With ‘Highway Prayers’ Billy Strings Doubles Down on the Art of the Song

It’s been wild to watch the rise of William Apostol, aka Billy Strings, a bluegrass prodigy turned crossover star like fellow genre travelers Alison Krauss and Chris Stapleton — but one who’s found a home in Jambandlandia, where his super-sick flatpicking guitar virtuosity has met with big fat dancing bear-hugs. Leaning into long instrumental journeys onstage (see last year’s 38-minute single, an epic live sequence of “Meet Me at the Creek” > “Pyramid Country” > “Must Be Seven” > “Meet Me at the Creek”), Strings’ original songs have proved solid jam vehicles. Give or take a few — notably the early signature “Dust in a Baggie,” a meth head’s jailhouse blues — they haven’t been especially memorable in and of themselves.

But recent collaborations with Willie Nelson (“California Sober”), Margo Price (“Too Stoned To Cry”), and rising bluegrass hero Molly Tuttle (a cover of Nanci Griffith’s “Listen To The Radio”) — each one a winner — suggested something was afoot. That something, a doubling down on the art of the song, is confirmed on Highway Prayers, a studio set produced by longtime LA studio guru Jon Brion, wingman on classics by Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Mac Miller and Kanye West. The result, which is also Strings’ major label debut, is an impressive 20-track album that recalls the days when old-timey hybrids like Old and In The Way and Will The Circle Be Unbroken sat proudly alongside country-rock classics like Workingman’s Dead, Desperado, and Eat A Peach on American record shelves.

Strings’ longtime hotshot bandmates — Billy  Failing (banjo), Royal Masat (bass), Jarrod Walker (mandolin) and Alex  Hargraves (fiddle) — are front and center here, and to be sure, it’s still a bluegrass record. A capella gospel harmonies and Bill Monroe-style twin fiddles set the tone on “Leaning On A Travelin’ Song,” an opener that feels like a traditional, while instrumentals like “Escanaba” and “Seney Stretch” nod to the jazzier newgrass of Alison Brown and pioneer David Grisman.
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But polyglot studio A-listers like drummer Matt Chamberlain, organist Cory Henry, dobro master Jerry Douglas, and Brion himself are also in the mix, moving the music into new territory. On “Gild The Lily,” Brion’s laidback bass and drum groove steer the sound towards Americana pop, with a touch of cello. “Seven Weeks In County,” another jailhouse blues, widens the canvas even further, conjuring Marty Robbins’ cowboy balladry against Ennio Morricone soundscapes, re-imagining the Dead’s cover of “El Paso” for a new generation of stardust cowgirls.

The latter’s a prime example of how Strings has upped his songwriting game. He’s got seasoned co-writers on board, including past collaborators Aaron Allen (“California Sober”) and Jon Weisberger, plus newcomers Shawn Camp and Thomm Jutz. But this is not a Music Row affair, for better or worse, and Strings is careful, maybe to a fault, not to stray far from bluegrass grounding. The playing is so hot on a song like “Cabin Ride,” it’s hard to complain, though the slower jams shine as bright; check Douglas’ dobro on “Don’t Be Calling Me (at 4AM),” and the woven lead lines of “My Alice.” 

For his part, Brion is careful to create a space that doesn’t feel too manipulated, not far from the approach a producer like Dave Cobb or T-Bone Burnett might take. But you wonder what could happen if Strings and Brion got weirder. That said, the music is most memorable when it dodges genre purism and gets baked. 

On “Stratosphere Blues/ I Believe in You,” Strings trades speed-picking for Ebow electric guitar bent notes and gentle fingerstyle playing. “Catch and Release” is a talking blues a la Woody Guthrie or young Bob Dylan, but with a rhyme-packing flow that feels 21^st century, as Strings tells a pretty hilarious tale of getting stopped by a cop when driving super high in Tennessee (kids: do not try this at home). “MORBUD4ME” is built on a rhythm track of lighter flicks and bong rips. Sure, it’s probably funnier if you’re stoned. But it’s still funny. And Strings’ grim family history, which involves hard drugs and hard consequences, deepens and complicates his “California sober” narratives. That he still has a sense of playfulness about the subject is impressive.
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Highway Prayers feels conceived of front-to-back as an old-fashioned double album, and like most, has its hills and valleys. But it ends with a one-two punch. “The Beginning of the End” feels destined to be a concert-closing signature — “It’s the end of the show/ It’s the end of the record,” he sings plainly, building a faintly apocalyptic metaphor alongside encouragement to keep your friends and loved ones close. And echoing the album’s first track, the band closes things a capella with their own version of the Dead’s early signature outro, “We Bid You Goodnight.” Another stoner punchline, albeit one that doubles as an inspirational verse, “Richard Petty” is sung in four-part harmony, with Strings declaring: 

Now one of these days I’ll wake up tired of the life I’m living

And feel inspired to get off my ass
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And be on my way

Of course, the joke is that Strings is well on his way; where he goes from here is the question.