Bluegrass (#520) and Heavy Metal (#n/a) on the Country DDS. AI = Clean
It’s not hard to imagine anything that bluegrass maestros Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton touch would turn to gold. Back in 2024 they played an intimate show together at the American Legion Post 82 in Nashville, which they made into a killer live album released in April 2025 called Live At The Legion.
But let’s be honest. When the premise for this song first hits you, you’re probably a little skeptical—not because we shouldn’t trust these two, but just because “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” has be done, redone, refried, transmogrified, rode hard and put away wet so many times it seems plausibly impossible to to do something with it that in any way comes across as novel or remotely interesting.
Oh, so Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton are going to do a new version of the song called “The Devil Went Down To Deep Gap” swapping a golden guitar for the devil’s golden fiddle that’s going to blow so much air up our skirts we’re going to forget we’ve heard this tune two hundred thousand million times?
Well, that’s kind of exactly what they did.
“The Devil Went Down To Deep Gap” isn’t just a remake and tribute to the late great Charlie Daniels. It’s really a [*SPOILER*] tribute to Doc Watson … and Del McCoury, and a crash course bluegrass history lesson [*SPOILER*] … and a bluegrass metal fusion song … and, and, and some other interesting, entertaining and informative things. Lot’s of layers to this onion to peel off.
You start the song of thinking, “Okay, this will be cute.” But almost like the pinnacle line in David Allan Coe’s “The Ride,” the adrenaline starts pumping when everything starts to be revealed. And what really helps tie everything together is the animated video—which by the way, more artists should splurge for as opposed to the sappy, acted out videos barely anyone pays attention to anyway.
Also hats off to Sam Bush on mandolin, T. Michael Coleman on bass, and Jerry Roe on drums. And yes, that is Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton ripping into the devil’s heavy metal parts, showing off the pair’s range when it comes to pickin’ and shreddin’.
Not saying this guarantee’s the pair a Grammy award or anything. But in a moment when the world is looking for a distraction from world-shaking events, “The Devil Went Down To Deep Gap” will more than do.
Two Devil Horns up!
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