6-string Daddy Mojo cigar box guitar
Making guitars from empty cigar boxes isn’t just a brand new hobby suited for ingenious smokers. During the mid-1800s, African Americans in the Deep South turned cigar boxes into instruments by attaching a piece of wood to a box and stringing it with wire, or whatever material was on hand. Such craftiness began in the 1840s, when cigars were packaged in boxes holding 100 cigars or less. Prior to that, containers didn’t trigger the same “I’m gonna string that box and play music” instinct, since cigars were packaged in big boxes or crates, each containing 250, 500, or 1000 of them.
The use of cigar box guitars proliferated in the 1930s, when cash flow wasn’t at an all-time high. If it hadn’t been for this instrument, musicians like Blind Lemon Jefferson might have resorted to talking the blues rather than singing them. In a guitarless scenario he would have said, “I wanna go home and I ain’t got sufficient clothes, doggone my bad luck soul,” ad infinitum, leaving him with zero fans. Setting a roster of complaints about hardship, work, life, love, and loss against a backdrop of cigar box guitar, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Lead Belly, Charley Patton, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Lightnin’ Hopkins transformed lamentation into affecting music.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of the cigar box guitar, paralleling the DIY movement that has made everything from pickling to quilting popular once again – at this rate, we’ll be chiseling letters into stone slabs by 2013. Because the Internet’s beneficial for more than browsing through photos of cats wearing wigs, in 2003 Shane Speal, “King of the Cigar Box Guitar,” launched the website Cigar Box Nation to provide aficionados with a means to exchange information. He says, “I wanted to start a revolution, start the next major musical movement, empower people to create their own instruments, and thus, create their own music.” Since the website began, enthusiasts have had a place to share cigar box guitar geekery online. Speal founded the Cigar Box Guitar Museum where over forty of the instruments are displayed at his family’s blues bar in New Alexandria, PA, Speal’s Tavern. Speal will be performing at this year’s Pennsylvania Cigar Box Guitar Festival on August 25 – it takes roughly 8 hours to drive there from Toronto.
Alabama’s Bill Jehle is another guitar builder and player with plenty of cigar box instruments. Once he finds a suitable venue, he’ll open his own Cigar Box Guitar Museum to exhibit his collection of over 100 vintage instruments dating back to the 1880s. He’s a music historian, author of One Man’s Trash: A History of the Cigar Box Guitar, and is the world’s first and only detritomusicologist (he coined the word himself).
North of the border, Montreal company Daddy Mojo makes beautiful cigar box guitars. Owner Lenny P. Robert is a painter and self-taught luthier (guitar maker) who began building cigar box guitars for friends six years ago. “I always had an interest in old blues, especially pre-war acoustic blues,” he says. “It was a romantic idea of the instrument that grabbed me at first.” Business took off when his guitars got press in the June 2006 issue of Playboy, landing Robert with 100 new clients. Things haven’t slowed since. Together with artist Luca Tripaldi and a couple others at the workshop, they have built and sold 1500 guitars, designing and finishing each instrument with artistic precision. Daddy Mojo guitars range from a simple 3-string model, such as one with a picture of a cigar-smoking Chihuahua, to 6- or 9-string resophonic guitars. It’s no surprise that notable musicians have caught on to their fine craftsmanship – Broken Social Scene’s Andrew Whiteman and Brendan Canning own Daddy Mojo instruments, as do The Edge and Jack White.
Another Daddy Mojo cigar box guitar player is established artist and singer/songwriter Arthur Renwick, who plays slide. He’s recently moved out of Toronto, up Highway 400 to Rama, returning to play blues-inflected tunes on Saturdays at Roncesvalles haunt The Local. Renwick has been playing the guitar for thirty years, but only picked up a cigar box guitar ten years ago after becoming intrigued by a friend’s four-string wine box guitar.
Renwick plays cigar box guitar on his album The Cigar Box Chronicles – so called since such boxes can tell stories through holding collections, artifacts, or ephemera. His songs relate experiences of growing up in a Haisla First Nation community in Kitamaat, B.C. He says: “I view the instrument, and music, as an opportunity to share stories.” Since Renwick’s songs and art both hinge on storytelling, it’s fitting that he has been able to play music in spaces that have hosted his artwork: the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris and the National Museum of Brazil.
How to Build (or Buy) and Play the Cigar Box Guitar
This one’s an instrument you can build from scratch. Got a spare cigar box lying around? If so, start sawing. If not, head to the local tobacco shop to purchase an empty box – at Cheers Smoke Shop (170 McCaul) boxes are $1 apiece. Buying a cigar box guitar kit online would assist with the guitar-building process. To avoid a sawdust mess, contact Daddy Mojo or visit Toronto’s eclectic instrument store, Musideum (401 Richmond), which carries those Montreal guitars.
Some musicians play cigar box guitar with a slide. Others strum and pick, and pick and strum. Then there are experts who do a little bit of both. Plenty of online videos offer tips and hints on playing the instrument. Here’s some advice from a cigar box guitar documentary, Songs Inside the Box: “If you build a homemade cigar box guitar, you’re going to have to try to tame this beast to play your own music.” It doesn’t seem so scary. Give it a try!
Arthur Renwick plays at The Local (396 Roncesvalles Ave) Saturdays from 5 to 7 pm. He’ll be playing at Harbourfront Centre’s WestJet Stage on August 17 at 8:00 p.m. and at the Silver Dollar on September 8.
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Shari Kasman’s writing has appeared on paper, on computer screens, and on many, many Post-it Notes. Follow her on Twitter at @smkasman.
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