Bluegrass and Americana star Billy Strings invited his Lexington, Ky. crowd to join him in mourning the death of his mother, Debra Apostal, on Friday night (June 20.)
Apostal died the day prior, on Thursday (June 19), just hours after Strings played a hometown show in Lansing, Mich. That show took place about 35 miles away from the singer’s parents’ home in Muir.
At the top of his Friday night show, Strings addressed the crowd to explain that he was dealing with a very fresh loss. “I’m gonna do my best to make it through this,” he said, according to a livestream of the show shared by the Lansing State Journal.
He explained that after his set in Michigan, he and his crew “drove through the night” to make it to Kentucky, and he finally fell asleep at about 5:40AM.
“I might’ve got three hours of sleep, and I was in a deep sleep, and my wife woke me up this morning and told me that my beautiful mother, Debra Apostal, passed away in her sleep,” he continued.
“So I just put my shoes on started walking,” Strings went on to say, explaining that he didn’t have any particular direction in mind until he saw “a little country church” that drew him in “like a beacon.”
“I went there and knocked on the door and this kind lady let me in and she stayed with me and prayed with me for a while,” he said.
Strings also told the crowd that it was important to him to continue his Lexington show, because “that’s what my mom would have wanted me to,” he said.
He comes from a musical family: While Strings’ mother was not in attendance at his show in Lansing, his father — a bluegrass musician named Terry Barber — joined him onstage during his set. Strings has also spoken about how his parents fostered his love for music, recalling that they brought him to his first bluegrass festival when he was four years old.
Speaking to his crowd, Strings also spoke about how happy his fan base made Apostal. “She loved you all so much and the last couple of years were some of her happiest because of a lot of you folks from here,” he said. “You all became some of our best friends, and I really want to thank you for that.”
He also requested that, in lieu of a moment of silence, fans make “as much noise” as they could in honor of his mother.
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Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak
