Sebastopol Guitar Festival a lively draw for local music makers

Rock stars play guitar in stadiums for tens of thousands of people, but the Sebastopol Guitar Festival is a home-grown, grass-roots affair with modest ambitions.

Attendance at the fourth annual celebration started small Saturday and built slowly throughout the day, reaching several hundred by the closing evening performance by Stevie Coyle of the progressive bluegrass band The Waybacks.

Performers were a mix of local musicians and guest artists from around the country, with no super stars or household names, but accomplished guitarists with strong reputations among enthusiasts.

Nashville guitarist, songwriter and studio musician Jim Hurst, who last played the Sebastopol festival two years ago, dazzled his audience with nearly an hour and a half of songs and guitar solos so intricate they sometimes sounded like duets.

“The guitar can play anything, from classical, like Bach and Beethoven, with the musician onstage all alone, to some guy sitting around under a shade tree playing around with a cheap guitar he bought in a thrift shop,” said Hurst, named Guitarist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association two years in a row.

Most of the music had a bluegrass or country flavor, but a country swing version of Roger Miller's “King of the Road” popped up, an instrumental version of the Rolling Stones' “Paint It Black” could be heard in the warmup room and there was a bit of the blues in the air, too.

More than performances

Two stages were busy all day, but performances were only part of the one-day event, founded in 2013 by Sebastopol musician Kevin Russell. Guitar workshop classes were held all afternoon in the center Annex building next door.

Not all of the live music was onstage, either. Impromptu jam sessions cropped up outside. Sebastopol musician, concert promoter and teacher Jim “Mr. Music” Corbett led one such ensemble on the Annex porch.

“This festival is isn't just for guitar players,” Russell explained. “It's actually about the love of music.”

Ticket buyers weren't required to be guitarists, of course, but a lot of them were.

“I'm just an amateur, but you can do a lot with a guitar,” said Danny Madrid of Santa Rosa, sitting in the back row of the audience. “I like all kinds of music, but I'm more into the blues.”

Hotbed for guitar makers

One room of the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center was set aside as a showcase for local guitar makers.

“A lot of people don't know we're living in a golden age for luthiers,” Russell said as he walked through the room where local craftsmen offered handmade guitars, which can cost $3,000 and up. “Sonoma County is a hotbed for some of the best guitar makers in the world.

Guitar craftsman Bill Iberti of Sebastopol was hard-pressed to define exactly why the west Sonoma County luthier community is so strong.

“It's in the water,” Iberti joked. “You can't throw a rock around here without hitting a luthier.”

With burgers grilling just outside the main auditorium's back door, the daylong festival took on the atmosphere of a hometown fair. Fans gathered at picnic tables to talk with performers between sets.

“I work alone,” Hurst said in the center's backyard after his performance, “so it's good to get someone else I can talk to about guitars.”

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.