It is far more rare to see a young bluesman drawn to the older, rawer form of acoustic blues of the Mississippi Delta region — players like Daniel "Slick" Ballinger.

The 20-year-old native of North Carolina was so taken with what he calls "the real blues" that he had to be immersed in it, both musically and geographically. During high school, he spent his summers in rural Mississippi studying the music and the lifestyle of those who played it.

"If you're gonna do something, you might as well get down in it and do it," says Ballinger, who has a thick country drawl that is part Appalachia and part Deep South.

Ballinger is making waves on the southern blues festival circuit and his band, the Soul Blues Boyz, earned runner-up honors at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis this winter. The group comes the Outland Ballroom stage Saturday night.

"A phrase used on him a lot is 'the real deal' and he really is, man," says John "Darkhorse" Teipew, host of "Route 66 Blues Express" on KTOZ-AM, who has seen Ballinger live several times. "If you're not a firm believer in the blues when you go see this young man, you will be when you leave."

Ballinger felt the call of the blues at a very young age, and says he was never much interested in the stylings of modern artists like Vaughan or Eric Clapton.

"That music don't affect me," Ballinger says. "I was made for that old, down-deep music to touch me. Everybody's got something that moves them. ... Them old blues is what moves me."

Ballinger's mother took him to Mississippi on his spring and summer breaks to soak up the rural blues culture of the region. He eventually met aging drum-and-fife legend Otha Turner, who invited the 18-year-old to spend the summer with him in 2002.

Turner, who died in early 2003 at age 94, lived in a modest house with a tin roof and a wood stove. Ballinger says the pair woke up early to tend Turner's garden and livestock, played together in the evening and went to sleep listening to blues albums.

"I learned a lot about old-timey living and I learned a lot about the roots of the blues," says Ballinger, who moved to Mississippi the day after he graduated and rents a trailer from Turner's family. "(He told me) to take my time with the music and don't just speed up and be in such a hurry."

For someone who's in no hurry, Ballinger's career is moving at a rapid pace. His sidemen include older, established players Blind Mississippi Morris and Kinney Kimbrough, son of blues legend Junior Kimbrough. His festival gigs are generating a buzz among hard-core blues purists, and Ballinger's first album is slated for release later this year.

Mike Wallace, a Blues Society of the Ozarks member and avid acoustic blues fan, says Ballinger is finding success because he is not simply rehashing the past.

"When you hear Slick, you're hearing Slick," Wallace says. "... He takes all of those traditional influences and makes them his own."

Ballinger says the down-to-earth nature of the music is grabbing listeners just as it did him.

"Real music," he says, "is gonna touch folks."