Wisconsin Lumberjacks and the Cigar Box Guitar

Wisconsin Lumberjacks and the Cigar Box Guitar

Shane's note: as I collected the instruments that make up the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum, I noticed an unusual number of them were originating from Wisconsin. This seemed strange to me because all my other studies pointed to African-American traditions in the South, Daniel Carter Beard’s articles and other scattered stories and lore. I could never figure out the high concentration of Wisconsin instruments until I came across stories of Otto Rindlisbacher and the great Wisconsin lumberjacks.

The following text comes from the out-of-print publication, In Tune with Tradition: Wisconsin Folk Musical Instruments, published by the Cedarburg Cultural Center in Cedarburg Wisconsin. Published in conjunction with a traveling exhibition organized and presented by the Cedarburg Cultural Center, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, March 18 - June 2, 1990.

Throughout Wisconsin’s history, traditional music has been an important element in communities. In Wisconsin’s north woods during the logging boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fiddle tunes, button accordions and ballads of brave lumberjacks were among the only entertainments available to the men in the isolated lumber camps.

When musical instruments were scarce in the logging camps, the lumberjacks used their ingenuity to craft some very playable guitars, fiddles, dulcimers and basses. Of course, cigar boxes were used in many of these, but the designs were well advanced including guitars with full scale necks, six strings and frets.

Keeper of the Flame
Otto Rindlisbacher was the owner of the Buckhorn Tavern in Rice Lake, Wisconsin from 1920 to 1975 and spent his life amassing the songs, stories AND INSTRUMENTS of the local lumberjacks. In fact, the Buckhorn became the repository of the world’s largest collection of “Odd Lumberjack Musical Instruments”. Throughout the course of his life, Rindlisbacher performed on the radio, was recorded by the Library of Congress and in 1926 and 1927, he organized old time fiddle contests.

Rindlisbacher assisted ballad scholar Franz Rickaby in the collection of Wisconsin lumberjack songs, and this contact may have led to an invitation from the National Folk Festival to bring a lumberjack group to Chicago for its 1937 event. Rindisbacher formed “The Wisconsin Lumberjacks” and the group performed at the National several times during the late 1930’s. In 1940 and 1946, he was recorded by Helene Stratman-Thomas for the Library of Congress and some of his lumberjack tunes were issued on a Library recording.

Otto’s Instruments
In addition to his prowess as a musician, Rindilsbacher was a highly regarded folk instrument maker. He crafted both conventional fiddles and Norwegian hardanger fiddles. He also made a number of the lumberjack instruments common to northwestern Wisconsin, including cigar box fiddles and guitars, “bull fiddles” or gut-bucket basses and the “Viking Cello.”

Several of his cigar box guitars seemed to use longer cigar boxes that were common in the early 1900’s. They seem to have a trapezoidal shape as if the box was cut down and reconstructed. They also, quite impressively, contain a full six strings and frets. Likewise, the cigar box fiddles are fully realized, sporting shaped necks, four strings and are very playable. One even appears to have contours cut into the sides of the box, just like a conventional violin!

Rindlisbacher’s Viking Cello was a very unique one-string bowed instrument. Helene Stratman-Thomas described it as a “one-stringed instrument which was an adaptation of the lumberjack pitchfork cello. The pitchfork cello is made from a large box fastened on a pitchfork (or a cracker box on a broom stick). Lore has it that it was patterned after the Scandinavian psalmodikon. Otto’s particular instrument is made from a wood chest dated 1722. Otto’s wife, Ida played the Viking Cello in their performances, using a standard violin bow AND A MOVEABLE FRET. The moveable fret was originally piece sawed off of pitch fork handle with a groove in it. The instrument had a three octave range.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A SHORT VIDEO HISTORY OF OTTO RINDLISBACHER

Ray Caulkins
When Rindlisbacher was contacted to play the National Folk festival, he enlisted his wife, Ida and another lumberjack musician, Ray Calkins to perform as The Wisconsin Lumberjacks. Calkins was a third-generation lumberjack and spent much of his early life in the lumber camps of northwest Wisconsin.

Calkins began playing drums as a member of a school band in Chetek. He also played the old pump organ, chording for dances. In addition, he learned to play violin, banjo, bass fiddle, mandolin, piano and button accordion. While working in the lumber camps, he played a great deal of music and heard many fine fiddlers.

As a member of Rindlisbacher’s band, Calkins played cigar box guitar, fiddle and other instruments. Following their early appearances at the National, Otto asked Ray to take over the band. He agreed to do so, and under his direction, the Wisconsin Lumberjacks performed at the National Folk Festival into the 1960’s.

Dressed in wool pants, wool shirts and felt or stocking caps, the Wisconsin Lumberjacks continued to play various homemade instruments. While Otto Rindlisbacher originally made all of these instruments, Calkins later came to make the entire range himself. Their simple construction harks back to the homemade fiddles and guitars Calkins knew in the Wisconsin lumber camps of his boyhood.