Justin was raised in coastal Virginia, and has spent his life studying that state’s Piedmont Blues tradition. When it comes to his guitar heroes, he’s also inspired by the likes of Phil Cook, J Roddy Walston, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Bon Iver. But his true music loves is prominent on his latest album “Golden Country Volume 1”, and on a new single, a traditional African American spiritual inspired by a 1929 Blind Willie Johnson recording. “The blues is not a box,” he says. “They try to make it seem like it’s just twelve bars or it’s gotta be sad or it’s gotta be this or that, but if you listen to so much old pre-war blues, there are so many feelings involved. There’s happy blues, sad blues, just got paid and spent all my money blues, gonna go see my girl late at night blues, there’s blues for anything. 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.”