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younger, he’d sit around and play guitar and mandolin and fiddle and harmonica, and

I guess that's kind of where the seed got planted for that. I went to LSU for college
and when I got over there, my world really opened up to the blues because I was

really exposed to it for the first time, I would say, for really hearing good blues. And
it just stuck with me, and I played in different bands, different types of music from

time to time, but always came back to the blues. When I got to the point where I
started writing, it was the blues that I was writing. That's what makes me happiest.
That's why I’ve stuck there.

BiTS: Well, I gather that you call your blues Panhandle Blues with the justifiable
geographical slants to it, but it involves a number of different styles, Piedmont and

the Mississippi Delta, and so on and so forth. How did you pick up all those styles?

DSR: What I like to tell people, I call it
Panhandle Blues because it is what I call a

gumbo of different styles of blues, and with
Blind Boy me, I know people like to learn stuff note for
Fuller
note and they're very strict about it, I've

always found that I get inspired by a certain
artist like Blind Boy Fuller or Tampa Red, and
I'll play what their playing but I find myself

putting my own little things into it. I don't
want to say because I was too lazy to learn it

note for note, I just felt like I wanted to put
myself more into it.

As I started writing, all those people who

have influenced me from the different styles,
it kind of meshed all together and I said, well,
it's not really Piedmont and it's not really
Delta, so that's what I said it's Panhandle

Blues and that's what I told people because
they were asking what kind of blues I played. So I just came up and said, hey, this is

Panhandle Blues. It's definitely a good gumbo mix of all those good old styles from
the prewar time.

BiTS: The album, although we talked about it as blues, has a real, I would call it,

gospel edge to it. Are you a person with strong faith?

DSR: Oh yeah. I'm very spiritual. I don't claim a denomination, so to speak. I grew
up Southern Baptist, but I attend church online these days. I guess that's the cool

kids do that. [Chuckles] Yeah, it definitely is driven by my faith and spirituality.

BiTS: All of the songs are yours, I believe. Is that right?

DSR: That is correct.