Selwyn Birchwood shatters the stereotype of the self-taught juke joint bluesman. Born in 1985 in Orlando, Florida, to a father from Tobago and a mother from the UK, he picked up the guitar at 13 playing 1990s pop and rock, reverse-engineered Jimi Hendrix’s influences back to Buddy Guy, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Freddie King and Albert King, and was jolted into a lifelong calling by a Buddy Guy concert at 18. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Tampa.

This episode follows his four-year apprenticeship touring the United States and Canada with Texas-born veteran Sonny Rhodes, who taught him crowd psychology, tour-van diplomacy and the electric lap steel guitar. We examine why an MBA served as a shield to protect his art rather than a threat to it, how he built his band around a baritone saxophone to fill a sonic gap, and how a 2012 loss at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis became a data-gathering mission before the 2013 sweep in which he beat 125 bands and won the Albert King Guitarist of the Year award. We cover his Alligator Records debut Don’t Call No Ambulance, which won a 2015 Blues Music Award, his self-produced approach honed on earlier self-releases, and a catalog running through Pick Your Poison, Living in a Burning House, Exorcist, Old School and Electric Swamp Funk and Blues.

• Hendrix as a Trojan horse leading a 1990s teenager to the foundational titans of blues
• Four years on the road with Sonny Rhodes and the lap steel tradition he passed down
• Why the naive artist myth is a trap and how business training protects the music
• Baritone sax, lap steel and the sonic math of a four-piece that hits like an orchestra
• Losing, then winning, the International Blues Challenge and signing with Alligator Records