By Patrice Wilson

“I have heard women will never be good enough,” said jazz guitarist and musician Danielle Walcott, a 2022 recipient of ASC’s Creative Renewal Fellowship. “I am doing something that most people told me that I couldn’t.”

Walcott’s journey is far from traditional and, to some, “off the beaten path.” That hasn’t deterred her from following her dreams.

Walcott moved to Charlotte in 2000 as a first-generation college student to attend Johnson C. Smith University. She studied biology following the guidance of her father, who wanted her to be a doctor, but she knew that was not truly what she wanted to do. She kept music close by playing trumpet in the marching band and guitar in the gospel choir.

After graduating, Walcott spent 12 years as an emergency medical technician (EMT), responding to life and death situations daily. She still played guitar but as a wife and a mother of two, she had largely put her dream of becoming a professional musician on the backburner.

“I remember playing at an outdoor church festival and the back of the stage was next to a cemetery,” she said. “As I was waiting to go on stage, I leaned on the fence of the cemetery and I wondered, ‘how many unfulfilled dreams are buried in this cemetery?’”

That day Walcott committed to begin living the life she had always dreamed of.

“I didn’t want to have any regrets before I closed my eyes for the last time,” she said.

So, at 36 years old and with the support of her family, Walcott left her job and enrolled into UNC Charlotte to study music fulltime.

“As I pursued my career and degree in music as a guitarist, I began to look for other women guitarist in jazz for inspiration and the list was very few,” said Walcott, who began to realize that women jazz guitarist seemed to be historically ignored.

Her ASC Creative Renewal Fellowship is furthering the research that Walcott began in 2020 at UNC Charlotte on “The Unsung Women Of Jazz Guitar.” Through literature, interviews and experiential retreats, she intends to uncover the stories of women who excelled at guitar during the early era of jazz and the ways that concepts of gender and place in society have historically shaped the experiences of women musicians.

“I won’t be able to highlight everyone and everything, but I want to add to the information that is out there” shared Walcott.

Her fellowship supported her trip to California this for the She Rocks Awards honoring trailblazing women from all areas of the music industry – something she had wanted to experience for years.

“Now, in California they are excited to see the product and results of the fellowship,” Walcott said.

Through her ASC fellowship activities, Walcott wants to “give credit where credit is due” and recognize women jazz guitarists who haven’t received theirs. She also wants to empower women to follow their dreams, no matter how far they’ve strayed from them.

She’s proof that it’s never too late.