Courtesy photo

Travis Starkey, 13, placed fourth in the Old Fiddlers Convention's youth guitar competition.

A young guitarist from Franklin County made a little history at the Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax earlier this month.

Travis Starkey, 13, finished fourth in the convention's youth guitar competition on Aug. 9. That result made him the first black musician ever to place in the youth guitar category.

Officials from Galax's Moose Lodge, which runs the event, said that before then, it was unclear whether any black musician had either won or placed in any category in the convention's 75-year history.

But for young Starkey, the historical aspect of it is not a big deal. He said he just wants to master multiple styles of music and win when he competes.

He credits his teacher

Fans of old-school Southern gospel music might be familiar with Starkey. He is one of two fine young guitarists in Larnell Starkey and the Spiritual Seven, a band that's been around more than 40 years. Travis said he was about 7 years old when he started with the Spiritual Seven.

But about two and a half years ago, he took up old-time guitar. And last year, he took the stage for the first time in Galax, playing "Cluck Old Hen" to a crowd that gave him a standing ovation. He didn't place, but he was amped and wanted to come back the following year.

He said that his guitar teacher, Cheryl Lunsford, who runs a guitar school in Botetourt County, is the reason he did so well. She has worked with him on picking techniques crucial to the old-timey style.

Last week in the youth competition, he played "Windy and Warm," a country/blues rag. Travis Starkey said in a phone interview Monday that he put his own bluesy style into the arrangement. He thinks that's what helped him finish in the top five. But it wouldn't have been possible without Lunsford's help, he said.

"I'd like to thank her a whole lot for teaching me," Travis said. "Without her, I don't think I could've played or won."

Another Franklin County youngster, Baruch Wright, won the youth guitar competition. Wright, who has been competing at Galax for several years, is best known as a member of The Wright Kids, a sibling act from Rocky Mount that got nationwide attention a couple of years back on the TV show "America's Got Talent."

Travis, clearly not above a little gamesmanship, said he thinks he played "a little better" than Wright, but didn't win because he hadn't been coming to the competition for enough years.

Lunsford, his teacher, had another take on his result: "Travis would have placed first, if he had not played so 'bluesy!' " she wrote in an e-mail this week. "Playing slightly behind the beat is not the way a traditional white flatpicked fiddle tune is played -- it is a dance tune, but Travis is such a good player that he pulled it off. The judges could not ignore his talent."

More to come

It won't be the last time the young gospel band guitarist gets in on some old-timey competition, Lunsford said. The young man plays "every genre from bluegrass to jazz on electric and acoustic" with impeccable timing, she said, and he has the potential to become a national flatpicking champion.

Regardless of his finish, Travis impressed at least one acoustic music icon. Wayne Henderson of Rugby, a luthier and champion picker who has been winning and placing for decades at Galax and elsewhere, sat in the stands during the youth guitar contest, Lunsford said.

"Wayne came right up to Travis right after he played, shook his hand and said to Travis, 'I've heard that "Windy & Warm" song many times, and that was some of the finest pickin' I've heard done,' " Lunsford wrote.

Henderson is liable to hear more of the same next year, even if it's not quite as bluesy.