Songs Inside the Box

Speaking of cigar box guitar movies, Songs Inside the Box opens this Saturday at the Cigar Box Guitar Extravanga in Huntsville, AL. Click here to check it out.

Oh, BTW, I'm in this one.

The Artichoke in Wichita

There's something special about getting up on a four foot high stage in front of a thousand people and just putting on a great show - it just gives me a real rush.

Well, The Artichoke, where I played Friday night, is not that place - the performer stands on the floor under the Guinness sign and there were maybe twenty people in the room... but that didn't matter. I still got that same rush. It's really great when an audience gets into the music like that. A great audience makes the show and that's what I got when I played there Friday night.

As usual, there was a cigar box guitar give away during the show. A lovely young lady, Katherine, won the guitar. And although she seemed kind of shy, she joined me on stage and played a little improvised tune on her new instrument.

It often seems that fate picks just the right person to win the giveaway guitar, and this night was no exception.

The night was also the debut performance of the "We Will Not Be Silent" cigar box guitar. Actually, it may have been the first time that guitar was ever plugged into a sound system. The guitar performed great - I think it may be a new regular gigging guitar. Cigar box guitar luthier Wichita Sam was in the audience and commented after the show that the new guitar sounded like a 335 - I agree and I couldn't ask for a better sound.

So it was a great night at the Artichoke and I hope to be back again sometime.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE MOVIE, HONEYDRIPPER?

If you've seen the movie, you've no doubt noticed the guitar played by Sonny (Guy Clark). It's a hackwired looking instrument that could have been made by Bo Diddley in the early '50s. Its angled body looks like it was made from scrapwood and the pickups look handmade from wood and wire. Even the volume and tone knobs look hand carved.

The actual movie prop guitar wasn't made by Fender or Gibson...or even a Hollywood prop guy. The director instead hired a disabled builder from New Jersey, Ted Crocker. Crocker was only previously known for primitive cigar box guitars that he posted pics on the internet.

Crocker actually built two Honeydripper guitars for the movie, hand winding each electrical pickup, hand sculpting each volume and tone knob and assembling each instrument to look and feel like the quintessential "birth of rock and roll" axe. And yeah, Sonny's performances in the movie were filmed live...the wails and screams came from Ted Crocker's creations.

Since the movie's release, Ted has gotten a couple minor interviews from feature writers, but he is still just getting by in his little woodshop in New Jersey. The producers of The Honeydripper have given him permission to build and sell "The Honeydripper Guitar" (as long as
he gives a kickback to them). I just want everyone to check out his 'for sale' listing for the Honeydripper Guitar. Maybe a couple blues and early rock fans will snag up one of the most original creatings I've seen in a long time.

Here's the link: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11353348

Hard Lessons about Soft Glue

A few days ago, I wrote about the "We Will Not Be Silent" take down CBG.

Since then, I've had some problems with it. First, the carry through structure just pulled apart under the tuners... Yikes. Apparently, the heat and humidity here was just too much for the traditional hide glue I used to put it together. That particular joint had a fair amount of stress on it from the string tension.

So I took it all apart and re-glued that joint with Elmer's white glue. White glue makes a harder, more permanent join - that's exactly why hide glue is preferred - so you can take it apart for repairs later. But a permanent join is OK here - there's really no reason it should ever need to be taken apart.

Put is all back together and it's been playing nicely, but...

Now the fingerboard is separating. Yikes. The fingerboard actually supports the string tension just above the zero fret on this one... and the strings have been sliding the fingerboard toward the box.

Looks like theres another disassembly/reassembly in my near future, lol.

Another great one gone

Damn! Bo Diddley - another man who played rectangular guitars is dead.

Cool Drum Set

Went to see Trilogy last night at the Pittsboro General Store. I used to share the stage fairly often with Richard Edwards and Sheila Warner of Trilogy back in the day... but haven't seen them in 8-10 years. I was very impressed with how their sound has matured - they've grown from excellent but vanilla singer/songwriters to sort of a jazz swing band. Great show.

I was intrigued by the drum set. Drummer Donavon (did I get the name right? Someone correct me if not) made his own set... it's a floor tom with a simple hoop with drum head/snare on the side and a couple of cymbals mounted above it. And the whole thing is on a strap so he can wear it standing while he plays. He told me during the break that he leads a lot of parades so he needed a kit he could walk with.

While he uses sticks in a parade, last night he was playing mostly with brushes. Great sound and fit in perfectly with the acoustic guitars.