Chris Cornell and Eric Roberts with a Cigar Box Guitar

Eric Roberts & Chris CornellAnother celebrity CBG sighting! Word on the street is that this cigar box guitar (builder currently unknown) was played by Eric Roberts in an in-production Chris Cornell music video. If you know who built it, let us know!

Check out more pics of celebrities with cigar box guitars here.

 

Jimmy Buffett with a Gas Can Ukulele

Front cover of the Jimmy Buffett ukulele songbook.
Front cover of the Jimmy Buffett ukulele songbook.

When we think homemade instruments, Jimmy Buffett’s name doesn’t usually spring to mind. But apparently he has at least held a homemade instrument during a photo shoot. The photo to the left shows the front cover of the Uke’an Play Jimmy Buffett songbook, released in 2010.

That appears to be a primitive gas can uke that he is holding there in the picture, and while we’d love to know more about it (and how it came into Jimmy’s hands), so far we haven’t been able to find any more information. Was it just a prop handed to him in a “this would look cool for the photo” moment, or does Jimmy have some familiarity, and appreciation for, primitive handmade instruments? Was that primitive uke just something that was hanging on the wall in the place they were doing the photo shoot?

Our decidedly un-exhaustive research on Google didn’t turn up any other images or references to the king parrothead with homemade instruments, but who knows. If you know any more of the story behind this, please let us know!

Free Cigar Box Ukulele Kit Assembly Guide

36-009-01 Guide Pages
Click the image above to view the knowledgebase entry & download link.

We just added the full “how-to” guide for C. B. Gitty’s new Cigar Box Ukulele Kit to the knowledgebase here on CigarBoxGuitar.com. While written specifically to show you how to assemble their complete CB Uke kit, this guide is also a good reference for anyone looking to build a cigar box ukulele from scratch.

If you have ever wondered about what it takes to build a cigar box ukulele, check out this guide. And if you want to try your hand at it, don’t forget that C. B. Gitty sells both the complete kit and also a nice range of individual ukulele parts.

Happy Uke’in!

New Cigar Box Guitar Video Lessons from Shane Speal

Shane Speal Cigar Box Guitar Video LessonsWe just added a new entry to the free cigar box guitar knowledgebase here on CigarBoxGuitar.com – a series of 5 video lesson in which “King of the Cigar Box Guitar” Shane Speal shows you some of the most famous blues riffs, licks and turnarounds. With these quick, easy-to-follow lessons, you’ll be sounding like one of the blues masters in no time.

From the classic blues “walkdown” lick to some more advanced runs, Shane presents this foundational how-to material in a clear, approachable way.

So grab your cigar box guitars, tune them to Open G “GDG”, and get ready to start belting out some blues!

Shane Speal – Seduced Into Crafting: My Life as a Sound Searcher

Shane Speal was recently invited by the business community of York PA to deliver a PechaKucha* speech on the art of crafting.  He used the opportunity to express how the cigar box guitar changed his life.

 

Source:  York:Crafted, a series of events featuring brief lectures on what it means to be a craftsman in York, PA.

*PechaKucha speech format allots for 20 slides/20 seconds per slide.

York:Crafted official Facebook

 

CAROUSEL uke kit

Video Documentary on Argentinean Cigar Box Guitar Builder

This short documentary was put together by a group of student filmmakers. From the Vimeo post of the video:

“A glance into the life of Luis Schmied, an Argentinean banker whose true passion has always been music and happens to be a very talented maker of handcrafted cigar box guitars. He shares what sparked his curiosity for this peculiar hobby, his technique to make each instrument unique, and the emotion he gets by peoples’ response to his craft.”

Inside The Box – Short Documentary from Vinnie Zullo on Vimeo.

It’s Microwave Dave Day!

Microwave Dave Onstage - Trace“Microwave” Dave Gallagher is one of the giants of the Cigar Box Guitar performance world, and a legendary figure in and around Huntsville, Alabama. He has been a big part of Huntsville’s cigar box guitar festival over the years and this year has been honored by the city with his own day – June 28 is officially Microwave Dave Day!

In honor of this special day, AL.com has published a nice article that tells the story of Microwave Dave, the man and the musician.

Click here or on the image to the right to check out the article.

Jimi Hendrix playing a homemade Diddley Bow?

Jimi Hendrix Diddley Bow

An auction description for this poster stated “The Experience messing around, and Jimi playing a broom.” Who wouldn’t love to hear what that simple diddley bow could do in the hands of a master like Hendrix?

Another site states that this was a part of a 20-photo shoot done at the Seven And A Half Club in London. The club was in the process of being renovated, and the musicians grabbed some of the tools for the photo (hence the saw and hammer).

 

Meet Shane Speal, King of the Cigar Box Guitar

11428153_373708422839127_374176738_oWe just added a new entry to the library, an article telling the story of the man who is largely responsible for the existence of the modern cigar box guitar movement.

Shane Speal started building cigar box guitars in 1993, and from that time has been tirelessly promoting the instrument, performing onstage with them, and creating online communities to help people discover the instrument and start building their own. He took the title “King of the Cigar Box Guitar” back when such a title seemed full of irony – who would want to be the king of such a crazy, primitive, mostly forgotten instrument?

This article by Glenn Watt re-introduces Shane Speal to those who may never have heard of him. For 22 years he has been building, playing, and preaching cigar box guitars.

Click the image or link above to view the full article.