Scott Ainslie
JOIN SCOTT FOR LIVE EVENTS ONLINE!
Scott offers a variety of workshops, residencies and performances online for adults and youth. Please contact Susan for more details and to discuss your needs. For an example of some of the offerings that are available, please view this pdf. View a demo of "Before Rock "N Roll".
"I've been a fan of Scott Ainslie's music since I heard his first solo CD..." Back Porch Music Newsletter, WUNC, Freddy Jenkins
Enjoy this interview with Scott at Skinny Devil Magazine.
Scott Ainslie is a traditional acoustic Blues singer, guitarist, historian, storyteller, and songwriter. A musician all his life, Ainslie took up guitar at age 15 about five weeks after hearing Virginia Bluesman John Jackson play a couple of songs in the middle of one of Mike Seeger’s concerts in Alexandria, VA in 1967. Ainslie continued to graduate Phi Beta Kappa with honors from Washington & Lee University but his greatest love was studying with elder musicians on both sides of the color line – in the Old-Time Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo traditions, as well as black Gospel and Blues musicians.
Ainslie transcribed the original recordings and published a book on Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson/At The Crossroads (Hal Leonard, 1992), and recorded an instructional DVD on Johnson’s guitar work, Robert Johnson’s Guitar Techniques (Hal Leonard, 1997). Ainslie has six solo CDs to his name and maintains an active recording, performing and teaching schedule that carries him around the country, to Canada, and to Europe. His sixth album, The Last Shot Got Him, has been called “a must for fans of old-school Blues”.
Ainslie has received numerous awards and grants for his work documenting and presenting traditional music. These include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Folklife Section of the North Carolina Arts Council. He was presented with the annual Independent Weekly Triangle Arts Award; the National Slide Guitar Festivals’ Living Heritage Award; and the 20th Annual Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, NC.
As a traditional musician with expertise in both the Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo tradition, and Piedmont and Delta Blues, Ainslie has specialized in performing and presenting programs on the African roots of American music and culture in concert, community, and educational settings. His concerts offer us a personality, a moment in history, a vignette to entice us into a song and to give that song a chance to wake and breathe among us like a living thing.
Special Concert Offering: Long Time Comin' with Scott Ainslie and Reggie Harris In Concert performing the language of the road through a musical dialogue and stories that move mind, body, and spirit.
