The 2012 Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop & Music Festival

By: Debra Devi

Fri Aug 24

Flew from the dirty Jerz to pristine northwestern Montana today to attend the 2012 Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop & Music Festival  at Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork. Wonderful to see pine-tufted undulating mountains rise up from the land as the plane neared Kallispell Airport. Hit stomach-dropping turbulence as we descended through the wind eddies they toss upward – a stewardess turning a child’s fear around: “It’s just like being on the rollercoaster, honey, raise your arms and go wooo!”

The Workshop begins Monday with a stellar lineup of Artist/Teachers In Residence like Sonny Landreth, Julien Lage, Lee Ritenour, Dennis Koster, Dave Grusin, Patty Larkin, Melvin Davis, Doug Smith, Jody Fisher, Andrew Leonard, Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson. In the wake of the National Guitar Workshop’s bankruptcy, the COC Workshop has also stepped up to host Lee Ritenour’s 2012 Yamaha 6 String Theory Competition semi-finals, this weekend.

COC Guitar Foundation Chairman and Founding Director David Feffer’s prediction that “We are building this workshop to become an International Center for the study of guitar” is coming true dizzyingly ahead of schedule, with semi-finalists flying in from israel, the Netherlands, the U.K., Brazil and Belgrade. Luckily people from Bigfork – a city-government-free, volunteer-run town — know how to pitch in and make shiznit happen.

The competition finale was already slated to be held here, but David and his staff have quickly scrambled to squeeze in the semi-finals, too, when the NGW, the semi-finals’ original host, had to shut down. Lee Ritenour has been a master teacher at the COC Workshop since it began three years ago, and the wealth of young musical finds he’s bringing along with him this year is eagerly anticipated. They’re also pretty jet lagged, if the couple I met yesterday are any indication, but will no doubt rally for their first rehearsal together tomorrow.

This week is going to be a whirl –  6 days of workshops for blues, rock. jazz, classical, acoustic, singer-songwriter, bass & beginners, afternoon jams and nightly concerts. Personally, I’m looking forward to taking the Advanced Blues course with the ever-jocular Matt Smith, and sneaking in to a few of Jody Fisher’s mind-bending jazz classes, as well.

Right now, though, I’m riding shotgun with David Feffer and $20,000 worth of art and guitars over to “Guitar Night for Glacier Fund” at the O’Shaughnesey Center in Whitefish –  “just through that pass in the mountains over there.” We arrive and set up a display for art and instruments, which will be auctioned off to benefit the COC Guitar Foundation, which provided 27 scholarships this year for students from as far away as Tokyo to come study here this week.

Tonight’s concert is a benefit for the Glacier National Park Fund, stewards of the Crown of the Continent, as this incredibly stunning region of the U.S. is called. This mystical, majestic landscape of glacier-carved peaks and valleys is home to grizzlies, bighorn sheep, mountain goats and alpine meadows. For Feffer, a partnership with Glacier Fund is a natural fit because, he likes to say, “Music is inspired by the beauty around us.”

I speak briefly with the Fund’s executive director, Jane Ratzlaff, who echoes that sentiment and notes the critical importance of exposing young people to our nation’s outdoor treasures, so they take over as their stewards when we’re gone. As state politicians sneakily sell off bits of public lands, chipping into state parks, we all need to “Just Say No”. To that end, the Fund has expanded its education efforts in a new high school “citizens” project that brings teens to the park for school projects.

The first performer is world-class fingerstyle guitarist Bill Mize, who has a deep love for the land and a sly sense of humor sweetening his highly accomplished picking. He’s joined for a few tunes on accordion by his wife Beth, a park ranger in the Smokies who tells us about an inner-city teen exposed to the mountains for the first time who she found crying because “I didn’t know there was such beauty in the world.” Of course, she adds, she also gets kids like one who told her  of his plan to find and tame a flying squirrel “and name him Steve!”

Bill and Beth are followed by creative interpretations of samba and jazz standards–plus their own tunes– from Brazil-tinged bossa nova quarter Rio, featuring smoky-alto-voiced singer Edda Glass and guitarist Max Hatt. My fave was their trippy take on “Take Five”, featuring Edda’s haunting vocals made multi-dimensional by her use of sampling effects pedals. Look for it on their upcoming album.

The night has turned chill as we file out, and it’s tough for me to keep my eyes open as David winds up the curving pine-lined road to the Feffers home. More soon…

 About Debra Devi: Debra is the lead singer/guitarist for the rock band DEVI. She is also the author of the award-winning book, THE LANGUAGE OF THE BLUES: FROM ALCORUB TO ZUZU (Foreword by DR. JOHN), which has won praise from Bonnie Raitt, Joe Bonamassa and even Ministry’s Al Jourgensen. JamBase calls her “a supersonic fret-burner who writes hauntingly memorable songs.”  She’s a Fender Girl Rock Nation artist and the first female guitarist invited to record for Guitar World’s “Lick of the Day” iPhone app.