EATON COUNTY, MI — Fresh off touring major venues with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, Michigan’s own Billy Strings has announced a surprise homecoming performance.
He will headline night one of the three-day Charlotte Bluegrass Festival on Thursday, June 19, at the Eaton County Fairgrounds.
The appearance will mark a return to the first bluegrass festival Strings ever attended. That first bluegrass fest changed his whole life, he stated.
The festival also includes performances from Cedar Creek, Junior Sisk, Tennessee Bluegrass Band, Volume Five, Seldom Scene, Appalachian Roadshow and more.
Billy’s father died of a heroin overdose when he was two and his mother remarried Terry Barber, an accomplished amateur bluegrass musician. Billy regards Barber as his father. The family moved to Morehead, Kentucky, then to Muir, Michigan.
While he was still a pre-teen his parents became addicted to methamphetamine. He left the family home at the age of thirteen and went through a period of hard-drug usage. His family eventually achieved sobriety; Billy stopped using hard drugs and drinking alcohol.
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 magazine named Strings one of the Top Ten New Country Artists to Know in 2017. And the rest, as they say, is history.
What: Billy Strings
When: Thursday, June 19, 2025
Where: Eaton County Fairgrounds (Charlotte, Michigan)
Buy tix
https://www.billystrings.com/tour
https://www.facebook.com/billystrings1
