Billy Strings - Midnight Rider, Harrah’s Cherokee Center, Asheville NC 10/29/22 -
An awesome second set last night by Billy Strings and guests in Asheville last night for evening one of three Halloween shows - with the delightfully wack Rushad Eggleston on Lunatic Electric Fuzz Goblin Cello, Anh Phung on flute and a set list that includes "Midnight Rider (God bless the late Gregg Allman), " The Stones' "Wild Horses," bob and Jimi's "All Along The Watchtower," "High On A Mountaintop," written by the late and great Ola Belle Reed who grew up in next door Ashe County, "Dark As A Dungeon," written by the late and great Merle Travis who first became big when he came out of Kentucky to perform on the WLW-AM radio station in my hometown of Cincinnati, which the young Doc Watson heard here in the high country and which he said changed his guitar-playing life, and whom Doc named his son after, Johnny and June's "Ring of Fire," and the Southern Appalachian traditional gem "In The Pines." That is how you do it, folks. Watch below;
@derekfromcincinnati Billy is one of the most talented and exciting guitarist and singer to emerge in recent years. I saw him before Covid with Molly.
I made it through one minute of Midnight Rider. To me that's not a song that you cover by speeding up the tempo. He lost the entire feel of the tune by doing that. But to each their own I guess.
Total crap. If you want an exact version, then go watch the Allman Betts Band do it. Meanwhile, folks should be able to pay homage in any way they are feeling it. If I felt like doing a punk rock version of it, I'd flippin' do it.....hoping I'd piss off my fellow purist boomers. I always loved Buddy Miles' version of the song, because it ain't like Gregg's version. I also like Theory of a Dead Man's more heavy metal version. And I like The Late Ones' reggae version as well. But hey...let's all sound exactly like Gregg! I hope all of those versions lead young folks back to the original. That is kind of how it works in the sphere of freedom and creativity.
Here is Billy from last night, letting Jon Stickley, Anh Phung, Rushad Eggleston, Tatiana Hargreaves all rip on "Freeborn Man." "Well hell, there's electric cello on there, and a flute. Jimmy Martin and Tony Rice would'a never done it that way." Jimmy and Tony who?" Unreal. Let 'er rip, boys and girls! -
Billy Strings pays homage to both the late and great Tony Rice and Gordon Lightfoot on this one on “Home From the Forest” 10/30/22 Asheville First Time Played with Jon Stickley on Guitar -
Oh my God, Rusty, Zappa didn't play it exactly like Duane did.......just like Duane and crew didn't play Muddy and Elmore's song exactly like they did it either. Huh???
I made it through one minute of Midnight Rider. To me that's not a song that you cover by speeding up the tempo. He lost the entire feel of the tune by doing that. But to each their own I guess.
It wasn't my favorite cover, but I don't think the "entire feel" was off, seemed totally legit to me. Certainly not as bad as Bob Seger's cover.
Billy is a bluegrass picker, fast is kind of what they do - there are some great bluegrass covers of "Jessica" out there. Any song is open to interpretation, Gregg himself completely rearranged a number of his own songs. Besides, when the Allman Brothers were really coked up in the early 1980s they played it about that fast too.
Here's Billy with Bryan Sutton, a bluegrass guitar powerhouse: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=billy+strings+bryan+sutton
Billastro
@derekfromcincinnati: Sorry for having an opinion. You showed your true colors by calling my opinion "total crap". I don't like Billy Strings' version. You do. I'm FINE with that.
Yeah i don't really like it either. I never jumped on his band wagon, not sure why there is so much fuss about the guy. I have heard many better and more soulful players over the past few decades.
For one thing, as I am also coming from the bluegrass side of things.- Billy can pick the damn guitar. The Allman Betts Band would not have brought him out as a guest to jam with them if that was not true. Past that, to not understand why Billy is selling out big shows dang near everywhere he goes is to be OLD AND IN THE WAY! God love them - but the Allman Brothers Band plays no more. They are done. Meanwhile - as Billy sells out this 7,000 seat arena three nights in a row in a small town like Asheville, which has happened this weekend, I love it that he plays tribute to Gregg and the ABB amongst the literally hundreds of songs that he plays every year in concert. If he send 7,00 folks to the ABB while paying tribute to them, GOD FORBID, IN HIS OWN WAY - good for him. This kind of thinking is exactly why I said back in the day that Derek and Warren should have left the ABB 5 years earlier in 2009, and move the hell on to their own work and their own version of music and leave behind the Boomer crabs in the barrel snipping at their heals with thoughts of the olden days.
I did not hate what Billy Strings did with the song. I am a bluegrass/flat top fan, myself. It worked.
I get where some Allman die-hards feel sacrilege when hearing an ABB original get bent or twisted a little. As great an album as Laid Back was, I kinda felt that the strings on that version of Midnight Rider was just a little over the top. I love the contributions from Tommy Talton and the others. Watching those recent Beatles documentary episodes - it was interesting to hear that McCartney didn't like Phil Spector's strings on The Long and Winding Road.
Total aside: I've always thought that fans of the shredder metal players would like bluegrass music. It would be cool if someone produced an album with metal and bluegrass guys switching roles around. Yngwee on a Martin flat top ... Billy Strings on one of those Charvels with a rack full o' pedals and a Marshall.
I don't completely disagree. I'm not a big bluegrass fan so I'm not a big Billy Strings fan, but I respect the hell out of him as a player and a musician. He definitely has "soul" and skill. And he clearly is a fan of the same music a lot of people here are. If people don't like Billy's take on "Midnight Rider", it's because they probably just don't like bluegrass - it's all a lot of fast picking. That's the thing that it does. Reminds me of the Union Station version:
I've always said, The Allman Brothers is a total Rorschach test - blues fans hear a smoking blues band; jazz fans hear jazz-rock-fusion; 1970s rock fans hear ROCK GUITARs; country fans hear "southern rock"; metal-heads hear one of the of the first heavy rock bands; and even bluegrass and folk singers hear Dickey and Gregg's rootsy sides. And they're all right, in their own way. It's not really something you can quantify, if you like it you like it.
Gregg Allman isn't going to step on that stage and sing "Midnight Rider" again, but every day someone else does and it's going to be different. If it was a heavy metal band, I probably wouldn't listen for very long either. But if they're good, they'll be able to put their own stamp on it which I think is far more interesting than a reproduction ("Midnight Rider" was either a bathroom break or a nostalgic sing-along those last few ABB tours).
But then, I always dug the version by Joe Cocker (the KING of covers) and he not only sped up the song (even Willie Nelson and Sharon Jones sped it up), he added keys and backup singers, and completely re-wrote the verses.
Anyways, here's a bunch of "Midnight Rider" covers. I had never heard the Michael McDonald version!
Total aside: I've always thought that fans of the shredder metal players would like bluegrass music. It would be cool if someone produced an album with metal and bluegrass guys switching roles around. Yngwee on a Martin flat top ... Billy Strings on one of those Charvels with a rack full o' pedals and a Marshall.
I mean, of course it's been done..
@porkchopbob That version of Enter Sandman - sounds like something Ralph Stanley might've done himself!
Yeah, I knew that there were a few versions that were done out of context - which to me is waaay cool! Growing up in the deep south, I have seen some flat top pickers who could shred with any of the metal heads!
Billy came out of the punk metal scene and into bluegrass, Jon Stickley the same, and many other now bluegrass players. Precision and power and virtuosity. Watch the first night second set video BELOW as Billy trades with Rushad Eggleston, who is a maniacal electric cello genius whom maybe four people on here are hip to......and Anh Phung is a great flute player. Start this video at the 1:11:25 mark and watch where each musician's ability to improvise takes the music on out....first mandolin, then flute, then guitar, the, Rushad on wild-asss electric fuzz cello and Billy trades riffs with Anh on flute?? When does that happen? And, on from there. Man, that is absolutely in the spirit of the ABB. ->
Billy's three night Halloween shows are themed and can go anywhere...and does. Every night's set list is different - its beautiful! Night three starting soon - https://www.nugs.net/on/demandware.store/Sites-NugsNet-Site/default/Watch-ViewAll?cgid=ARTIST-1125-WEBCAST&utm_source=artist-social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bstr-social-sel&utm_term=bstr-social&fbclid=IwAR3Rh3NghkNKPfE_8994-IIjap93pVWxuoZg8OkCUvBYfNOkzRRPuZymhnw
Lots of versions of Midnight Rider here. Can any of them come remotely close to this?
That one is cool too. Not my favorite, but nothing wrong with it.
There have been so many acoustic "Midnight Rider" performances since MTV Unplugged, but it is still the gold standard for acoustic "Midnight Rider" for me. Wish this show would get cleaned up and released.
But nothing tops THIS. Anytime the Gregg perform "Midnight Rider" without Egyptian backup dancers was a HUGE fail 😉
DUANE TRUCKS showed at last night's show by Billy......
Very cool. I had never heard most of those covers. I dig the Michael McDonald version. His voice was similar in ways to Gregg, which is why Gregg sounded so damn good singing Takin' It to the Streets with Doobies a couple years before he passed away.
Wish the Doobies would release that Gregg version as a single. Maybe do it on his birthday and have proceeds go to charity.
I've seen Billy Strings. I'd like to see him again particularly if he's doing more of the rock stuff with Duane Trucks he did on 10/31
