Billy Strings — born William Apostol in Lansing, Michigan — came to prominence in the mid-2010s as one of the most technically formidable and creatively expansive guitarists to emerge from the new generation of bluegrass musicians. His flat-picking speed and improvisational approach drew immediate comparisons to Tony Rice and Clarence White, and the International Bluegrass Music Association recognized him with multiple Guitarist of the Year awards. His recordings for Rounder Records and his reputation as a live performer helped bring a new and younger audience to bluegrass while anchoring his work firmly in the genre's core tradition.

Del McCoury is among the most revered figures in bluegrass history — a former Blue Grass Boy under Bill Monroe, the founder and patriarch of the Del McCoury Band, and the possessor of one of the most immediately recognizable tenor voices in the music. His decades of leadership in traditional bluegrass and his role as an elder statesman of the genre made a collaboration with Strings a pairing of the tradition's present and its living history.

In 2021, Strings and McCoury released "Midnight on the Stormy Deep," a recording of the traditional song that has long been part of the bluegrass and old-time repertoire. The single brought together McCoury's seasoned authority and Strings's technical brilliance in a setting that placed both within the music's inherited vocal and instrumental conventions. The collaboration reflected the intergenerational mentorship that has always been one of bluegrass's defining mechanisms for transmitting the tradition from one generation to the next.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.