Dixie Duncan

Dixie Duncan is a very talented musician, a extremely gifted guitar player and if you look at his schedule on his Myspace page you’ll come to the same conclusion we did, that he is one of the hardest working musicians around.

TST recently had a chance to ask Dixie a few question about how it all started and what’s next for the Atlanta rocker.

TST: Thanks for taking time out to answer a few questions for us.

TST: Dixie, that’s an interesting name. Is there a story behind that?

DD: Nothing special. I had a “Dixie” hat that I wore all the time when I was in rehab 13 years ago. It just happened to be one of the 5 articles of clothing I owned at the time-I don’t even know where it came from. Anyway, people just started calling me Dixie, and it was about that time I started playing gigs with bands, and the name stuck.

TST: Are you originally from Atlanta?

DD: Yes, I was born at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. I’ve been here the whole time, except for a brief period when I lived in Mississippi, but that never happened…

TST: Well let’s go back to the beginning. What made you want to become a musician?

DD: Well, I’ve been playing music for as long as I can remember-either on piano, pots & pans or whatever. It came naturally, so I stuck with it. Apparently, there’s a long line of musicians in my familiy.

TST: How long have you been playing?

DD: Guitar? 16 years

TST: Who are some of your musical influences?

DD: Al Di Meola, David Gilmour, Dennis Chambers, BB King, John Doan, and Beethoven to name a few (very few).

TST: How would you describe your style to new Dixie Duncan fans or people who haven’t had the chance to hear you or see you perform?

DD: Wow, that’s tough. My sounds are very diverse. I try to approach each song differently. Kind of like, “What have I not done yet?”. Sometimes it’s classical, latin, or blues, sometimes it’s an acid trip, and sometimes it’s just chaos. I guess I’d ask them to listen and then describe it to me, so I can figure out what I was thinking.

TST: Now, you don’t just play the guitar. You actually play quite a few instruments. Is that correct?

DD: Yes, I play a bunch of instruments-some not nearly as well as others. Piano, drums, horns, a lot of stringed intruments, and quite a few rare instruments from all over the world, one of my favorites being the bandura from Ukraine. It has 55 strings and sounds beautiful.

TST: So how do you feel about being voted Creative Loafing’s Best Instrumentalist for the last three years?

DD: I actually didn’t get anything in 2006. They didn’t have the instrumentalist category for some reason, but they gave it to me in ’05, ’07, and ’08. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m flattered, but I think there are a lot of very talented musicians in Atlanta who are much more deserving of that kind of recognition than me.

TST: What’s next for Dixie Duncan?

DD: I’ve been working on my acoustic guitar album, ‘Lost in the Shadow of a Dream’ for a very long time. I hope to have it finished in Spring this year and tour a bit. Either way, I’ve played over 900 shows over the past 3 years, and I don’t plan on slowing down for a long time.

To find our more about Dixie and view his entire upcoming show schedule, visit him at DixieDuncan.net