I have met a lot of mighty fine pickers and mighty fine people by going to guitar contests. These contests provide a great opportunity for fellowship as well as for performing and learning. The International Finger Style Guitar Contest at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield was no exception.
The two-hour drive and a much needed day off work gave me the chance to reconnect with picking friends like Roger Hardin and Brian Henke as well as my Indiana buds Kara Barnard and Jeff Russell. These are some of the finest players in the country, and I did not envy the judges their job. It was a thrill to watch Roger claim second place in the contest.
It was a last minute decision to go and to enter the contest. I was pretty far down on the standby list, and as a result my name wasn’t called as one of the forty contestants. It was fun to be in the tent for the drawing, though. Along with the other hopeful competitors, I cheered when Buddy Case drew the number one position. Somebody has to go first, and you typically hope that it isn’t you.
After he got the contest kicked off, Buddy and I were sitting near each other as we watched the other contestants, and soon we noticed that we were appreciating the same things about each performance. We found out we had both competed in the National Thumb Pick Contest at Mountain View. We knew we had to get together to pick sometime and hoped to grab our guitars after the contest for a quick jam session.
However, nature put a damper on those plans. A line of strong thunderstorms moved through Winfield during the contest, dumping buckets of rain, and it was still raining when the contest ended. Buddy and I thought we’d head into town to the local Wendy’s and grab a late bite to eat.
Wouldn’t you know, though? We just happened to have our guitars with us, and the closing crew at Wendy’s was gracious enough to let us pick a few songs together while they went about the work of closing the store down for the night. The video is evidence enough of the fun we had.
Buddy and his wife, Karen, also host house concerts in their Enola, Arkansas, home. Agreeing that once is just not enough, we set up a house concert for Friday evening, November 22. I don’t know if it’ll be the same without chili and Frosties, but I do know we’ll have an enormously good time!