Bigfork musician wins John Mayer and Zac Brown guitar

Life has thrown its share of curveballs at Bigfork musician Scott Moore, former bassist for The Bad Larrys.

In a short amount of time Moore went from losing his signature stand-up orange bass to receiving an anonymous donation of $1,000 for “something musical,” to scoring the last two tickets for a small benefit concert to see John Mayer and Zac Brown perform in Montana, to ultimately winning an expensive autographed guitar.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Moore said. “You try to live nicely and give back and sometimes things turn around and get you back.”

Moore and Mayer’s story actually began last summer. Moore’s career as a traveling musician was coming to a close after performing about 220 shows each year while on the road for the last 18 years, and Mayer’s home was in danger of burning down in the Pine Creek Fire.

The Pine Creek fire ignited on Aug. 29, and just a few days later Moore and The Bad Larrys performed their last big show at the Minnesota State Fair on Sept. 2-3. As Moore’s signature bass was broken while in transit to Minnesota, the Pine Creek fire destroyed over 8,500 acres of forest and farmland and five homes.

Both musicians took their respective tragedies in stride, turning something negative into a positive. Moore was transitioning into his new career as the music worship pastor at CrossRoads Christian Fellowship in Bigfork where he would be playing mostly guitar and piano, so he took it as a sign to move on. Mayer decided to express his gratitude to those who fought the Pine Creek fire and saved his home by organizing a benefit concert with country musician Zac Brown.

Moore, his wife, and 20-year-old son, Jesse, are all EMTs with previous experience as volunteer firefighters at the Bigfork Fire Department. Moore and Jesse had traveled all over the northwest U.S. and Canada to see Mayer perform three times, so seeing him perform in their home state to benefit fellow fire fighters was an added bonus.

“We’re both fans of John Mayer’s blues side and guitar playing and we’ve done these road trips for the last three years,” Jesse said. “We spent a lot for that trip between the raffle tickets...but we did it for the cause, the fire fighting benefit. It was an incredible thing John did for the community.”

Tickets went on sale just before Christmas to see Mayer and Brown perform in Bozeman in January; but money was tight for the Moores and tickets were extremely limited, only 1,000 were available at prices ranging from $100 to $1,000.

Moore had just $24.93 in his account as the day approached when tickets went on sale.

“I just prayed and said ‘God, if it is your will, I would love to take Jesse but I don’t have the money to do it,’” Moore said. “So I just threw it up there, and the next day my boss comes up to me and said, ‘This is from an anonymous donor.’”

Moore had received $1,000 from someone who had heard about his broken bass and wanted him to buy “something musical.” The next day, Moore plugged his computer directly into his home connection instead of using the wireless one.

“I needed to be the fastest guy in the world to get it (the tickets,)” Moore said. “It was sold out in four minutes, the $100 seats sold out in 10 or 15 seconds…I got the last two seats.”

When Moore and Jesse arrived in Bozeman, they found out raffle tickets were being sold to win a one-of-a-kind autographed Martin HD28 John Mayer acoustic guitar with a retail value of $3,399, not counting the value of the autograph. Moore estimates the most expensive instrument he owned was worth about $400, so he bought five tickets out of the 437 that were sold, and won.

But, Moore and Jesse didn’t know it until the following day when Moore checked his voicemail.

“It was my ticket that was drawn and the first thing he (Jesse) did was say ‘Dad, you suck,’ and he hit me. It was pretty funny,” Moore said with a laugh. “It’s the best guitar I’ve ever played in my life.”

Moore said hearing the overtones inspires him to write more new music. The pick guard where Mayer and Brown autographed it was removed and replaced with a new one so Moore could play the guitar and have the autograph preserved.

“It has incredible resignation, you play one cord and it lasts forever,” Moore said. “It hasn’t gone out of tune yet. I’ve never had one that could even last for a show. This thing is just incredible.”