thoughtful, really enjoyed his interview.
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    Old 09-26-2021, 07:40 AM   #13
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    Re: Billy Strings

    The only reason I'm into Billy strings is for the hippie looking guy with the messenger bag and the cigarette in his hand on his first video of dust in a baggie. I legitimately wonder whatever happened to this dude. Did anyone even know him or was he just a random hippie trying to sell weed at a house party? He looks like he has traveled far and long.

    Seriously though this guy is really talented.
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    Old 09-27-2021, 06:19 PM   #14
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    Re: Billy Strings

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/a...s-renewal.html

    Out of free reads, can anyone post?
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    Old 09-27-2021, 06:43 PM   #15
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    Re: Billy Strings

    a great musician and a great guy
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    Old 09-27-2021, 07:46 PM   #16
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    Re: Billy Strings

    How Billy Strings Picked His Way to the Other Side
    At 28, the singer and guitarist is bluegrass’s new transgressive star. A decade ago, he didn’t expect to live this long.

    Five years ago, Billy Strings decided to give up alcohol and dedicate himself to his muse. “I had decided this music stuff could save my life,” he said.

    By Grayson Haver Currin
    Sept. 27, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ET
    Billy Strings did not know what exactly had given him the hangover from hell. Was it the previous evening’s onstage bottles of beer or post-show cans of wine? The late-night tumblers of whiskey that Strings — then an unsigned 23-year-old bluegrass hot shot — bought to celebrate that profitable night in the summer of 2016? The endless bumps of cocaine?

    Barreling down Interstate 85 the next afternoon through suffocating Southern heat, Strings just knew he’d made a mistake. Every 15 minutes, he shuffled outside to vomit until the rest of his band agreed that, if they were going to reach their South Carolina show, they couldn’t stop again. Strings hung his head from a window, streaking the van’s sides with last night’s regret. He swore he’d never again let the partying interfere with the playing. He has yet to take another drink.

    “I had decided this music stuff could save my life,” Strings said by phone from a parking lot in Spokane, Wash., lounging in one of his twin buses. “Music was my one opportunity — otherwise, I was going back to being a meth head, overdosing, prison. I was not going to mess this up with booze.”

    The guitar, after all, had given Strings purpose since he was a toddler, vying for validation in a home struck by drugs and tragedy. The instrument never betrayed him. In the five years since he vowed never to betray it, Strings has emerged as a premier bluegrass mind for this post-everything era.

    On three albums, including the new “Renewal,” which came out last week, he has zigged and zagged between the form’s antediluvian traditions and rapid-fire improvisations that hit like hard bop, all within songs with hooks so sharp that he seems poised for crossover stardom. He may be the only contemporary musician capable of releasing singles with the bluegrass avatar Del McCoury, the country star Luke Combs and the R&B enigma RMR within a six-month span, as he did this year. He remains grateful for the hangover.

    “I was raised on raging, partying, playing bluegrass until 3 a.m., but I am trying to create structure. That is hard because of what’s in my blood,” said Strings, 28. “I hate to even call this a career. It’s my life.”

    Born William Lee Apostol, Strings grew up in the tiny lake-bound Central Michigan town of Muir, where his childhood seemed an insurmountable obstacle course. His father, Billy, died from a heroin overdose when Strings, his youngest son, was 2. His mother, Debra Apostol, married her first love, Terry Barber, who reared Strings as his own.

    As Debra battled depression prompted by her sister’s murder, the couple slid into penury. Their home became an all-hours drug den — “a meth house,” Strings said with a sigh, “with tweakers in my living room smoking meth one day, getting hauled off to prison for 20 years the next.” They were stuck in a small town, Debra said in an interview, and simply bored. Strings smoked his first joint, stolen from his grandfather, when he was 8, and first got drunk at 10.

    The setting, at least, inspired a child so obsessed with music, he slept with his guitar and read rock biographies during class. His stepfather, a crackerjack guitarist, taught him the bluegrass songbook and Black Sabbath anthems. His mother paraded around their trailer hoisting joints, blasting Santana or Soundgarden. Strings toiled away, matching everything he heard.

    “I was this 5-year-old learning to play guitar so my parents would pay attention,” Strings said, recounting a recent therapy session’s epiphany. “Music is the only thing that’s been good to me my entire life.”


    “I hate to even call this a career,” Strings said. “It’s my life.”Credit...Will Matsuda for The New York Times
    Before Strings was a teenager, he began walking alone to school in the snow and ferreting whatever food he found, feeling like some S.E. Hinton pariah who loved skateboarding and flatpicking. At 14, he left home to couch-surf with friends, falling in and out of legal trouble while failing in and out of school.

    “I said, ‘I want to see what my parents are so into that they’re lost to me,’ so I tried meth,” he said — “with my mom,” adding a customary barrage of profanity. “Heroin, crack, pills: I stopped caring. I thought I would end up going down their bad road, anyway.”

    One friend’s mother intervened, convincing Strings he could eclipse his upbringing. He eventually fled his hometown, heading three hours north to Traverse City and a new reality. “I moved out from under a cloud,” he said.

    In Traverse City, Strings met Don Julin, an area mandolin aficionado three decades his senior. Their duo specialized in hard, fast and loud renditions of the staples that Strings’s stepfather taught him. But Strings discovered the fertile intersection of bluegrass and jam-band culture, popularized by Yonder Mountain String Band and Greensky Bluegrass. He played 20-second solos for 20 people; they jammed for 15 minutes for bobbing throngs.

    “Those guys,” Strings said, smiling, “painted my pure bluegrass heart.”

    Strings discarded the tie-and-sports-coat uniform he donned with Julin and decamped to Nashville. He built an acoustic quartet willing to race beyond bluegrass’s bounds and returned to the road, where he practically lived until the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Routing his guitar through 27 effects pedals to summon Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour or Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, Strings emerged as a sudden live sensation. In 2021, his second solo record, “Home,” won the Grammy for best bluegrass album.

    “Billy knows stuff I don’t know, and I play with people with new information,” said Béla Fleck, the banjoist who has goaded his instrument into novel terrain for a quarter-century. Fleck invited Strings to play on his album “My Bluegrass Heart,” an honor Strings gushes about more than any award.

    “This music needs a fresh jolt once in a while from someone who comes in from a different angle,” Fleck continued. “Billy is the lightning rod.”


    It’s not only the sound of bluegrass that Strings is reimagining but also the image. Sitting in his bus as 6,000 fans drifted into a sold-out amphitheater near Portland, Ore., this month, Strings held a svelte black vaporizer in one hand while gripping a $300 electronic bong with the other. Giggling beneath a hat that read “Sex & Drugs & Flatt & Scruggs,” he looked more like the thoroughly tattooed brother of Shaggy from “Scooby-Doo” than those bluegrass patriarchs.

    He joked about covering “Dueling Banjos,” made famous in the film “Deliverance,” in full B.D.S.M. regalia and lampooned bluegrass posters for looking like antique-auction handbills. He extolled the hallucinogen DMT for making him a kinder person. Scrolling through his recent Spotify favorites, where Juice WRLD rubbed shoulders with Marty Stuart, Strings admitted that he was proud his friendship with Post Malone and his work with the masked Black singer RMR irked traditionalists. “I see racist crap all the time in bluegrass,” he said, with an uncharacteristic flash of anger.

    RMR was floored by Strings’s rebellious streak, and happily agreed to sing on “Wargasm,” a plea for peace that suggests Alice in Chains going country. “This is music for old guys with a beard, but he didn’t fit that mold,” said RMR, who went viral in 2020 by covering Rascal Flatts amid a crew brandishing an armory. “He was dope, because he was different.”

    As much as Strings revels in pushing boundaries, his songwriting taps the same heartland sincerity that Bill Monroe embraced nearly a century ago. Strings sings of modern American woes with disarming simplicity, even as he warps the sound. His first hit, “Dust in a Baggie,” sprints through the parable of a meth addict who heeds warnings too late. “Turmoil & Tinfoil,” his debut’s title track, mourns the way meth burned his own mother, her face ashen from exhaustion.

    “Renewal,” Strings’s third album, largely delights in matters of the heart. In May, he proposed to his longtime girlfriend and tour manager, Ally Dale, so he celebrates finding love during the tender aubade “In the Morning Light.” But there’s also climate-change anxiety, small-town ennui and a nine-minute fight song for battling depression, “Hide and Seek.” Despite the song’s instrumental mirth, the chorus comes from the final text messages a friend sent before committing suicide.

    Strings called this “sublimation,” or turning life’s darkest matter into positivity. It’s more powerful, he suggested, than any guitar trick. Through hours of therapy and nights of singing to strangers, he did that with his parents, too. These days, they are largely sober, though many of their old friends continue to party or remain in jail; his mother has developed what she called an addiction to coconut water. Strings once winced when they arrived at shows, but last year, he took his stepfather on tour. Their turmoil gave him a reason to succeed.

    “They did pretty good, because look at me now,” he said, chuckling as he exhaled another tuft of weed smoke. “They couldn’t take care of me, but they taught me the thing that helped me take care of myself. As a parent, isn’t that your job?”
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    Old 09-27-2021, 08:13 PM   #17
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    Re: Billy Strings

    I cannot wait to listen to this new album. Billy is a once in a generation talent.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 04:13 AM   #18
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Thanks for posting the full article, man, he is REALLY something! What a human, and what a talent!

    You just made me that much more excited for the show I'm now going to see in November!
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    Old 09-28-2021, 04:17 AM   #19
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by defcon View Post
    The only reason I'm into Billy strings is for the hippie looking guy with the messenger bag and the cigarette in his hand on his first video of dust in a baggie. I legitimately wonder whatever happened to this dude. Did anyone even know him or was he just a random hippie trying to sell weed at a house party? He looks like he has traveled far and long.

    Seriously though this guy is really talented.
    I haven't seen the video and I don't know a thing about what Billy Strings' family looks like, but after reading how he grew up and that he took his stepdad on his last tour, I wonder if the guy you're talking about could be his stepdad? Just a crazy idea, zero idea if it could be true.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 05:52 AM   #20
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GraceBuckley View Post
    I haven't seen the video and I don't know a thing about what Billy Strings' family looks like, but after reading how he grew up and that he took his stepdad on his last tour, I wonder if the guy you're talking about could be his stepdad? Just a crazy idea, zero idea if it could be true.
    There's no way. The dude I'm talking about in the video is either late teens or early twenties.

    Link: https://youtu.be/VFEZOjtrwls
    It's the dude in green with the messenger bag in the center of the video all the time. In case there was any confusion.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 05:55 AM   #21
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by defcon View Post
    The only reason I'm into Billy strings is for the hippie looking guy with the messenger bag and the cigarette in his hand on his first video of dust in a baggie. I legitimately wonder whatever happened to this dude. Did anyone even know him or was he just a random hippie trying to sell weed at a house party? He looks like he has traveled far and long.

    Seriously though this guy is really talented.
    I wanna say I heard in an interview that he was basically a fan that started following the band around. They said he just kept showing up and would come backstage with grass so they let him. Eventually they started letting him run merch and then he started getting on their bus going city to city. Then he just kinda became an unofficial member of the crew.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 06:04 AM   #22
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Thanks for posting, great piece.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 07:22 AM   #23
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WidespreadMule3 View Post
    I wanna say I heard in an interview that he was basically a fan that started following the band around. They said he just kept showing up and would come backstage with grass so they let him. Eventually they started letting him run merch and then he started getting on their bus going city to city. Then he just kinda became an unofficial member of the crew.
    So he's basically the band's "guy on the couch.". That's awesome. Thanks for clarifying. I assume the video was taken probably seven or eight plus years ago after Billy turned a corner. He's an inspirational guy as a person and as a guitar player. I can play some of his songs but not like him. I'm working on getting Dustin a baggie as crisp as I can. There's some reasonably runs/riffs/bends/hammer ons/pull offs that are also chord changes but the chords are basic
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    Old 09-28-2021, 08:02 AM   #24
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by defcon View Post
    There's no way. The dude I'm talking about in the video is either late teens or early twenties.

    Link: https://youtu.be/VFEZOjtrwls
    It's the dude in green with the messenger bag in the center of the video all the time. In case there was any confusion.
    Pretty sure that’s Veddie Edder.
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    Old 09-28-2021, 09:27 AM   #25
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WidespreadMule3 View Post
    I wanna say I heard in an interview that he was basically a fan that started following the band around. They said he just kept showing up and would come backstage with grass so they let him. Eventually they started letting him run merch and then he started getting on their bus going city to city. Then he just kinda became an unofficial member of the crew.
    Wow that is one HECK of a story for that guy! I guess some people are just that chill, interesting, crazy and good to have around that they'd end up an unofficial part of the crew, on the bus, with responsibilities. Kinda amazing!
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    Old 09-28-2021, 09:30 AM   #26
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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by defcon View Post
    So he's basically the band's "guy on the couch.". That's awesome. Thanks for clarifying. I assume the video was taken probably seven or eight plus years ago after Billy turned a corner. He's an inspirational guy as a person and as a guitar player. I can play some of his songs but not like him. I'm working on getting Dustin a baggie as crisp as I can. There's some reasonably runs/riffs/bends/hammer ons/pull offs that are also chord changes but the chords are basic
    That NY Times article just came out, so if it was 5 yrs ago from that that Billy "turned a corner", it wasn't 7 or 8 yrs ago. Assuming you mean the "corner" that story starts with, when he gave up alcohol and that level of partying and decided music was his life...

    Agree with all you say about how inspirational he is, and WOW that you can play ANYTHING at all of his songs! I'm impressed that you even thought about trying to play, much less able to play any of it!
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    Old 09-29-2021, 07:39 AM   #27
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    Re: Billy Strings

    His 2 night stand from the Renewal festival this past weekend celebrating the album's release is great. Both nights on nugs, 3 sets each night.
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    Old 09-29-2021, 02:56 PM   #28
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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GraceBuckley View Post
    That NY Times article just came out, so if it was 5 yrs ago from that that Billy "turned a corner", it wasn't 7 or 8 yrs ago. Assuming you mean the "corner" that story starts with, when he gave up alcohol and that level of partying and decided music was his life...

    Agree with all you say about how inspirational he is, and WOW that you can play ANYTHING at all of his songs! I'm impressed that you even thought about trying to play, much less able to play any of it!
    The chord progression is literally the most basic gcd chord progression that true noobs are taught on guitar. It's all of the riffs and runs and hammer-ons and pull-offs and bends and nuances and solos that make the song awesome. I've been playing guitar on and off for pretty much 25 years now. I can and literally have played GC and D in my sleep. Unfortunately I am not a great lead guitar player. I know my scales within reason but if you really want to take it to the next level you really need to learn modes. I did take lessons and without exaggeration the guy I was taking lessons from last charged $250 an hour and was worth every bit of it. If there was some type of crossroad showdown this dude could probably destroy anyone who's considered a good guitarist to this day. I've been trying to track him down but I know he had demons and he lives in New York and he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He was classically trained at juilliard and came from a privileged family and unfortunately that usually means problems. There's plenty of other dudes out there undiscovered. That is almost tragic. And yet the vast majority of what we call music today is unmitigated s***. At least pop music. It appeals to the lowest common denominator of society. Today I rode in a co-worker's car to lunch and all of her radio presets were pop music. Not someone I would want to be a friend to. It is a sure indicator of a low IQ in my opinion. Some of the smartest people I've ever met are music experts, especially roots and classical music. Most people do not appreciate the nuances of music because they've never been taught to. I am fortunate that coming up in school we had an awesome music program where our band and chorus literally traveled around the world. Between all of my extracurriculars, I missed nearly half my senior year with excused absences from traveling.
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    Old 09-29-2021, 04:44 PM   #29
    Cscottrun
     
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Can anyone recommend some songs that really showcase his guitar skills but have a bit of a less bluegrass/countryish sound? It's never been my favorite genre/sound and I'm thinking maybe if he has some songs that stray away from that sound, it may be a good starting point for me. I went to listen to his redrocks show on youtube and first song is really a sound I've never been into.
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    Old 09-30-2021, 06:33 AM   #30
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    Re: Billy Strings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cscottrun View Post
    Can anyone recommend some songs that really showcase his guitar skills but have a bit of a less bluegrass/countryish sound? It's never been my favorite genre/sound and I'm thinking maybe if he has some songs that stray away from that sound, it may be a good starting point for me. I went to listen to his redrocks show on youtube and first song is really a sound I've never been into.
    This sounds like my issue with Sturgill - I feel like I should like him more than I do but there is something about his sound that doesn't work for me. I kind of started that way with Billy Strings, but it ended up clicking for me.

    Did the Red Rocks show start with Dust in a Baggie? That and Taking Water were the first songs I liked. My wife likes While I'm Waiting Here a lot even though she isn't a big fan in general.

    This new one is really good and half instrumental and then the second half kicks in hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZtB89fvG2w Still bluegrass/countryish, but everything I've heard by them is.

    I'm still a pretty casual fan so I'm sure others might have better answers. I watch this set a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0gii1K1eMA
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