Blues isn’t just twelve bars and a hard luck story. Guitarist and songwriter Justin Golden showcases the full breadth of the genre and its downstream influences, everything from country blues to Americana, soul, indie roots and beyond. Golden was raised on the Virginia coast and is steeped in the distinctive, fingerpicked Piedmont blues of the central part of the state. He’s studied country blues and can name any number of influences from Blind Boy Fuller to Taj Mahal, but his key inspirations have always come from the indie guitar realm, specifically friends like Phil Cook and J Roddy Walston, with a little Hiss Golden Messenger, Daniel Norgren, and Bon Iver mixed in, and maybe a hint of James Taylor.

With this extremely diverse musical palette, Golden aims to bring some new ideas to traditional blues forms. In addition to his work as a recording and performing artist, Golden maintains a busy teaching schedule and works with the non-profit The Rhapsody Project to provide community enrichment through anti-racist cultural heritage programs.

Though Golden’s influences range far and wide, the blues will never be far from his heart. That’s because he doesn’t see the tradition as limiting, but rather a musical form open to any emotion. “The blues is not a box,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be a specific form or feeling, it can be whatever you want it to be, but you know it when you hear it.”