Ever played a cigar box guitar? The customarily homemade instrument follows the design of a regular guitar. But they traditionally use a cigar box as the resonator. Of course, creative musicians who ...

BARRINGTON — C.B. Gitty Crafter Supply of Rochester is presenting two special concert performances by Shane Speal, the “King of the Cigar Box Guitar.” One is on Friday, Feb. 28, from 8 to 10 p.m. at ...

Shane Speal, whose Snake Oil Band headlines the first New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival on Saturday, started out playing something with a little more firepower. “In the ’80s, I was a bass player ...

ROCHESTER — C. B. Gitty Crafter Supply of Rochester is presenting two special concert performances by Shane Speal, the “King of the Cigar Box Guitar.” One is on Thursday night Feb. 27 at Smoke and ...

The use of cigar box guitars, a washtub bass, even washboards have earned the group the unofficial title of “World’s Loudest Jug Band.’’ Speal is known for elevating the cigar box guitar from ...

With nothing more than empty boxes, sticks and a bunch of wires, Civil War soldiers figured out how to make music. The instruments later became popular among Americans too poor to afford professional ...

York resident Shane Speal has been making and playing cigar box guitars for more than two decades. "I was searching for something that was the most primal guitar sound out there. I stumbled upon the ...

Musician Speal shares his decades of experience in building, playing, and customizing classic DIY instruments in this delightful guide. It was hearing Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House” that caused him to ...

There's a beginning to every story, and, with guitars, it has a lot to do with cigar boxes. Early would-be guitar players handcrafted their own stringed instruments using found objects and pulling ...

LOS ANGELES — The pages of newspapers, or history books for that matter, don’t runneth over with stories of happy accidents involving chain saws. But that’s just what put Philadelphia musicians Lucy ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. A quarter-century ago, when cigar-box guitar enthusiast Pat MacDonald ...