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Steeped in traditional music from both sides of the color line, Scott Ainslie is a renowned acoustic blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He learned southern old-time ballads, banjo and fiddle from senior musicians in North Carolina and West Virginia and blues from his black elders in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi: his roots are deep.

“My mother found me at the family piano picking out the melodies from the records she listened to during the day when I was three.

I’m one of the lucky ones: I’ve been a musician all my life”

– Scott Ainslie