Songs Inside The Box to air June 20th on Alabama Public TV
Shane Speal, King of the Cigar Box Guitar
Sunday, June 20th at 2:00 p.m. on Alabama Public Television
There’s a revolution going on that you may not even know about… It’s the Cigar Box Guitar Revolution and the movement wants everyone to get involved. It’s all about having fun, so you might get caught up in it through this one-hour documentary. You’ll meet the King of the Cigar Box Guitar and some of his troops from the front lines of the revolution. They’ve made musical instruments from things most people throw away and they’ve written songs inspired by the twanging sounds their treasured boxes produce. Along the way, they’ve tapped into secrets hidden deep inside their souls.
Cigar box instruments have long provided an inexpensive form of entertainment. Blues singers and pioneers of rock and roll told tales of making and playing cigar box guitars in their youth. Even Jimi Hendrix started out with a cigar box guitar!
Daniel Carter Beard, a founder of the Boy Scouts of America, published plans for a cigar box instrument in 1870. Beard urged boys to tap into their secret inner savage and cited Daniel Boone as an example to be modeled. Children and adults alike have been building and playing cigar box instruments for centuries and have found a little self-sufficient pioneer spirit buried inside themselves in the process. They did so primarily in isolation, sharing their songs only with close friends and family, until recently.
That’s where the revolution comes in. The Internet has connected hobbyists, amateur songsters, and professional musicians who share an interest in cigar box guitars. They’ve banded together as a force to be reckoned with and for one day each year Huntsville, Alabama becomes the epicenter of the cigar box guitar revolution at the annual Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza. Scientists, surgeons, and salesmen all assume new personalities as they take the stage and express themselves through the songs they’ve found inside a little wooden box.
The 6th annual Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza will take place on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 in Huntsville, Alabama.
For more information:
The Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza
