About Dixie Duncan

Dixie Duncan (born April 3, 1977) is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Atlanta, Georgia. His experience with music began at age 4, when he would play holiday songs by ear on the family piano. At 12 years old, Dixie played drums, trumpet and trombone in the middle school band, and for the next few years, he developed an understanding of drumming and basic percussion concepts by watching drummers in music videos and listening to the radio. Around age 13, his family moved from Atlanta to a small town in Mississippi where there was nothing but big fields and dirt roads. He found an old acoustic guitar that belonged to his stepfather, and after being shown 1 scale (by his stepfather), spent all of his time teaching himself scales, chords, and eventually, whole songs. After being in Mississippi for less than a year, Dixie moved back to Atlanta, now with a newfound love for playing the guitar. But simply playing music wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t until 5 years later that Dixie joined his first band, TENTILFOUR. Less than a year later, they began performing for large audiences. After playing together for 8 years, recording 3 cds, and performing with many national acts, TENTILFOUR disbanded (bad pun intended). By this point, Dixie had combined his love for playing music with his love for performing. Still, that wasn’t enough.

The next few years were some of the most defining years (musically) of Dixie’s life. He played with many other bands on guitar, bass, drums, and sometimes keys. During this time, he also spent a lot of time studying a lot of different musical instruments including (but not limited to) violin, cello, and bandura. He began to learn that not only was he able to perform for many people, but he was able to share a part of himself through the music he was playing. However, after some time, Dixie realized it was hard to find musicians who were interested in playing music for just the love of playing and performing. The concept of expressing emotion and experience through music had nearly been lost, and Dixie became less passionate about the music he was playing.

September of 2006, Dixie decided to pursue a career as a solo artist. Dixie is currently recording music for 2 albums. The first of these, mostly comprised of solo acoustic guitar work, will be released in early 2008. He is also writing music for 2 other albums, playing drums with Cemetron, doing studio sessions, and performing almost every night of the week.

In 2005, while touring with Echovalve, Dixie was awarded #1 bass guitarist in a worldwide band competition (www.emergenza.net). Soon after, he was named “Best Instrumentalist of 2005” in Creative Loafing (Atlanta), and once again, “Best Instrumentalist of 2007”. Also in 2007, Dixie won 1st place in an acoustic guitar competition (www.acoustichero.com).