New Billy Strings Recording/Video Helps Usher in a New Era
Billy Strings has just released an epic 38-minute live track to streaming platforms, as well as an accompanying video. Combining the songs “Meet Me At The Creek,” “Pyramid Country,” “Must Be Seven,” and rounding back to “Meet Me At The Creek,” the release is illustrative of the type of immersive and cohesive magic Billy Strings and his backing band evidence live on a regular basis, which has Strings reaching into the stratosphere as an arena-level artist.
Billy Strings is the live music marvel of our era, irrespective of genre. It just happens to be that the genre he still encompasses more than anything remains bluegrass. Though stretching out three songs into a 38-minute movement is more indicative of the jam band world, the music still resides very much in the acoustic and bluegrass realm. Though at times what Strings does stretches beyond, as can be seen and heard in the new track when he hits the electric guitar effects pedal.
A lot of media outlets have dutifully picked up the release of this new 38-minute track/video, but they may be burying the lede here about why this release is important in the Billy Strings universe.
Billy Strings was previously signed to bluegrass label Rounder Records. He signed with the label in 2019 to release his album Home, which went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Billy’s other Rounder releases of Renewal and his most recent Me/And/Dad have also been nominated for Grammys.
But this new epic track was released through Reprise Records, which is a division of Warner—aka a major label. Billy actually signed to Reprise back in April, and released his big track with Willie Nelson “California Sober” through the label, though few noticed, and nobody reported on it at the time. Perhaps it was decided to keep it hush hush as some folks will invariably label anyone signing with a major as a “sellout.”
“Billy did in fact sign with Reprise, though we parted on great terms and still consider him part of the family,” Rounder publicist Regina Joskow confirms to Saving Country Music, while also saying that strings recently collaborated with another Rounder artist for an upcoming recording, and he’s always welcome to come back if he wants.
While Billy Strings has been smashing records when it comes to live performance—including selling out massive arena dates on multiple nights in places like Austin and Nashville—his record sales haven’t necessarily been commensurate.
Strings said it best back in June when he iterated, “We’re never going to be a band that sells a million records. We’re just a band that’s going to sell a million tickets—one show at a time. That’s what we do. We’re a live band. Our thing is our show.”
Releasing a live track like this might be part of a new strategy of how to approach Billy’s career in the recorded context. We still may get studio albums, and a lot of his live stuff is available on nugs.net, which streams many of his concerts as well. But selecting out some of the most epic moments from his live performances and releasing them for the entire world to experience on demand might be part of the approach moving forward.
Billy String has already confirmed, “Live record is in the works folks! I’ve been digging through a big ol’ pile of shows trying to find all the good stuff and I stumbled upon a MMATC sandwich from last March in Winston-Salem, NC. I couldn’t wait to share it with you, so we just released it … There’s a lot more where this came from. Enjoy!”
Most or all Billy Strings concerts are captured with top-level audio quality and multi-camera setups. Like The Grateful Dead, each Billy Strings performance is unique. But unlike the massive live acts in the past, the archive possibilities for the Billy Strings catalog in a multimedia world is endless.
It’s really hard to quantify what we’re experiencing with Billy Strings at the moment, and what bluegrass is experiencing by proxy. It’s been a renewal and popularizing of the genre on a scale we haven’t seen before, while people are drawing comparisons to the epicness of massive arena artists in the the past like Pink Floyd and Jimmy Hendrix to qualify what Strings is accomplishing.
Though Billy Strings is already one of the biggest things in live music, it feels like a new era is just getting started. Who knows where Billy Strings will take us from here.
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The live recording is from Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winson-Salem, NC, March 4th, 2023. Billy Failing on banjo, Alex Hargreaves on fiddle, Royal Masat on bass, Jarrod Walker on mandolin.
December 8, 2023 @ 11:54 am
Can i nominate it for single of the year?
December 8, 2023 @ 11:56 am
The reality is, Billy Strings is officially a straight up jam band artist, there’s no use in arguing that point. So, expect this sort of thing. Is that good or bad? Depends upon perspective. Is he at core, based in bluegrass? Of course, and for those of us who enjoy grass done traditional, he still has something to offer, though I think it’s safe to say, he’s the leader in jamgrass. Inarguably, he’s a bigger name than Yonder Mountain String Band, Infamous Stringdusters and Trampled By Turtles.
I have made it a point whenever I meet trad grass pickers, I always ask them their thoughts on Strings. He’s a polarizing character for sure. Just saw a trad band on Friday last week, and the lead player , a young guy from West Virginia, told me there are better players than Strings out there. His own hero was Tony Rice. ( of course Rice is dead) He might have been alluding to Bryan Sutton also. He did say that no one else is filling arenas with acoustic flat picking like Billy routinely does, and that is a huge accomplishment. There’s another fellow who’s a killer player and has a pretty successful YouTube channel for pickers, and he’s got plenty to say on this subject. I do think a fair amount of the trad guys are NOT Billy Strings fans though they all admit he’s pretty important in bringing the music to new crowds. Might be interesting to hear from guitar dealers and ask if Strings has impacted a trend in acoustic guitar sales.
December 8, 2023 @ 1:37 pm
I disagree that he’s a “straight up jam band artist.” His set lists are all over the place. I’ve seen him in little tiny clubs all the way to arenas he’s playing now. Some nights it’ll be a pretty strong amount of originals that he tends to stretch out and jam on and some nights he leans heavily on covers of straight up bluegrass classics. In my opinion he’s just a continuation and elevation of all of the bluegrass that came before him. However you want to classify him, in my opinion he and his band are actually saving music as a whole (along with Sierra Ferrell). If he’s playing a show close by, you shouldn’t miss it.
December 9, 2023 @ 10:42 pm
Well said. They are are a straight up bluegrass band that jams better than any other. But it always comes back ‘round to bluegrass.
December 8, 2023 @ 2:31 pm
How about defining what a “jam band artist” is. Some of his shows have no jamming at all. He jams out on a few songs at the most at his shows, the rest he plays straight like any other bluegrass band does. And why even bring up that there are better players out there? Who cares? It’s not just his playing that makes him so popular. It’s the songs he plays, his personality, his band, his staging and lights etc…. Some of those other artists that you talk to just sound jealous to me. The idea that bluegrass music, which has been around for around 90 or so years should just stay the same and not evolve as some seem to think is just plain absurd.
December 13, 2023 @ 8:45 pm
To define the difference…
Jam bands exist primarily or solely for the jams. An average set is maybe 5 or 6 songs, each from 6 to 20+ minutes. Closely related: the drug band. Goose and Phish are probably the archetypal jam bands: there’s little meaning to the songs beyond inside jokes or the barest effort at writing, and their shows are characterized by wealthy crowds looking for pure escapism.
Then there’s bands that jam: Billy Strings, Infamous Stringdusters, Grateful Dead & permutations, Molly Tuttle, Led Zeppelin, 67-77 Pink Floyd – all mix tightly composed and performed music with improvisational or progression-driven extended jams/solos within their own style/genre.
On Billy Strings: sure, it’s not all traditional bluegrass and he’s not the single best guitar picker out there, just like Led Zeppelin wasn’t traditional blues and Jimmy Page wasn’t the best guitarist of his generation. That doesn’t diminish their appeal to a startlingly large fan base which appreciates their specific style, nor their fundamental roots in traditional styles. Personally caught Billy a few times now, but his set at Under the Big Sky in 2021, which overshadowed a litany of big names, was the hook. Worth seeing if you haven’t actually been to a show, whether you think you’ll like it or not.
December 13, 2023 @ 11:18 pm
Well than Phish do not fit your criteria as they played 22 songs at their last show and Goose played 16. The point I was trying to make is that term means different things to different people. The Dead are supposedly the ultimate jam band yet most songs at their shows had little to no jamming at all. I know as I saw them a bunch of times in the 70s and have hundreds of their recordings. To me most jam bands play jazz, not rock and certainly not bluegrass, As for Billy, yes I’ve seen him a few times and will be seeing him again in 2 weeks here in New Orleans. My question was for the guy who said that “Billy Strings is officially a straight up jam band artist, there’s no use in arguing that point.” which is complete nonsense.
December 8, 2023 @ 8:47 pm
I know he has become the face of jamgrass but to be honest his music has much more in common with New Grass Revival than something Yonder Mountain String Band or Railroad Earth. Now Greensky Bluegrass is a little closer to Billy’s sound but none of the aforementioned groups have the kind of bluegrass harmonies or the same ability to play driving tradgrass. Anyone who thinks he’s not real bluegrass needs to hear him playing Doc Watson’s 100th birthday show…
December 8, 2023 @ 1:57 pm
Historically there’s always bands and players who stretch the boundaries of style..And like the Stones doing Howling Wolf exposing new listeners to roots music. The excitement young fans have come to expect in mega size stadiums can stand as introduction to “”The real thing “..Nothing but good can come from this young man’s hard work and dedication..
December 8, 2023 @ 4:18 pm
Billy is amazing live and it will be great to hopefully have some of his live material on vinyl soon. But I question whether or not it will actually outsell his studio work if live albums will indeed be his focus going forward. We aren’t living in the same era as the Grateful Dead or even Phish, when official physical releases were of notably higher quality than whatever bootleg cassettes were circulating. Today, anyone who wants live Billy Strings already has plenty of professional quality to choose from, both on Nugs and YouTube. It will be cool to be able to add some of his best live moments to Spotify playlists and the like, though.
I think a good middle ground would be for him to use the stage as a recording studio and release live albums filled with new originals and fan favorite covers. The live show this track was taken from, for example, also found him performing a song called “My Alice,” one of his best originals and one that has yet to see an official release. It would be a shame for that song to be overlooked when it is eventually released because more casual fans skipped the multi-LP set of songs they already had in their collections.
December 9, 2023 @ 7:24 am
I know some will call me crazy, but I’ve compared Bluegrass in the past to country music’s version of Heavy Metal. A style in which the musicians at times take their skills to the extreme limits. You listen and you’re amazed at the levels of talent and skill the musicians display, but all the picking complexity can become a bit much on a recording. But live, the display is mind blowing.
Watching this video posted, I can’t help to not think of Hard Rock/Metal bands of the past who took 3-5 minute songs from their catalog and turned them into 30 minute displays of musical wizardry. Bands like Zeppelin, Deep Purple, or Rainbow. Watching this video with tattooed long haired dudes jumping around the stage, swinging their hair around, and blistering their instruments, and I can’t help but make the comparison. Acoustic Country Metal lol.
December 13, 2023 @ 1:10 pm
i don t know but Billy surely is a metal fan
December 9, 2023 @ 10:26 am
For perspective, I am 78 years old and have played and listened to a lot of music in my life. Its all good!! But some I like more than others on any given day or any given moment. And there is a huge difference between listening to a recording and immersing yourself in a live performance. Some days a big dose of Bach or is exactly what I want to hear, or maybe some Duke Ellington or Merle Haggard, the Country Gentlemen, Paul Simon, Howlin’ Wolf or the Memphis Jug Band. Its all good! What I love is someone who respects the music and takes it on in their own way, respects the other players on stage or in the jam circle, those who have come before, and the audience. Sure, jamming is not for everyone, players and listeners alike, and you need to know when enough is enough. But have you ever tried it? It takes skill, confidence, and the ability to listen hard and respond in the moment. I played in a band for a while in the 1990s that would sometimes head out into uncharted or unexpected “jam” territory and when done right, it was absolutely exhilarating for us in the band and, clearly, for the audience as well. I can see that with Billy, the boys and this audience. Watching him breathe deeply when this was over and come back into the room, as it were, tells me how real this is for him and for the band. Bluegrass? Country? Jam? Jazz? Doesn’t matter. The audience reaction tells me that this music matters to them, at least in this moment. As Jackson Browne once sang “the only time that seems too short is the time we get to play.”
December 9, 2023 @ 5:25 pm
Heck yeah, Robert. Thanks for that comment. Cheers!
December 9, 2023 @ 12:11 pm
An incredible talent whatever his music is, who can put on a great show. Who would not want to go see him?
December 9, 2023 @ 3:12 pm
HAHA my comment hit some nerves! Call it a comment grenade if you will. Bluegrass guys are opinionated and that’s a fact. You get a room of grassers together and bring up these topics and your guaranteed to get fireworks. To clarify my point of view, jam-grass bands don’t just play “jams”. Typically they will do a fair amount of 3 to 5 minute songs in between a few longer drawn out jams, to keep the audiences attention. If literally all you play is super long 15 to 30 min songs, you run the risk of losing the crowd. And yes I have been to quite a few shows of bands like Yonder Mountain, Infamous Stringdusters, Leftover Salmon and the like. ( Though I love the virtuosity, I’m more at home in a trad setting.)
Billy is known to never do the same show twice, he does mix up the styles and ratio of covers to originals. And yes he plays it straight often in a set, but he also jams out as Trig is talking about here. And he loves to stomp on a tube screamer and maybe even a wah pedal now and then, to take it into the “cosmic”category. If you look at his fan base, hes drawing a lot of deadheads, counter-culture folks, and rock fans to his shows, and that’s how hes filling arenas. Certainly trad fans are in the mix as well, and I’m not implying that trad guys hate him, that’s not accurate. My perspective is coming more from talking to musicians, for whatever reason I’m always curious what these guys think of the trends happening and the phenoms like Strings, so I ask. Like Trig, I’m a bystander to the rise of Strings and I find it fascinating. For the record, I dont think hes the GOAT and I don’t dislike him, hes somewhere in between for me. Talented? Oh yeah.
December 9, 2023 @ 4:28 pm
I doubt this is the perfect place to post this but has anyone else caught Whiskey Myers acoustic tour? It was awesome. Speaking of jam bands, those guys turned all of their songs into funky acoustic jam songs. They added Tom Petty, Skynryd, and Rolling Stones to the mix. It was awesome.
December 9, 2023 @ 7:09 pm
Arena and stadium concerts started out in rock music, whose signature sound is a singer screaming through a microphone to be heard over electric guitars. That’s great if you’re a fan of the artists and their music.
Acoustic music should be heard in smaller venues without amplifiers–or with amplification that’s discreet and not necessarily apparent to viewers and listners who are not looking for it. In fact, that’s kind of the definition of acoustic music.
I’m glad that Billy Strings has become a huge concert success, but if it’s bluegrass, then it’s a new form of the genre.
December 9, 2023 @ 11:01 pm
I don’t care for it at all. He sure can play but this doesn’t really have the heart n soul of traditional bluegrass. I’m sure he can do that but he isn’t doing it here.
December 9, 2023 @ 11:19 pm
Billy Strings will become an icon. It’s funny the reggae scene had similar opinions that have been mentioned when Marley came out. This is 38 mins of what is generally a 3 hour show. In that time he plays a whole lot of straight bluegrass.
And to say there are better players, when u get to this level there are others but idk what would make anyone better.
December 10, 2023 @ 6:03 am
Billy Strings plays music I dislike with instrumentation I love. God bless him for playing “some” bluegrass and playing it well, but the end product is jam band music for stoners and people on psychedelic drugs. It’s better than Phish or the Grateful Dead but it’s stylistically closer to what they do than to bluegrass.
December 10, 2023 @ 8:24 am
Go listen to his last album “Me/And/Dad” and get back with me. Somewhere there is a stoner out there saying the exact same thing, but in reverse.
December 10, 2023 @ 8:35 am
I understand he plays some bluegrass and I mentioned it in my comment. Is that what he plays live? Can you accurately describe him as a bluegrass artist?
December 10, 2023 @ 8:47 am
I have seen Billy Strings perform half a dozen times live, starting from the very beginning of his career when he was still with Don Julian. It has always been more a bluegrass show than anything. There has also always been and extended “jam” moment or two. But this is no different than if you go to see The Travelin’ McCourys, Sierra Hull, Bela Fleck, Molly Tuttle, or just about any contemporary bluegrass band. This track is an example of the “jam” in the middle of Billy’s 2-hour performances. And like others have said in this very comments section, often the rest of the show is straight up bluegrass songs. This jam is made up on bluegrass songs.
Undoubtedly there is a “jam band” element to Billy’s presentation, and his fan base. I don’t want to undersell that. But he is a bluegrass artist, full stop. This fusion with jam band elements has been happening for over 50 years now. This is part of the bluegrass canon.
December 10, 2023 @ 2:03 pm
Nugs.com typically has a free month or so before you have to pay for a subscription. Do a free trial and listen to a show or two. You’ll here plenty of straightforward bluegrass. I’ve been to about 15 of his shows but most of them have been in or around the Denver area so there was always a lot of deadheads in the crowd. I was at the Greensboro show last week and that was a much smaller portion of that crowd there. Ive got tix for all 3 nights in Asheville in February and can’t wait.
December 10, 2023 @ 12:55 pm
Thank you for the link to the video!
Another comment mentioned Tony Rice 😢
No one can touch him, including Billy. But, for all that I really think he’s overdoing it with the effects right now, he’s got it all and he’s bringing bluegrass to huge new audiences, which is unprecedented, and almost single handedly keeping quality live music alive. Acoustic music in 20,000 seat arenas? Phenomenal. Yes please
December 10, 2023 @ 5:40 pm
Friday in Baltimore was his first show after the album drop. It was a blow out of trippy mash ups and jams.interspered with some incredible bluegrass. The band is on point and so amazing.
The second night was far more trad billy….more bluegrass and lots of old favorites.
I have to say as a traditional bluegrass guy at 58 and a banjo picker it fills my heart with love to hear the 6500 person (?) audience sing along all the words to John Deere tractor, Uncle Pen, Sophronie…and Billy’s playing Stanley’s Harbor of Love was just incredible.
No one does it better. NO ONE.
And yeah the jams freaked me out a little when I first started seeing him….but now I have learned to love the incredible artistry that goes into these.
December 11, 2023 @ 6:39 pm
nOTHING more corny than putting on a electric guitar effect on an acoustic. just play a les Paul if you’re gonna do that .. sounded like long meandering crap.. I didn’t even hear a distinctive melody in that whole thing. just a bunch of guys jizzing on their instruments to a bunch of old Grateful Dead losers or hipsters pretending they are from the 60’s