Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones tries out a Cigar Box Guitar

Ronnie Wood with Cigar Box GuitarCigar Box Nation recently broke the story about legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood trying his hand at a cigar box guitar. Turns out it was a Daddy Mojo built by our friend Lenny Robert. Get the full details from the feature article over at CigarBoxNation.com!

Old Homemade Ukulele at the American Pickers Nashville Store

Mike Wolfe (American Pickers) Antique Homemade UkuleleWhile down in Nashville, TN for the Summer NAMM show, Ben “C. B. Gitty” Baker took some time out to visit the American Pickers store down there. As might be expected, most of the coolest stuff was from Mike Wolfe’s personal collection “Not For Sale” – including this amazing old homemade ukulele. The tag describes it as a “Wooden Square Ukulele” and doesn’t give any more information, so we’re going to try to contact the folks at Antique Archaeology to see if they can provide any more backstory on it: how old it is, where it came from, whether anything about the maker is known.

Beatles “Come Together” on Cigar Box Guitar

Another in our series of responses to the question of “So what can you really play on one of them things”, we present the Blues Doctor Stacy Mitchhart and his band belting out a rocking rendition of the classic Beatles’ song Come Together.

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Free Cigar Box Guitar Blues Album

tempDid you know that there’s a bunch of free cigar box guitar music available over at CigarBoxNation.com? It’s true! For years, CBN members have been contributing to compilation albums that are then made available for free download.

Here’s a great one to get started with: the 2012 Cigar Box Nation Blues album, made up of 27 tracks that are a mix of originals and covers.

One of the great things about the Cigar Box Nation community is the massive amount of free music offered by our musicians. So…what’s the next great download album gonna be?

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!