About Billy Strings
Billy Strings is an American guitarist and bluegrass musician. His album Home won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021.
Billy Strings was born William Lee Apostol on October 3, 1992, in Lansing, Michigan. His father died of a heroin overdose when he was two and his mother remarried Terry Barber, an accomplished amateur bluegrass musician whom Strings regards as his father. The family later moved to Morehead, Kentucky, and then to Muir, Michigan. While he was still a preteen, his parents became addicted to methamphetamine. He left the family home at the age of 13 and went through a period of hard drug usage. His family eventually achieved sobriety; Billy stopped using hard drugs and drinking alcohol, becoming "California sober" and consuming only cannabis and similar "light drugs" .
Barber was a heavy influence on his stepson, introducing him to traditional bluegrass artists at a young age, including Doc Watson, Del McCoury, David Grisman, Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs and Larry Sparks. Strings is also a rock and metal fan, influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Widespread Panic, Phish, the Grateful Dead, Def Leppard, Between the Buried and Me and Black Sabbath, and played in hard rock and indie rock bands in his teens.
Apostol got his stage name, Billy Strings, from his aunt, who saw his ability on multiple traditional bluegrass instruments.
In 2012, Don Julin, a mandolin player from Traverse City, Michigan, and author of Mandolin for Dummies, asked Strings to join him on a paying gig. The partnership lasted for the next four years.
Rolling Stone named Strings one of the Top Ten New Country Artists to Know in 2017. On February 12, 2018, Rolling Stone published an article titled "Bluegrass Prodigy Billy Strings Plots 2018 Spring Tour", saying: "Billy Strings doesn't have any trouble living up to his name. one of the latest breakneck guitar pickers to emerge in the bluegrass world." The International Bluegrass Music Association awarded him with the Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year award in 2016. Bluegrass Situation named him a scene tastemaker in 2016. Lisa Snedeker of HuffPost proclaimed Turmoil & Tinfoil as one of the best albums of 2017, writing: "In September it charted at No. 3 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts. 'Nuff said." In March 2018, Rolling Stone released Strings' debut music video for his song "Dealing Despair" from his album Turmoil & Tinfoil. He planned to play over 200 shows in 2018.
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