Blues
Richmond, Virginia
Justin Golden's origins are deeply vested in the blues, with roots in the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, and the Piedmont of Virginia. Picking up the guitar as a teenager, Justin did what came naturally and let the music flow through him. Fascinatingly, the Piedmont Blues style first came to him in a dream. Before he had ever heard the term, he had written several songs in the Piedmont style. While perhaps not as well-known as the Mississippi Delta style, the Piedmont Blues has a deep history in Virginia, and is home to some of its greatest practitioners, including the late John Jackson and John Cephas. By far, the most distinctive feature of the Piedmont guitar style is its finger-picking method, in which the thumb lays down a rhythmic bassline against which one or two fingers pluck out the melody of the tune. Using this technique, the Piedmont guitarist makes a single instrument sound like several, setting up a complex dialogue of bass and treble parts.
Since 2016, Justin has been an instructor of Piedmont Blues Guitar at Augusta Heritage Center's Blues and Swing Week at Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia. While he is keenly versed in traditional styles, he has an extremely diverse musical palette and brings new ideas to traditional blues forms. Now 27, Golden lives in Richmond, where he formed Justin Golden & The Come Up, taking his sound to the next level.