The Old Man At The Mill is one of the rarer Billy Strings covers, but always welcome, especially if you're partial to modal songs, which I am. Songs like this one or Little Maggie that hit that flat 7th chord just sound more "down home" to me.
According to BMFSDB, Billy has played Old Man At The Mill just 17 times, with 7 of those coming in 2023. Billy seems to like pairing it with other songs or as the "meat" in a 3 song sandwich.
Here's an example:
When you look at where the covers or versions of covers that Billy plays come from, you land on some records that you can feel pretty confident were in the Apostol collection. In this case, I think it's safe to say that Billy heard "Back Porch Bluegrass" by The Dillards plenty growing up. He's covered at least seven songs from that album. Secondhandsongs.com credits the song to Clarence Ashley, but I've seen references to it being an old 19th century "play party" song. Play parties were basically square dances with no musical instruments for people who weren't allowed to dance for social or religious ( or social-religious) reasons. This page gives a fascinating overview of where play parties fit in with square dancing. One of the things they share with square dancing is the movement or step calls, but instead of "swing your partner do-si-do" they had to be in code. That may account for lines like "one hand in the hopper & the other in the sack, the ladies step forward and the gents fall back".
Here are some good versions. If you watch these, you'll hear some variations in how the song is arranged, with Molly Tuttle's version being a little different, especially.
First, Doc & Clarence:
The Dillards:
The legendary Sam Bush:
and finally, Molly Tuttle:
