Local guitarist is LouieFest poster child

Colleen Slater, KP News

Peter Sutton, an eighth-grader at Key Peninsula Middle School, will be part of the LouieFest ’06 attempt at a new Guinness World Record for most guitar players playing “Louie Louie” together.

"Poster Child" Peter Sutton plays with the Fabulous Wailers at Meeker Days in June. Photo by M. Sutton

“I used to watch guitar players on television, and thought it would be cool to play one,” says Sutton. He begged for a guitar, and finally had his own two years ago, at age 11. He began lessons two weeks later and still takes them from Jho Blenis.

One day he was playing “San-Ho-Zay” by Freddie King in a guitar center, trying out a guitar. Buck Ormsby, bass player with the Fabulous Wailers of Tacoma, asked Sutton where he learned that song. He said his guitar teacher taught him. Ormsby invited

Sutton to play with them, and he’s been playing guitar with them at various places for three

months. At LouieFest, he’ll play a couple of numbers with them on the main stage.

Sutton is the “poster child” for LouieFest, and will also be featured on the “Hero Stage” with great guitar players such as Nokie Edwards.

The Wailers Performing Arts Foundation, a nonprofit that presented the first two fests, provides scholarships and instruments for kids who can’t afford them, and Sutton thinks that’s a neat deal. He will continue his music, but plans on college and some other vocation.

Right now, he looks forward to playing “Louie Louie” with perhaps 1,000 other guitarists in August at the LouieFest.

LouieFest ’06

The family festival includes music, food, cars and bikes. Aug. 19, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine, Sprinker Recreation Center, Pacific Avenue S. and Military Road, Spanaway. Admission free. [/box]