Holt made his first step toward musical apprenticeship when his father took him to Chicago to hear bluesman Buddy Guy. “I had never been in a club before or heard a really great guitar player like Buddy live,” Holt recounts. After a backstage meeting, the young student and venerable master stayed in touch. Over the next year or so Holt was invited on stage to jam with Guy, and then one day Guy called to invite Holt into his band. “I’d never even been in a band before,” Holt says. “I tried to get bands together in my parents’ basement in Tennessee, but it never worked out. So all of a sudden at 18 I was leaving home for Chicago with my guitar, my amp, a suitcase and my passport.”
Holt played at Guy’s side for a decade. “Buddy taught me everything, from how to order at a restaurant to how to run a band and win over a crowd. He is my hero and one of my best friends. To this day, what he can do never ceases to amaze me.” And Guy remains an enthusiastic supporter of Holt. “He heard Kudzu and told me, ‘Man, I’m really proud of you. You gotta move it around!’ ”
There is no question Holt has diversified his pure talent within the album Kudzu. While blues remains a significant part of the core of his being, he is evolving as an artist. His music is a reflection of his own character as both a man and an artist, growing every day. He reflects, “I am a bluesman through and through, and it is always a part of who I am when recording or performing. It has been an affirmation over the past year as I play these songs for audiences who love them. I believe in them with all my heart, and I have never been more confident or honest lyrically. It really has been a special experience to be sharing them with audiences for the first time and getting the strong response from audiences night in and night out.”
Holt credits his Kudzu co-producers Tim O’Brien and Doug ‘Truth’ Smith with helping him achieve the fearless quality that makes for great performances. “It was obvious they believed in my songs and the direction I was heading in every inch of the way. It’s the first time I’ve really experienced that in the studio,” he explains. “If you listen,” Holt continues, “you can always hear the blues in the foundation of my playing, but the greatest bluesmen, like Buddy and Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, were always changing, experimenting and evolving. Now that I’ve been able to do the same, I feel that with Kudzu I’ve found the key to not only my own musical future, but something bigger than myself.”
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