Public radio program eTown dipped into its vaults this week for an archival episode of the station’s long-running podcast featuring Billy Strings and Jon Stickley Trio. Recorded in 2018, the taping came not long after the release of Strings’ first proper album Turmoil & Tinfoil and shortly before the bluegrass guitarist took the live music world by storm.
Ahead of a live performance at the solar-powered eTown Hall in Boulder, CO, eTown host Nick Forster gave a quick rundown of Billy’s hardscrabble beginnings, a story that has since run across the pages of The New York Times and Rolling Stone. Some parts have become strangely prophetic in the intervening five years, including Forster’s mention of Billy’s accomplished musician father, Terry Barber, with whom Strings has since released a collaborative album, Me/And/Dad.
Related: Billy Strings Gives Guitar Lesson On Nick Forster’s “Teach Me One Thing” Series [Video]
Billy’s four-song performance heard on the podcast gives a keyhole preview of his live experience. Starting with “Dust In A Baggie”, the song that was starting to turn heads in 2018 and helped him break through, he continued with “While I’m Waiting Here” which featured a jam more emblematic of the years of onstage fireworks to come.
After a couple songs, Strings sat down with Forster for a more in-depth interview. The host characterized Strings’ catalog as “Happy-sounding songs about loss and prison and meth,” to which Billy cheerfully agreed.
“I was pretty close to going down the wrong path myself, but music gave me something to focus on,” Strings recalled. “I just saw where everybody was headed and I was just like ‘I don’t want to do that. I want to do good. I want to focus on something.’ So I just started buckling down and really practicing on my guitar.”
As Strings’ career was still taking shape, he was already bucking the traditions of the bluegrass world. Forster specifically pointed to the track “Spinning” on Turmoil & Tinfoil, a spoken word composition recounting a perspective-altering psychedelic journey.
“If I’m out here playing 200 gigs a year, I kind of want to do something positive,” Strings said of the unique path he’s chosen. “And the only thing I have is my guitar to fight back against all that ugliness, so that’s what we do, we try to just bring joy.”
The episode also featured a dynamic performance from the Jon Stickley Trio, helmed by the Asheville, NC flatpicking guitarist and close friend of Strings. In a segment not heard on the podcast but seen in a separate video, Stickley reflected on their friendship and bond as flatpicking guitarists. It’s not clear whether Billy still crashes on Jon’s couch when he visits Asheville, but Strings made sure to invite the local guitarist to the ExploreAsheville.com Arena for a cameo as Bilbo Baggins when Billy staged his Away From The Shire run last Halloween.
After Billy returned for “On The Line”, the episode closed out with a superjam of Billy and his band, Jon Stickley Trio, and Forster covering John Hartford‘s “In Tall Buildings”. The ensuing collaboration is heard in fragments on the podcast but is available in full in the video below along with some additional interviews with Billy and Stickley.
eTown Time Capsule – Billy Strings – John Stickley Trio
Billy Strings, Jon Stickley Trio, Nick Forster – “In Tall Buildings” (John Hartford)