Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton – photo © Joshua Black Wilkins
With literally no warning, Billy Strings has released a surprise live album recorded last year in Nashville with fellow flatpicking monster, Bryan Sutton.
It’s plainly titled Live at the Legion, for the fact that it was tracked at American Legion Post 82 in the Inglewood section of town on April 7, 2024. Post 82 has long supported bluegrass music, and uses funds raised from live music to support their mission to assist area veterans.
Billy’s bass man Royal Masat also appears on the record, which includes 20 jam standards and fiddle tunes performed in a straightforward manner. Anyone who thinks Billy doesn’t know the deep catalog especially needs to give this one a listen, and no fan or student of flatpicking guitar should be without it.
Available now from streaming services online, Live at the Legion can be pre-ordered as a vinyl or CD double album for shipping in August.
Here’s a taste, their duet treatment of Norman Blakes’ Randall Collins, paired with the classic old time tune, Done Gone.
The track listing is bound to contain a handful of your favorites.
- Nashville Blues
- Tom Dooley
- Little Darling Pal of Mine
- Walk on Boy
- Texas Gales
- Cold, Cold World
- Way Downtown
- Randall Collins/Done Gone
- Give Me Back My Fifteen Cents
- Groundhog
- Open Up Them Pearly Gates
- Two Soldiers
- Last Day At Gettysburg
- Salt Creek/Big Sandy River
- Travelin’ Man
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
- Darling Corey
- Mary Of The Wild Moor
- Give The Fiddler A Dram/Whistling Rufus/Ragtime Annie
- Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
A mini-tour is scheduled in support when the album is out this fall, visiting The Ryman in Nashville, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, KY, The Schaefer Center in Boone, NC, and The Signal in Chattanooga, TN during World of Bluegrass week. Tickets will be offered via a lottery, and you can request to be a part of it online.
