Wayne Henderson & Presley Barker

Name: Wayne Henderson & Presley Barker
Start: 2025-12-06T20:00:00-05:00
Location: 60 South Main, Sparta, NC, United States, North Carolina 28675

Schedule

Sat, 06 Dec, 2025 at 08:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

60 South Main, Sparta, NC, United States, North Carolina 28675 | Sparta, NC

All Ages Show - All ages - Seats are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis - $40 Advance / $45 Door
Wayne Henderson was born in Grayson County, Virginia, where he lives today. He is a full-time instrument builder and musician, specializing in building guitars, and playing in a unique finger-picking style. Though he has lived in Virginia all of his life, Henderson has played countless performances in Western North Carolina, been a member of Western North Carolina bands, and influenced many regional musicians, through both his music and craft. He developed a unique style of using a thumbpick and fingerpicks, making his playing sound like flatpicking, with fast, accurate, and clean notes. Henderson’s father and uncle were musicians who played with Estil Ball, an admired finger-style guitar player from the area who influenced Wayne’s playing. Inspired by Ball, Wayne ordered a cheap guitar from the Sears catalogue. Disappointed with that instrument, he decided to build his own guitar, out of a used dresser drawer bottom. When he struggled to find the proper glue for his newly crafted instrument, he sought out the advice of a neighbor, Albert Hash, who built fiddles and other instruments. With Hash’s encouragement, Wayne continued working on his instrument building. He sold his second guitar in exchange for some tools and cash. “Ever since,” he says, “somebody’s wanted one as soon as I get it finished.” For years he worked as a rural mail carrier, spending his off-time performing and building guitars and other instruments. He has become so famous that he has a long backlog of orders placed for guitars. Henderson has built guitars for Doc Watson, Gillian Welch, Peter Rowan, and Eric Clapton.
Traphill, North Carolina, native Presley Barker plays country/blues music and is a singer/songwriter. Presley was particularly fond of Doc Watson, and started playing guitar at seven years old, It did not take him long to start getting the hang of the instrument and catching the attention of the local music community. Soon, Presley started taking lessons with Steve Lewis, a past winner of the prestigious Winfield National Guitar Championship. Presley also made frequent trips to Grayson County, Virginia, to meet with guitar builder and player Wayne Henderson. Presley also traveled around the region to fiddlers conventions. He started entering guitar competitions and bringing home lots of blue ribbons. In 2015, at age 10, Presley won the Old Fiddler’s Convention Adult guitar competition in Galax, Virginia and won a second time in 2017. In 2017, Presley also won the prestigious Wayne C. Henderson Guitar Championship. While Presley says that the Galax blue ribbon was one of his most prized awards, the competitions are not as important as playing music with friends.