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11/11/99 Doubt says what attracted him to the blues as a genre is the breathing room. An Eddie Van Halen approach to the guitar never held much appeal. "That wasn't hard for me at all because I never came from a rock background," he explains. "When I was 15 or 16, I wasn't tapping all those notes. I'm not considered a speed player. That's never what I wanted to be." Doubt moved from Guelph to Ottawa to study communications at Carleton University. "It's purely by chance," Doubt laughs. "I came here to go to school and I ended up playing guitar." He began performing with the encouragement of the Mighty Popo about five years ago at the open-stage nights at the Whipping Post. Having played with Tony D, the Fat City 8 and the Johnny Russell Band, Doubt now tours with his own Band. The next step, he says, is developing his skills as a songwriter. "I'm really just getting into writing songs and for me it's two pronged: How do you write a song and how do you do something original? "You can't recreate the blues, but you can reference it. There's got to be a way to piece together these references so that it is new."
99/07/08 Having just released his band June 18, Scotty Doubt is now ready to take on the Bluesfest and get the crowd warmed up for Gladys Knight. The 31-year old guitarist will kick off the final day of this year's festival July 11 at high noon. Doubt, living up to his reputation as a young 'un, reportedly didn't take to the guitar right away. "I was a slow starter," he told Winnipeg based Blues Scene Quarterly magazine. "Although I got my first guitar at about the age of eight, I didn't like taking lessons. I didn't like that structure, I guess. So I didn't really get into playing until I was 18." But when he got into it, he did so in a big way. He moved to Ottawa from Guelph and has been playing with the Fat City 8 (a blues band that has all but taken up residence at the Rainbow) since 1995. He chose to settle in Ottawa because he loved the blues scene here. And the scene, in turn, has embraced Doubt. Local guitar hero Tony D gushes, "Scotty Doubt is one of the finest blues guitarists out there. He has a strong sense of rhythm phrasing, which is apparent even in his solos. Not too many players think that way. He does. Note for note, style for style he can play with them all. Hell, he plays with me!"
Summer 1999 Scotty Doubt got his first real onstage experience at a blues jam hosted by Mel Brown at Glen Smith's well-known Kitchener club, Pop the Gator. Doubt recalls how he used to regularly show up at the Gator without an instrument, and he fondly remembers the time that Mel told him that he "really oughta get himself a guitar." Now residing in Ottawa, Ontario, Scotty's career has not been an overnight success, but rather a patient process of acquiring the skills and experience that goes into the making of a blues player. "I was a slow starter, " explains the 31-year old Doubt. "Although I got my first guitar at about the age of eight, I didn't like taking lessons. I didn't like that structure, I guess. So I didn't really get into playing until I was 18. A couple of years later, I moved to Ottawa and discovered a pretty amazing blues scene that sent me home at night to really work at the music." Scotty has been a part of the Fat City 8 since its inception in 1995, and he's worked with the Johnny Russell Band, Suzie Vinnick and the Tony D Band. As well he gigs with New Orleans harpster Jumpin' Johnny Sansone when he's in town (including New Year's Eve at the Rainbow last year). A big proponent of the Ottawa Citizen Bluesfest, Scotty is happy to report that, along with the Fat City Eight, he'll be playing the festival again this year. And the future looks to be interesting as Scotty begins work on putting his own band together this summer.
September 1998 In a conversation with blues columnist Liz Sykes, Doubt explains some of his early guitar influences, talks about the transition from the open stage jams to the Bluesfest Main stage and even deals with that timeless of questions, "Are we going to hear Scoty Doubt sing?" Click this link to read this early
interview with Scotty Doubt which appeared as the cover story in
the Ottawa Blues Society OBScene Magazine.
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