Well, even writing about it weeks later, I myself find it hard to believe, but earlier this year I decided to see progressive bluegrass/outlaw country/jam artist Billy Strings for two nights at Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine, on one beautiful night and one soggy, drenched one. It’s truly been the summer of two-night stands of music for me: first Goose, then Billy Strings, then next weekend two nights returning to my musical home of Phish at SPAC. Billy Strings, though, cuts a different cloth from those two artists, and from my usual musical preferences. I’m generally more of a rock than a country fan, but Billy Strings is certainly worth making the not-so-uncommon exception.
He is, in a phrase, a truly astonishing generational talent. He’s clearly inspired in equal parts by country music, bluegrass, and the jam band tradition. That might seem unique, but in fact the overlap between those genres has happened before: Willie Nelson has performed with Phish, and the latter has a number of bluegrass numbers in their repertoire, both as covers and original numbers. Billy Strings has adapted a number of those songs as well, covering traditional bluegrass songs, country songs, Grateful Dead tunes, and Phish songs.
While he most certainly does jam, Billy Strings jams in a different way than most rock-oriented jam bands. Rather than delving into deep, twenty-minute plus single-song jams, he tends to use his jams as a transition between songs and as a brief bridge in the middle. Now, that isn’t to say he doesn’t do longer single-song jams - he most certainly does. It’s just that they’re not a certain, regular feature of his concerts, the way they are with most other jam bands. In a way, that speaks to his skills as a musician: he’s readily able to pack just as much into a shorter ten or fifteen as many bands are in twenty or thirty minutes. Jam bands often spend inordinate amount of energy and time simply zeroing in on the longer jams, neglecting the shorter tracks that can be just as masterful; Billy Strings’ technique calls them up on this habit.
On his first night in Portland, Billy Strings barreled straight through five songs in twenty minutes en-route to a fifteen-song first set, but it didn’t feel like that at all. The combination of his masterful, smooth transitions and the quick pace set by his all-string band (hence his stage name) made the night move along very quickly, and it felt more like one continuous song than the traditional rock or country concert. That’s what makes Billy Strings unique as a musician: he manages to seamlessly fuse elements of very different traditions together, bringing jam fans into a country music counters and vice versa. He also most certainly imprints his own brand on the evening, while ensuring that his band members - who are definitely talented as well - get plenty of credit and the chance to lead both songs and jams.
After the quicker opening to the first day, for instance, Billy Strings moved on to Leaders, a sublime song that has served as a jam vehicle for him before, if not particularly often. That night, he launched into what was one of his longest versions yet, stretching it out into a sublime thirteen-minute meandering piece. That song certainly lends itself to sublime, subtle jamming, and that first day in Portland, Billy Strings took full advantage, before transitioning directly into a mainly instrumental number to extend it a further six minutes. That meant that he really did do a solid twenty-plus minutes of jamming; it was just broken up into a few songs rather than being stuffed into one track. Similarly, in the second set, he had an early ten-minute plus jam in one track and a twenty-minute plus jam that extended through three songs.
The rest of the evening - and of the following night - would prove to follow the same pattern: shorter songs woven together masterfully punctuated by powerful jamming. It must be said that Billy Strings is both a supremely talented vocalist and musician. He’s already won a Grammy award, and is currently in the middle of touring Europe - not for the first time. So, it was a true treat to get him in a smaller venue like Thompson’s Point for two straight nights that were not only sold-out, but jam-packed. The lines to get in were long; people had clearly been spending all afternoon there waiting to snag the best possible spot, and it’s not hard to see why. Billy Strings may well have already won one Grammy, but it’s unlikely to be his last; he’s already been nominated again this year, and likely will be for year after year to come.
Jamming with a string band is certainly quite a different musical experience than jamming with a rock band. The absence of drums and keyboard is an obvious, major difference between the two, but the addition of the mandolin and the banjo more than makes up for it. Without knowing anything whatsoever about musical theory, it may be just a facet of Billy Strings’ band rather than the instruments themselves, but it certainly makes for a much faster style. I tend to think that it’s a solid combination of both: while country music (especially bluegrass) often moves along more quickly than rock, it doesn’t necessarily seem to be an inherent feature of the genre. This is readily apparent when one rewatches the sit-in that Trey Anastasio did with Billy Strings earlier this year: Billy clearly moves at a slower pace in that appearance than he usually does.
Now, having gone to just two shows in person, it’s hard for me to judge where the Portland shows fit in Billy’s canon. I’m sure a dedicated fan could offer a much more informed opinion as to whether they were particularly brilliant or not, but to me it seemed to be the perfect mix of bluegrass, country, and jam music for which he is already so well known. People often debate about who will be the artist who helps to introduce jamming to more mainstream audiences (Dave Matthews Band, for instance, has been credited with this), but Billy Strings could well pull a lot of people in that direction. Just as I managed to find him thanks to my interest in jam bands, other listeners may well find their interest in jamming enhanced after going to one of his shows.
Billy Strings is clearly a supremely talented young man who will have a long career ahead of him, and it’s well worth catching him live at this stage of the journey. Even if you’re not particularly a fan of country music or jamming, he offers a toe-tapping good time that’s hard not to love. Indeed, he may well be the rare artist who is able to bring fans in to both genres who normally wouldn’t consider either. Billy Strings is, in short, a phenom, one who seems to be on a continual rise to stardom no matter what labels you attach to his music, and it’s hard to imagine that anyone who likes live music at all won’t have a good time at one of his shows.
You may follow Jim on Twitter or Facebook. He is also a weekly political columnist for the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper