Category: Cigar Box Guitar Performers

Want to know more about the bands and acts out there touring and playing cigar box guitars and other homemade instruments? Then this page is for you!

We are building the definitive list of active performers who use these awesome instruments on stage in their acts. From cigar box guitars and ukuleles to license plate dobros, frying pan and cookie tin banjos and even homemade percussion, we love it all and we want to help get the word out about these great artsts. This is a work-in-progress and we are adding more artists as we’re able, so stay tuned!

A B C G H J K M O P R S
Sa Se Sh St

Samantha Fish

 

Musical styles: Blues, Rock, Roots, Americana, Hill Blues, Originals

Handmade Musical Instrument Played: Cigar Box Guitar

Hailing from Kansas City, Samantha Fish is a blues guitarist and singer that has broken the mold of cigar box guitar performers. While she has spent years honing her craft on six string electrics in various venues across both Europe and North America, Samantha has done something that few others have; she has put her cigar box guitar and the skills to play it on stage for massive audiences.

In her small, carefully curated arsenal of blues axes, Fish has a CBG built by Stogie Box Blues she bought while in Helena, Arkansas, playing at the 2012 King Biscuit Blues Festival. That year turned out to be a big one for Samantha as she won Best New Artist at the Blues Music awards in Memphis, TN.

Samantha started playing guitar at the age of 15 and haunted a local club for the next three years watching all the touring bands that rolled through town. At the age of 18 she began to take that same stage performing with various artists.

The next few years Samantha continued to perform and record which eventually led to her award in 2012.

The next year Samantha was given the opportunity to play with Buddy Guy who was initially a bit skeptical of Samantha taking the stage. However Buddy was so impressed by her playing that he was heard to have said, “When this kind of s@#! happens, I’ll play all night!”

Continuing to play and to grow as a musician has led Samantha to expand on her blues-rock style incorporating more roots rock and the fabled hill blues. She has released her third album as of 2015 and is still tearing up venues with her skillful performances and commanding vocals.

You can find Samantha Fish on her website: http://www.samanthafish.com/

Seasick Steve (Steven Wold)

Musical Styles: Blues, Rock, Boogie, Americana, Roots, Originals

Handmade Instruments Played: Hubcap, Washboard, Cigar Box Guitars, Diddley-bow

Seasick Steve is a blues guitarist and singer who lived the long, hard life of a performing artist many years before gaining notoriety. At one point, his entire living was made busking. It took over forty years of performing before he ultimately got his break.

Steve is a native of California whose rocky childhood led him to find his own way early in life. At eight years old he was introduced to playing blues guitar. At 13, he began hopping freight trains to find work elsewhere in the States. Steve worked as a farm laborer, a cowboy, and as a carnival worker, often living as a hobo.

In Steve’s words, “Hobos are people who move around looking for work, tramps are people who move around but don’t look for work, and bums are people who don’t move and don’t work. I’ve been all three.”

Steve began touring and performing with fellow blues musicians in the 1960’s and over time found work as a session musician and recording engineer. In the ‘90’s he continued working as an engineer and producer leaving his fingerprints all over several indie-label artists.

It wasn’t until 2001 when, after having moved to Norway, that Steve released his first album, and 2006 until he released his first solo album. Shortly after that solo release Steve broke out on the British stage. He quickly became a favorite son of the United Kingdom, winning awards and playing more festivals than any other artist at the time.

Steve has since toured the world, playing countless venues. He’s been featured on numerous television programs and continues to perform and release new, original music.

Seasick Steve’s website: http://seasicksteve.com/

Shane Speal

Musical styles: Blues, Rock, Punk, Americana, Roots, Originals
Handmade instruments played: Cigar box guitar, Chugger, Mailbox Dobro

There would very likely be no modern cigar box guitar revival without the work of Shane Speal. In 1993 Shane saw an article on Carl Perkins in an old issue of a guitar magazine. He was excited by the primal nature of Perkin’s instrument, made from a cigar box and a broom stick. Shane set out to build an instrument using a cigar box of his own with a wooden plank from the family barn. This was the beating wings of a butterfly that would lead to a tsunami.

For the next six years Shane built and sold his cigar box guitars locally while performing his own brand of raucous blues-rock on his handmade instruments. In 1998 he started the first known internet site for cigar box guitars. In 2003 Shane started an online community for cigar box guitar builders that ballooned to 3000 members by 2008. Later that same year he started what is now the largest community of cigar box guitar builder and players, CigarBoxNation.com.

To add to his already impressive list of credits, the King of the Cigar Box Guitar, as Shane is widely known, has also:

  • Founded a cigar box guitar museum in his home state of Pennsylvania
  • Has been featured in a documentary about the CBG revolution called Songs Inside the Box
  • Helped to establish C.B. Gitty Records; a label that features artists who build and play handmade instruments
  • Has been featured in many cigar box guitar festivals across the United States
  • Created the documentary, Chasing Steam, about musical history in York, PA
  • Has played on stage with Mike Watt of Minutemen and Firehose, Horace Panter of The Specials, and Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America
  • Is a regular contributor to Guitar World magazine, with articles focused on DIY instruments and the people who build and play them

Shane continues to encourage and inspire cigar box guitar builders the world over with his unending appetite for people to build, and most importantly play, their cigar box guitars.

You can find Shane at: http://www.shanespeal.com.

Stacy Mitchhart

Musical styles: Blues, Jazz, Latin, Rock, R&B

Handmade instrument played: cigar box guitar

Consummate showman and captivating performer Stacy Mitchhart has been rocking Nashville for over twenty years. He’s played from coast to coast with several bands and been leading them since a young age.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Stacy was raised on a diet of soul and jazz. As a child while looking through the paper for movie listings one rainy day, he ran across an ad to learn how to play guitar. Without ado he was soon going to lessons and taking well to the instrument; so well, that by the age of nine he taught his father how to play guitar.

Over the years as a young adult Stacy worked his way up through the Cincinnati blues scene, leading bands and creating a name for himself. By ‘93 he had started his own music label and released his first CD. His career thus far includes 14 CD’s.

In ‘96 he took his talent to Nashville and hasn’t looked back since. Stacy has won the Albert King Award and been inducted into the Canadian Blues Hall of Fame. While in Nashville he has led the house band/headliner at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar for more than 18 years.

Through his work solidifying himself as a must-see blues showman, Stacy has included the use of cigar box guitar in his performances. “The secret is to find the voice of each particular instrument and translate it through your playing,” said Stacy in an interview with Blues.gr.

Even though he has long been sponsored by a major guitar manufacturer, Stacy still understands and appreciates the value and beauty of cigar box guitars. “Homemade instruments are tied directly to the Blues by the nature of their existence. If you don’t have the means to purchase an instrument, you try to make a version of it to play.”


Stacy Mitchhart’s website: http://stacymitchhart.com