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Winfield, Kansas. Home of the Walnut
Valley Festival Host of the annual National Fingerpicking Championship. It's an event
like no other for lovers of fingerstyle music. Contenders from
all four corners of the US and abroad make their pilgrimage to
this small Midwest farming community in their quest to earn membership in the
small circle of champions. Sure, winners receive trophies
and guitars-fine guitars by makers including Gallagher, Martin,
Taylor, Lowden, and Santa Cruz-but the Grail is the title: "National
Fingerpicking Champion."
While there have been multiple first place winners in the flatpicking
contest, no one has won the Fingerpicking competition twice. Only
Stephen Bennett has been a cross-over winner, taking the Flatpicking
Championship in '87, and placing third in the '85 Fingerpicking
Championship.
The National Fingerpicking Championship was first held on June
2, 1979 as a part of the Walnut Valley June Jamboree and in response
to the demand to expand the competitions beyond the flatpicking
contest. In some years, there have been more Fingerpicking entrants
than flatpicking, but on the average, the two contests have run
fairly evenly. Says Walnut Valley Festival founder Bob Redford,
"With a limit of forty contestants, we've had some competitions
that were closed-up even before the festival started Every time,
though, one or two have backed out, because the competition was
such that they didn't reel qualified to compete. There are also
a number of no-shows that make room for Nos 41, 42 or 43, and
others on standby. Forty contestants are really all we've got
time for, and it's about all the judges can reasonably handle."
 Finding qualified judges is, of course, one of the keys to the
competition. Explains Redford, "We select judges who are
willing to share their talents one to-one, or one-to-fifteen in
a workshop situation, as well as performing in concert. What makes
a good judge is the willingness to share. But, good judges can
be hard to come by. Many great players are reluctant to judge,
or to place one player higher than another. They appreciate the
fact that everybody has their good attributes and qualities, and
they're not comfortable ranking them. When you find someone who
likes to do workshops, though, you generally find yourself a good
judge. He likes to share, and to judge, and see how that person
comes back and improves."
If there is one recurring criticism of the competition, it's
that it encompasses such a wide variety of musical styles. In
the Fingerpicking competition, it's likely that you'll hear a
classical piece followed by some country blues, and maybe some
jazz. Redford responds, "It's natural to assume that certain
judges will have biases. In the case of the flatpicking competition,
most of the flat pickers are grounded in traditional bluegrass.
That contest remains in a traditional sense. But in fingerstyle,
we've never had an intent to restrict it to a category of music.
We feel it should remain in an open style, especially given our
plans to expand the event to an international competition. It
has helped tremendously to go from three judges to five judges.
That tends to eliminate the person whose biases might become a
factor. Within five judges, you're going to find the best picker.
We don't care what the contestant plays. It's his showmanship
and execution that count according to the point system used by
the judges."
In the process of compiling the music of all sixteen winners for
a book of transcriptions and companion CD (Winfield Winners-The
National Fingerpicking Champions), we spoke with all of them
to gain their reflections and insights on the experience of competing,
winning, and judging in Winfield. Given their amazing talents,
it is not surprising that all sixteen are still very much in the
business of making music. (But we only have room here for the
piece about Charles David Alexander...)
Alexander comments that winning the contest "... just another
brick in the wall." Says Alexander, "It gives you another
credential that you can use. When you're doing a booking, or someone
is writing an article in a newspaper, it gives them something
that distinguishes you from somebody else they might write about;
it makes you somewhat unique. But you don't have people knocking
your door down with offers. It's not like winning the Miss America
Pageant! If you're willing to work and take care of the business
end of things-the things that you have to do anyway-it will benefit
you, because it gives you a title that very few people have. That's
an advantage. When you're doing a show, it helps the promoter
to entice people to come in and hear you play. People think that
because you win this, you can get record deals and every thing
else. None of that happens. Anything that happens is what you
make happen. You can make it happen without it, also. It isn't
going to open-up anything that you cannot open-up anyway, but
it does make things a little easier. When I do clinics, for example,
eighty people will show up, whereas you would normally have only
fifteen."
Alexander played his now famous Orange
Blossom Special, Ghost Riders in the Sky, When You Wish Upon A
Star,
and Vincent for
the competition. He advises, "I think you're better-off if
you don't go there and play someone else's arrangements. You need
to be an individual. I think that needs to show. Whatever you
do, you've got to do flawlessly. Do material that you're real
comfortable with, that you know people enjoy. Do what you feel
like is you. If you do it well, then it doesn't matter if you
win or not. I've heard a lot of fantastic guitarists who have
entered and never won for various reasons. If you don't win, you're
in excellent company."
Drawing "Contestant Number 13"
didn't help calm Alexander's nerves. "I started getting real
nervous. But then I decided that if I got nervous, I will have
blown it before I even got up there. So as I sat in the stands,
I asked myself, what can I get out of this? I'm not here to prove
anything. If I win, it will be beneficial. It would be a really
good thing to win, but yet, it's like the lottery. Actually, you're
probably not going to win. My initial goal was just
to make the finals.
If I could have done that, I would have been totally happy. The other thing
was recognizing this as an opportunity to play before a really
large crowd. The stands were packed. What I would really like
to get out of this is to know what effect my music might have
on a large audience. I wondered if I should go back to flying
with the airlines, or if I really did have something to offer
musically. That's what I wanted to know. So I forgot about the
judging and just played to the audience. I couldn't believe I
made the finals, and had to calm myself down again. I remember hearing Edgar Cruz playing and thinking,
he's going to walk off with this, because the crowd was going
crazy."
Alexander adds, "It's funny, but after winning, I was afraid
that I now had something to live up to-that I would disappoint
people. It took me a long time to understand that what- I do is
unique and valid. I saw all the things that I didn't or couldn't
do that all these other guitarists were doing. It's hard to see
that what you do, perhaps. no one else does. You have to keep it
in perspective. It's an honor to win, but at the same time, I'd
hate for someone to win it feeling that the rest of the world
finally recognized what they've known all their life-God's gift
to guitar strings. I appreciate people who are actually giving
something of their selves through their music. To me, that means
something." |
