William Lee Apostol (born October 3, 1992) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bluegrass musician. He has released four studio albums, with his album Home winning the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021, an award he won again in 2025 for Live Vol. 1. 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" (i.e., psychedelics). Strings's fourth studio album (and first for Reprise Records) Highway Prayers was released on September 27, 2024. The album reached the first No. 1 on Billboard's all-genre Top Album Sales survey dated Oct. 12, 2024, the first bluegrass album to do so in over 20 years.
Highway Prayers is an country album by Billy Strings with great musicians and enthusiastic performances. Too bad the style of music is very generic and traditional. You would expect some innovation by such a young artist. Too bad it is just too predictable in a world with many artists doing exactly the same.
Billy. Bill. Mr. Strings. Billiam. Your music is fine but I'm sorry you can NOT put a song with the lyric "it's the end of the record" as the SECOND TO LAST track on the album. Decent chance this is actually up to a producer or label suit to determine track order but you should've said something Bill. Bill surely you could have prevented this. A third grader listening to this would clown on this obvious oversight.
Bluegrass definitely has a place on this list, and while I’m not expert I have been raised around a lot of classical bluegrass and this was up there as far as I could tell. Bonus star because I’m pretty sure my dad would be thrilled with Billy Strings!
This record is actually incredible 5
Oh man this was a surprise to me. Very very catchy. My toe was tapping the entire time.
I really love this. I've been aware of Billy Strings for a while, seeing clips of him occasionally on social media. I'm always pulling for a fellow Michigander as well. But, I've never listened to a complete album of his material. It's really impressive. 4 stars.
I had my doubts going in, but this is super solid country! My one critique is that it should have been wayy shorter
Solid bluegrass, and the ventures into less traditional territory hold up and fit well with the rest. I don't know that the lyrics are destined to become timeless classics but they do the job.
Bluegrass has had a decent revival over the past decade. When you think bluegrass I’m sure the first city that doesn’t come to mind is Lansing Michigan but the sound is definitely there. I don’t listen to a ton of bluegrass outside of sturgil and a few similar artists on a playlist but this album was pretty good. Very talented while still having good lyricism that makes bluegrass the unique genre it is. The three instrumental tracks may have been overkill but that’s the bluegrass difference. 6.9/10 (nice)
Initially rolled my eyes at having to listen to 75 minutes of twangy pop-country, but this LP did grow a bit on me. When Strings focuses on narrative lyricism or just lets his band rip, the album finds a strong melodic groove and is a treat to listen to. The only bumps in the road tracks like the weed song, which feel like blatant attempts to get the TikTok virality or push a single onto the Top 100 with gimmicky songwriting. Overall a solid listen, doesn't fully cohere as an album but some great tracks for sure.
I'm gonna say this was well-crafted and the guy likes pot. Yep, those are my takeaways.
Nothing remarkable on this bluegrass album
Not a genre I'm fond off, but its really well made and produced. The songs dont really grab me
Stoner music for country folk or country music for stoners.
Billy Strings can hit a twang with the best of them. Some very traditional sounding songs, some less so. Some successful songs, some less so. More aggressive curation would have helped. Favorite track: Gild the Lily. Least favorite: MORBUD4ME
Perhaps I don’t like country music as much as I thought.
Surprisingly nice
No more country
Blue grass just isn’t my cup of tea, therefore zero interest in a 2024 bluegrass album, that doesn’t nothing new for the genre.
Det finns ett problem. Albumet saknar bra låtar.
Oh good, another double album out of the jam band scene. Excuse me for a moment while I do the hippy shake… [dances arthymically, then twirls around with arms out and face towards the sun, with no awareness or care for his surroundings] This dude is super talented, but most of the music isn’t really for me and his fanbase, I’ve found in my interactions on the subreddit for a popular Australian psych band, is kind of insufferable sometimes. I can’t deny the talent, though, and there was enough variety to keep things sort of interesting - even if the experimental/atmospheric/psych excursions fall flat for me and a couple of these songs kind of sound like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” rewrites. I was going to give this 3 stars, but then I heard “MORBUD4ME”. Oof.