Someday, I will be rightly thought of a has-been. That day, however, has not yet arrived. I know this because, last Thursday, I won the 2024 International Finger Style Guitar Championship! That contest is held in Winfield, Kansas, a place I’ve been to many times. I first went in 1983 and placed 2nd in the National Flatpicking Championship. Two years later, I placed 3rd in the National Finger Style Guitar Championship. Two years after that (1987), I won the National Flatpicking Championship. I was 31 years old. My recording career started a few weeks after returning home from that contest. A few years later I started getting booked regularly at the festival where the championships take place. Booked performers aren’t eligible to compete and so, other than one year (1995) when I entered the fingerstyle contest and didn’t place (and I absolutely did not deserve to – I played poorly), I haven’t thought much about trying to win the fingerstyle contest again.

Until, that is, one day in early June when I decided that, at the age of 68, I ought to get to it. I’ve long thought that if I was having a good day, I could win the thing. Last Thursday I had a pretty good day! Thirty-seven years after winning the Flatpicking trophy, I won the Fingerstyle contest. As it happens, in the 52 years of the festival, I’m the only person to have won them both.

Incidentally, the name changed from the National – to the International – Finger Style Guitar Championship 20-some years ago. Back in 2004, I performed at a guitar festival in Australia and, while there, helped to judge their fingerstyle contest, the winner of which was guaranteed a spot in the Winfield contest. I went from there to Japan for some shows, and, while there, also judged their contest, the winner of which was Hirokatsu Takei. Hiro also had a guaranteed spot at Winfield. We became good friends and he was invited to perform at the Harp Guitar Gathering™ (a convention for these instruments that I started in 2003) three times*. That September I was back in Winfield again performing and helping to judge there again too. It truly has become an international event – which is what the festival had set out to accomplish. As a very concrete example of that, after I won on Thursday, my trophy was presented to me by Japanese guitarist Momo Kimura, the 2023 winner.

I didn’t enter the contest for the prizes (which are considerable), but simply because I always wanted to prove to myself that I could win it. So, I did! My has-been status will eventually get here, but it will have to wait a while longer…

Congratulations to the 2nd and 3rd place winners, my new friends Mikey Bilello – from Bend, Oregon, and Hiroya Tsukamoto – orginally from Japan and now living in NYC. There was a great spirit of camaraderie among all the contestants this year and that was a great thing. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some old friends and making some new ones there! Lots of great guitar music!

*Sadly, Hirokatsu Takei passed away a few years ago, onstage in Japan playing his harp guitar when he collapsed. You can hear a tribute to him here.