Valerie Turner is an American blues guitarist, vocalist, educator, and author. She plays in the Piedmont style of fingerpicking guitar, continuing in the traditions of Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, Memphis Minnie, and Etta Baker. She performs blues, ballads, country, popular songs, ragtime, and gospels. She is a native New Yorker with southern roots in Virginia and Georgia. She started learning and studying traditional country blues guitar in 1978. Valerie and her spouse, Benedict Turner, are an acoustic blues duo called Piedmont Blūz. They specialize in Piedmont blues music, but also perform music from the Delta blues tradition. Benedict and Valerie are ambassadors of historic blues music, and educate their audiences about this early tradition and its artists. Early life Valerie Turner started playing the ukulele around the age of four and was introduced to the guitar at about nine. She grew up listening to classical music and jazz with her father. Her mother listened to African and Calypso music. Her first music lessons were in Spanish classical guitar and, before Turner became an accomplished blues artist, she earned an undergraduate degree from Queens College in Elementary Education and Foreign Language, before pursuing graduate studies at New York University, where she studied computer science. She built a career in information technology and worked as both a systems analyst and software engineer. She met her future husband, Benedict Turner, in 1985. Career Turner's musical path to the blues started with a music book she purchased that included photographs of scenery from the American south. The imagery in the book connected her to her family's southern background in the east coast’s Piedmont region. She says, "As I was reading, I was learning about this interesting [blues] music. And once I heard it, I really loved it, and I knew that I wanted to play it." She taught herself for many years by listening to old vinyl records but, as her interest in country blues music grew, she sought out and found teachers such as Jack Baker and John Cephas. and Woody Mann. These mentors assisted Turner in mastering Piedmont style fingerpicking. As her interest in blues grew, so did her husband's curiosity. Benedict is quoted as saying, "I am an artist, and I had never played an instrument before I met Valerie. One day, I picked up a washboard in an antique shop and brought it home as joke." Benedict, who comes