Page 13 - BiTS_10_OCTOBER_2024_Neat

my mother because I was too serious about it. Yeah, I was obsessed with it, and that's the only
thing I was interested in. So she forbid me to have a guitar until I made one.

My father helped me make one for a science project at school when I was in the eighth grade, and
by the time that I made it, I won a prize, second prize, with the guitar and my mother couldn't

take it away from me after I’d won a prize in
school. So that was how I started playing. All the
time before I had a guitar, I was sneaking into
my brother's room when he was out on the date
or at football practise or something, and I was
teaching myself to play, and nobody really knew
it.

BiTS: Did you have lessons? Did you actually go
to lessons, or did you just learn from copying
records?

DR: I just learnt from records. Yeah, and
watching my brother play and watching other
people, local musicians play and watching where
they put their fingers and how they did it. I’d just
go home and sneak in my brother's room and
practise when he wasn't home.

BiTS: There's a guitar player by the name of
Stefan Grossman, I'm not sure whether you
know him, but he once said at the concert that I
was at that he can always tell the guitar
aficionados because they sit in the front row and

they never take their eyes off your left hand.

DR: [Chuckles] That sounds right.

BiTS: [Laughs] So tell me, when did you decide you wanted to become a professional musician
then?

DR: Immediately. Immediately I just was totally serious about it. When I was in the eighth grade,
I had to write a little essay on what I wanted to be when I grew up, what profession I wanted to
be in, and I wrote that I wanted to be a professional musician, a professional guitarist.

BiTS: Wow! That's dedication at the earliest possible stage.

DR: Well, you know, my first memory is hearing big band music on the radio when I was sitting
on the kitchen floor in diapers. So it seems like either I was a musician in another life, or I just
had a really early affinity for music because I remember music being the first thing. My first
memory is of music.

BiTS: Can I ask you a personal question, and that is, why have you got the name Duke because
it’s not one of your given names, as they say.

DR: Yes, you're right. I had another name, a nickname that I won't repeat, but I didn't like it, and
I couldn't wait to get rid of it. People kept calling me this name and finally I had got a haircut, got
my hair cut much shorter than it was and kind of combed it back and it was a totally different
look. My friends said, you don't look like you anymore. We’ve got to give you a new name and
they called me Duke, and it stuck and that was it.