So many great musicians started out on cigar box guitar when they couldn’t afford a real guitar. Sometimes all they needed was a stick, a box and a few strings to get those magical sounds.
In the hierarchy of blues, Francis Hillman “Scrapper” Blackwell is one of the true originators. Among his many hits in the 1920’s and 1930’s, he wrote and recorded Kokomo Blues, the song that was transformed into “Old Kokomo Blues” by Kokomo Arnold before being redone as “Sweet Home Chicago” by Robert Johnson.
Scrapper Blackwell also started out on a homemade cigar box guitar. In a 1960 interview with Jazz Monthly magazine, Blackwell retraces his origins and describes his first guitar: Continue reading “Blues Legend, Scrapper Blackwell Recalls His Cigar Box Guitar”