Article Contributed by Mountain Home Music Company
Published on January 9, 2026
“There was a lot of energy moving towards…ok, let’s just do something crazy,” Bryan Sutton recalls about the origins of “The Devil Went Down to Deep Gap,” the collaboration featuring hot acoustic and screaming electric guitar solos from Sutton and GRAMMY nominee Billy Strings. Starting the new year off with a change of pace from the strict duets that make up the rest of his ongoing From Roots to Branches series, it’s a rewrite of the Charlie Daniels Band hit that’s just as crazy — and as great—as you would think.
“I had this idea a while ago to come up with some fake legend of how Arthel Watson became Doc Watson,” he laughs. “It would be ‘the story that we never knew’ of Doc beating the Devil and from then on, he’d be called Doc.”
“For whatever reason,” he continues, “I didn’t want to just do a fiddle tune with Billy, and then, he and I also have a whole live duets record, so I didn’t want to be redundant, either. We are big fans of heavy metal music, and we talked about it a lot but never really played much with each other. I thought ok, here’s this ‘Devil Went Down to Deep Gap’ concept, where we could at least start out with acoustic guitars and some twin guitar passages and take solos, but when the Devil does his thing, that’s where he and I would go into metal.’”
With the idea in place, Sutton roped in legendary mandolin player Sam Bush, long time Doc Watson bassist and harmony singer T. Michael Coleman, and ace studio drummer Jerry Roe — and one more special guest. “As things grew with this,” he recalls, “I thought, the way the story’s presented, I’m the narrator, and Billy plays the role of Arthel — Doc — and then who’s going to play the Devil? Del McCoury! Why not? And he was game to do it.”
Indeed, it’s not hard to hear the smile on the Hall of Famer’s face as he articulates the challenge to young “Arthel,” or to hear the sheer delight the two master guitarists take in weaving together the pure acoustic tones of Doc’s picking and the distorted electric guitar sounds that make up the Devil’s part of the duel, never mind the spirited harmonizing of this version’s choruses — especially at its end, as they run through the names of some of Doc Watson’s most beloved tunes.
Once the recording was done, Sutton was inspired to take the collaboration to an even more magical level. “I kept thinking,” he recalls, “about having it just as a song to be released. It didn’t seem like enough! So, I found Pat Bradley, a great animator in Virginia, who agreed to do his thing with the song. So there’s a whole cartoon animation that goes along with the song now, and it’s been really fun just to see it come together.”
For fans, the animated version of “The Devil Went Down to Deep Gap” (above) is sure to be a special treat, from the surreal visual translation of the scorching heavy metal side of the duel to the just-right transposition of Del McCoury’s famous pompadour onto the Devil, to the affectionate representations of the entire band: Sutton, Strings, Coleman, Bush and Roe.
“If there are boxes to check,” Sutton notes, “or a sweet spot in this beyond just being theatrical and kind of wild, it really is, at the end of the day, a Doc Watson tribute. In fact, when Billy and I were talking about it after listening to it at the end, he said, ‘you know, this is a gospel song! Like, c’mon, devil! I’ll show you!’”
“The Devil Went Down to Deep Gap” is streaming in Dolby Atmos spatial audio on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL. Listen to it HERE.
