All Fall Down - John Hartford

All Fall Down is a song by John Hartford, from the 1972 album Morning Bugle. As of this writing, Billy Strings has played All Fall Down 82 times, with it appearing in about 8% of his shows according to bmfsdb.com. Secondhandsongs.com doesn't list any versions for All Fall Down. Setlist.fm only has it showing up in one other artist's set - Larry Keel in 2008. As far as I can tell, All Fall Down wasn't a particularly significant John Hartford song. I'm guessing Morning Bugle was a part of Terry Barber's record collection and Billy heard it growing up.

I think it's fair to say that Billy Strings has taken ownership of All Fall Down similarly to how Jimi Hendrix took ownership of All Along The Watchtower. Live, Billy takes All Fall Down "out" in the free jazz or psychedelic sense of the word.

John Hartford

John Hartford is a fascinating figure in bluegrass and music in general. He was a banjo player & fiddler who wrote a monster hit song (Gentle On My Mind, with 290 covers listed on secondhandsongs.com) and then got weird and hippified in the '70's. He wrote a bunch of songs that show up in bluegrass jams and made records with bluegrass greats like Sam Bush and Norman Blake. He released 25 albums during his life, with Areo-Plain being maybe the most notable, featuring Vassar Clements, Norman Blake, Randy Lynn Scruggs and Tut Taylor. He passed away in 2001 from cancer.