Billy Strings on "Stay a Little Longer"
One by Willie
John Spong
4.8 • 833 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the most mind-blowing guitarists on earth, Billy Strings, talks about an all-time great Willie and Trigger workout, “Stay a Little Longer,” off the 1978 double-album Willie and Family Live. The song’s an old Bob Wills standard that Willie updated, made his own, and plays here at a careening, 90-mph pace that Billy says blazes like bluegrass—before adding that he hears in it a hallmark of Willie’s picking: integrity in every note. From there he describes a magical day cutting “California Sober” at Pedernales with Willie, the high price of playing poker with him afterward, and what it was like to carry Jody Payne’s old Martin guitar onstage at Willie’s 90th birthday shows.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Still Austin Whiskey Co makes award-winning whiskey completely in-house from grain all the way to glass. |
| 0:08.0 | They only use 100% Texas grains and distill right in the heart of Texas, where the wild weather helps age their whiskey to perfection. |
| 0:15.0 | Go to stillaustin.com today for delivery right to your door. |
| 0:18.0 | Still Austin Whiskey, the Art of Texas Whiskey. |
| 0:28.5 | There's nothing better than pulling on a pair of Western boots and listening to some good tunes. |
| 0:34.5 | At Toccovis, we honor classic bootmaking traditions and craft every pair with premium authentic materials. Find a Toccova store near you |
| 0:37.5 | or shop online at Toccovus.com. |
| 0:42.4 | One by Willie is produced and distributed by PRX |
| 0:45.7 | and we are brought to you by Still Austin Craft Whiskey |
| 0:49.2 | with additional generous support from Toccova's Boots. |
| 0:56.6 | Hey there, I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week |
| 1:02.4 | to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love. |
| 1:07.5 | This week, we talked to one of the hottest guitar pickers in the whole wide world, |
| 1:11.6 | Bluegrass Phenom Billy Strings, about one of Willie's many covers of the old Bob Will's standard, |
| 1:17.7 | stay a little longer. |
| 1:19.4 | The version we get into is from 1978 off the landmark Willie and Family Live, double LP, |
| 1:25.8 | a racing 90-mile-an-hour trigger workout that Billy says has a burning |
| 1:30.1 | almost bluegrass tempo while maintaining what he calls a hallmark of Willie's picking, integrity in every |
| 1:36.8 | note. From there, he'll recount a magical day he spent in Perdonales studio, cutting a duet with |
| 1:42.5 | Willie on a song he wrote himself, California |
| 1:44.9 | sober, and what it was like to find a beat-up old Martin guitar that once belonged to Willie's |
| 1:50.2 | longtime guitarist Jody Payne to get it rehabbed and running again and then play it last year at |
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