cbg review · 2019-06-11 · and gary moore in the seventies. so a side-effect of my foray into...

CBG Review — cbgreview.com October 2017

bo diddley

CBG ReviewOctober 2017

British Americana

from corner to cornerstone a p.3

dusk brothers, uk a p.4

women and cbgscathy mullaert, USA a p.11

Low-end instrumentsMikołaj Sikorski, poland a p.30

Neckbone stewbig daddy wilson, germany a p.20

made and playedrob’s guitars, USA a p.24

the latin touchRobert L Whiter, italy a p.16

Bo Diddley

authors a p.34


EditorialGaining Momentum…

Welcome to the second issue of CBG Review. How many times have you heard that no two cigar box guitars are alike or have the exact same sound? In this issue, CBG Review reinforces this notion by presenting our next group of world musicians and builders touting their uniquely crafted original instruments. As always, it is not only the CBGs that are extraordinary, but also their owners and builders!

This edition of CBG Review starts with an article you can’t put down from Graeme Moncrieff of the Dusk Brothers – formerly members of rock band “Halo” and now a sensational CBG duo in the UK. Read how the Dusk Brothers came into being and why audiences have never seen anything like them before. The next article by Cathy Mullaert in the USA discusses a topic that is bound to come up increasingly in the CBG world, namely “women and CBGs.” One question Cathy asks is how long until we see more women in the limelight. Her motto is “build your sound and play the town!”

Don’t miss reading about two other top-class performers and world travelers – Robert L Whiter in Italy (one-time street musician in the blues “school of life”) and Big Daddy Wilson (and the twist of fate that brought him to Germany from the USA and made him the musician he is today). See how cigar box guitars feature in and have shaped the lives of these two international artists.

Then take a look at two truly remarkable builders – Rob Wrobel in the USA and Miku Sikorski in Poland – as they approach their craft from two different directions – both geographically and conceptually! What do they have in common? Rob and Miku are passionate and talented builders of beautiful instruments and true believers in the CBG movement. Little wonder that people around the world want to buy and play their guitars.

As always, when you read what the authors have to say, you realize the bottom line is that CBGs continue to capture the imagination of top artists and builders all over the globe. The wealth of talent, ideas and diversity that we are experiencing today in the CBG world is rapidly gaining momentum, which is what makes the movement even more fascinating.

We hope you enjoy reading this edition of CBG Review as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

Best regardsHuey Ross

Copyright CBG Review 2017. All rights reserved. Email: cbgreview.com/contactwww.facebook.com/cbgmagazine


Bo DiddleyFrom corner to cornerstone...Huey Ross

When I was a teenager in the second half of the 1960s, I can’t say I was much into the blues. I had a stack of LPs ranging from pop “oldies“ like the Everly Brothers and Elvis to more “contemporary” artists for me like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals, Eagles, Beach Boys, ELO and a ton of other great bands and musicians. I only looked up Buddy Holly after Don McLean released “American Pie” and got into blues through Eric Clapton and Gary Moore in the seventies.

So a side-effect of my foray into cigar box guitars ten years ago is that I felt compelled to learn more about the origins of the music that I had taken for granted as a kid. Once you get into CBGs, you’re automatically drawn into the life and times of the early blues artists and the transition from blues to rock. You learn about how the earliest blues musicians influenced the bands you grew up with as well as contemporary music.

“What I didn’t know was that behind many of the songs in my stack of LPs was the ‘Bo Diddley beat!’”

One of them was Bo Diddley (Ellas McDaniel) who originally attracted my attention because of his big red square Gretch guitar, which I thought was a kind of CBG. Turns out I was wrong, and that he designed himself a nice comfortable lightweight signature square guitar to wield during his performances. What I didn’t know was that behind many of the songs in my stack of LPs was the “Bo Diddley beat!”

At 15, Diddley was performing and passing round the hat on street corners with his friends playing a “washtub” guitar. A few years later, he went to a recording studio where the owners turned him down saying his songs sounded like “jungle music.” The next studio (Chess) recognized and promoted Bo Diddley for what he was – exciting and unique. Little did they know at that time that his “beat” would become a cornerstone of rock and roll. And I would also never have known if it wasn’t for CBGs! ■

Ellas McDaniel (1928 – 2008), known as Bo Diddley, influenced artists like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Who and Jimi Hendrix. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.


Dusk Brothers

Bristol, UK


British AmericanaGraeme Moncrieff, Dusk Brothers, UK

For Iain and myself, the sound of slide guitar is as cool as it gets. The trouble was that when we first attempted to play slide, we were young, just beginning to learn to play guitar on a cheap electric in standard tuning, and we had no idea how to even get started. YouTube lessons weren’t around in those days, so my steel slide ended up stashed away in a shoe box full of other odds and ends.

Twenty years later, when we eventually discovered the cigar box guitar movement, we saw all these people building and playing these simple guitars and making amazingly cool sounds with them. We had some tools out in our workshop that we’d been using to make the wooden clocks we’d been selling and we thought, why the hell not have a go at building our own guitars?

Neither time nor money were on our side. Our guitars were thrown hastily together, mostly out of bits and pieces we had lying around. There wasn’t much planning involved, particularly with mine, but as with many cigar box guitars, they just needed to be functional. Cigar boxes are expensive to buy in the UK even without cigars in them, so Iain built a solid body three-string from a piece of 2x4 from our workshop and I made a hinged box from leftover bits of plywood and bits of sapele hardwood we had lying around. Iain used a magnetic pickup in his and I built my four-string with a piezo inside the box. When we first plugged in and compared the sound from our two new guitars, the tone from Iain’s was much smoother and more musical to our ears.

Page 5 CBG Review — cbgreview.com October 2017


Piezos can sound “scratchy” – technically they need a preamp and the impedance is not matched with guitar amps – so I switched the piezo for a humbucker I’d previously swapped out of my old Strat, and suddenly my new guitar was sounding awesome! The steel slide I’d bought nearly 20 years ago was now finally in use, and our musical world was about to be turned on its head.

That was our first step towards our signature low-down-and-dirty swamp-blues Dusk Brothers sound. Until that point we’d been playing mainly in rock bands. Nearly 20 years ago we made up half of a “melodic fire-sign rock” band called Halo, with whom we landed a record deal with S2 (part of Sony Records). There was nothing bluesy about it at all, and it was a far cry from the sounds we love to make now. But we had the time of our lives, recording our album in Brussels, playing hundreds of shows touring the UK. We played to audiences of basically no one, and to audiences of thousands.

“Our musical world was about to be turned on its head”

There were lots of magazine, radio and TV interviews, we saw our music videos on MTV2, we heard our single get played as record of the week on Radio 1 (that was before our names got banned from any mention on the Radio 1 website due to a terrible marketing faux pax from S2’s marketing department). We had an amazing time and we drank an obscene amount and partied until we dropped at any and every opportunity. We had a couple of singles that just fell short of the UK top 40. Our album “Lunatic Ride” fared the same.

And then suddenly the music industry changed massively. Sony dropped a large percentage of their acts, including us, as they could no longer afford to finance them. And


then, right after a very drunken attendance to a TV awards ceremony for a show called Pop Factory (we’d been nominated for best live performance, which was ironic considering we weren’t allowed to actually play our instruments on the show and only the vocals were recorded live), Halo ceased.

Fast forward again, fifteen years and a couple more (under the radar) rock bands later, and now we’ve matured somewhat. We’re listening to blues music more than ever before, and we’ve just finished building these amazing sounding (if somewhat haphazard) instruments from scratch. I dug out my old slide from its shoe box prison in the loft, and the riffs instantly started flowing. These were instruments that we didn’t know how to play, so there were no rules and no expectations. Just exploring. The riffs sounded nice and bluesy, with the slide featuring heavily. I was making riffs with the slide and fretting notes in open G tuning, repeating them over and

over on this homemade four string guitar and the songs started to pour out. I couldn’t really play the instrument very well, but it didn’t matter, the process of writing had been simplified, the sound coming from the guitar was the coolest thing I’d ever had the joy of playing, and I was having more fun with music than I’d had in a long time.

“The raw bluesy sound we were beginning to make was seriously addictive”

In May 2015, Iain and I got together during a family holiday to have a little CBG jam and we started working on a couple of songs I’d written. Our guitars were both plugged in through a small mixer and into a single little Park guitar amp. It sounded awful. That is NOT the way to get a nice guitar noise. But the songs were there, I was


playing my repetitive riffs and Iain was playing these amazingly cool slide guitar parts and adding vocal harmonies over the top. The raw bluesy sound we were beginning to make was seriously addictive.

We had this idea that the two of us would start a “blues duo” and play gigs in pubs and restaurants, places that had their own PA, so all we’d need to carry around were these little lightweight guitars and we’d just plug in and play some slide guitar tunes for a bit of cash. It sounded like a great idea at the time. How things have changed...

“Our bluesy Dusk Brothers sound was now taking shape”

After the holiday we started rehearsing in our workshop. The riffs I was playing were rhythmical, screaming out for a solid beat behind them. So I built a license plate stomp box with a guitar pickup inside to get a beat going. It added a whole new dimension to the groove. I had also started learning to play harmonica, putting it in a rack around my neck so I could play guitar at the same time. I hated playing it like that, it felt claustrophobic, but it sounded cool so I stuck with it.

We worked out more songs, continued to become more skilled at playing our instruments, introduced the harmonica to the mix, and I realized my left foot wasn’t contributing anything and that was a terrible waste of potential. So I built a little “click” stomp box to contrast with the bass drum sound I was getting from my other stomp box. I ran that through a guitar reverb pedal. Our bluesy Dusk Brothers sound was now taking shape and the click stomp box was helping us sound very different from anything we’d heard before.

Iain added a foot tambourine to the mix, the sound filled out even more, and


we played our first gig. It was a Sunday afternoon in a Bristol pub and there weren’t many people there, but those who saw our set were very complimentary about it, even though we were pretty rough back then. They hadn’t seen guitars like ours before and they were impressed by the number of instruments we were playing.

“By that time we had become addicted to building instruments”

By that time we had become addicted to building instruments. Iain had started to build effects pedals too, and we began carefully, gradually, to hone the Dusk Brothers sound into something as unique and coherent as we could, building new guitars, better ‘bass drum’ and ‘click’ stomp boxes, adding foot cymbals and more drums. I built the Firebox guitar with a beaten up 1960s metal fire extinguisher box I found in an antique/salvage shop and it took our sound to a whole new level.

The guitar has an additional single-pole pickup under the lowest string, which is on a separate circuit and is plugged through a sub-octave pedal, making that low string also sound like a bass guitar. Amazingly, almost all the riffs I’d written were perfect already for playing both bass and guitar simultaneously on this new guitar so the effect was instantaneous, we had bass guitar and suddenly we were sounding huge!

Dusk Brothers has also played havoc with my vocal style. I’ve had to push my voice and dig in to do these songs any justice, particularly songs like “This Is Hell.” I wasn’t sure how long I could keep going like that without destroying my voice. But it’s not like I really felt I had a choice. When something works, it works, and it’s impossible to go back. As with most things, if you work at it enough, you get there in the end.


“People can’t believe the size of the sound coming from just two musicians”

We won’t stop. We’ll keep on building, adding cool new instruments like Iain’s recent old Shell oil can foot drum, and shaping our sound and changing it up for individual songs. Iain has just built an amazing valve amp from scratch. We have the ideas, we just need to find the time. But we are at the stage now where we are absolutely loving playing. When we play, it feels like we rule the world. We play our hearts out every single time we perform, whether in a rehearsal or in front of an audience, and that definitely comes across. People still love to talk about the instruments at gigs, and these days we are often told by enthusiastic audience members that they have never seen anything like Dusk Brothers before.

We even had two police officers banging on our workshop door during a rehearsal one evening. We rehearse pretty loud, so we figured there must have been a complaint from someone living nearby. It turned out they were there on an unrelated matter and had been listening outside for some time, loving the music. They were amazed when the door opened. People can’t believe the size of the sound coming from just two musicians.

We’ve created a sound that is truly unique. There is nothing else quite like Dusk Brothers. And that has to be a good thing! We’ve recently been in the studio and started our first studio recordings, and very soon we’ll be giving away some free tracks to everyone who signs up to our mailing list at duskbrothers.com. ■



CBG build by Linda MorrisonArtist Ryan Wilks

Women and cigar box guitars


Women and CBGsCathy Mullaert, USA

I love their simplicity and the history behind them. There are various styles of playing them and more than ever many talented people are using their skills to create and play beautiful builds. Like me, they are inspired and passionate about CBGs. I taught myself to play and develop a rhythmic style, graduating from a one-string antique diddley bo broom to a two, three, four and six-string CBG.

I have been playing cigar box guitars and creating music with them since 2013. They are magical and fascinating instruments and I think it is wonderful that there is an ever-increasing wealth of information and programs out there for our children to learn about how to build and play them.

The gist of playing cigar box guitars is maintaining the rhythm. I enjoy playing delta blues and various other styles, inspired by players like Shane Speal and Justin Johnson, and I am continually amazed at the musical creativity you can get out of these instruments. While I play multiple instruments, I still tend to gravitate back to the CBG.


“Handmade in Nicaragua”

by Pam Martin

RockNRoll by Linda Morrison

“Bolivar” by Pam Martin

Andrea SchneiderRecently I learned how to build a CBG

step by step with a builder friend of mine, Andrea Schneider, and I called my design “The Frontier.” I used wood from an 1800s log cabin I once owned, with a thin burnt-metal front sheet and a C.B.Gitty humbucker. The sound is awesome. My collection also includes a driftwood guitar from Highwood Guitars made by Jason Mills, two Shane Speal builds, a Robert J Whiter six-string guitar all the way from Italy, an “Acid” CBG made by Andrea Schneider, a Silverware Box CBG by Mark Fialla, a stomp board by Randy Morrison, a Harley Oil CBG by Bill Beckner, and a Padron CBG by Jim Kassimas.

Some amazingly creative women CBG builders and players I have come to know in the community include singer/songwriter Andrea Schneider from Pennsylvania, Pam Martin and Linda Morrison from Missouri, Kelli Taylor from New Hampshire and Dar Stellabotta from Southern Maryland. Pam Martin is a CBG builder from Union, Missouri. She says she started out building a guitar from a box and a stick with stretchy string as a joke! Since then, she has created some remarkable builds.

“CBGs are like potato chips – you can’t make or have just one!”

Linda Morrison is a CBG builder and accomplished player from Kansas City, Missouri. She has been building CBGs since 2012. She built a six-string guitar for known singer Janis Ian. Linda purchased her first cigar box guitar from Keith Allen, one of the finest builders in the CBG realm, and proceeded to take it apart and rebuild it to learn the secrets of a fine quality build. She says CBGs are like potato chips – you can’t make or have just one!


Kelli Taylor is a CBG builder from Nashua, New Hampshire. Kelli discovered CBGs on YouTube and watched videos on how to build and play them. Mother Mojo Music is the name of her Facebook page where she offers handmade roots musical instruments and cigar box amps for sale. “Build On” as Kelli says! Dar Stellabotta is a musician who builds CBGs and uses them for her performances. She released her first CBG album “One Woman Jam” this September, playing slide guitar and a kick drum.

“What surprised me is that, except for Andrea and myself, I did not see any other women playing CBGs there”

I particularly enjoy playing “open mic” sessions at Speal’s Tavern, a live blues bar in New Alexandria, PA. Performing is just plain fun. I attended my first cigar box festival this year at the York Cigar Box Guitar Festival 2017 and loved it! What surprised me is that, except for Andrea and myself, I did not see any other women playing CBGs there. We were interviewed prior to our performance by Shane Speal for the C.B.Gitty gang show and it was a lot of fun being part of the festivities. We also met promoter Jim Lewin, owner of the fantastic York Emporium bookstore. I am hoping to attend the festival again next year and to see more women involved in CBGs then.

“Shake ‘Em On Down”

Besides being a showcase for my own videos, YouTube has been an eye-opener for me. If I type in “women and cigar box guitars,” the first hit I get is Samantha Fish playing “Shake ‘Em On Down” in 2014 to a tune of 2.4 million views. Samantha is a most amazing musician and has introduced CBGs to millions of blues/rock fans. You see her playing a CBG or an oil can guitar as part of her act,

Kelli Taylor, Mother Mojo Music

Dar Stellabotta

“Open mic” at Speal’s Tavern


and the fans love it! There’s also a must-watch interview published in May this year by George Parfitt of Dockyard Guitars, where she talks about how people react to CBGs and how she plays them. Interestingly, she says she could see them being used in some modern mainstream music and, when that happens, maybe kids will get more into CBGs.*

Another ambassador for women CBG players is blues/folk singer/songwriter Belinda Gent (aka bemuzic) in the UK, with thousands of views on YouTube. According to bandcamp, bemuzic bought two CBGs from eBay in Nov 2009 and has since then been building her own. Many of her videos show her busking around England and playing festivals. She has released several albums, with her latest one “Simplify” out last August.

“Cigar box guitar playing comes from the heart and soul”

For young and budding CBG players, Alyson Shelton aka NightOwl Blues is a special tip, with a string of video tutorials and songs she brought out on YouTube between 2011 and 2013, many of which she wrote herself. “Hangman’s Coming,” for example, has had over 23,000 views since 2012. And going back a little further, check out Michelle Gagnon’s cool Cigar Box Guitar Jam, where she plays a CBG, cajon, wooden spoons and a tambourine. This 9-minute video has been watched 230,000 times since Michelle posted it at end-2011.

So it’s not like there aren’t any women out there building CBGs and/or performing with them. Cigar box guitar playing comes from the heart and soul, and this migrates into our performances. There are no rules in making CBGs! My motto is “build your sound and play the town!” From its humble beginnings, theres nothing like a cigar box guitar! ■

* For an excerpt of George Parfitt’s interview with Samantha Fish visit the CBGR website “Read me” section at: cbgreview.com/read-me


RobeRt L. WhiteRRome, itaLy


The Latin touchRobert L. Whiter, Italy

There are many artists that have influenced me and have become real sources of inspiration over the years, starting back in the delta blues days and moving on to the long list of Chicago blues guys. I hear their stuff in all kinds of music – jazz, Latin, funk, hip-hop – you name it. My own style is a mix of rock, blues, country and jazz and it’s my passion. To back it up, I play a number of instruments including guitar, harmonica, piano and lap steel guitar. Some time ago I started building some of my own instruments and added cigar box guitar and stomp box to my repertoire with the idea of crafting my own music to give a unique sound to my blues rock using old instruments fused with a little Latin blood.

“I find them a little reminiscent of the oldest blues mixed with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern music”

I build cigar box style guitars in different shapes and sizes and depending on what kind of sound I’m looking for. I also sell them because they’re great for other guitarists – young and old, beginners or experienced. I find them a little reminiscent of the oldest blues mixed with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern music. My guitars are also ecological as I build them using almost only recycled materials.


Not many people know that in my younger days I lived for seven months in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I wrote and recorded an acoustic album alongside the great Argentinian harmonica player, Luis Robinson. Another experience that really made a difference to my playing was my trip to the USA three years ago when I traveled from Vermont to New York and down to Tennessee. I took a cigar box guitar with me made with two piezos. In New York City, I used to go out in the streets and parks and busk and play with local street musicians. In Nashville, I played in a pub (I can’t remember the name) and also often with street artists.

“A school of life and the maximum expression of artistic freedom”

With all the musicians that inspired me over the years, you can imagine how all the sights and sounds in these places had their effect on my music. I got a lot of encouragement everywhere I went with all kinds of people complementing me and my songs. Traveling as a street musician was like a school of life and the maximum expression of artistic freedom for me – not forgetting that some of my favorite old-time musicians got their start performing on street corners and at local markets.

Naturally I have also done a lot of touring closer to home in countries like Belgium and Spain. In Italy, I have performed on live radio and TV programs and participated with other artists as a session singer and slide guitarist and enjoy doing pubs and festivals. I have also written and recorded three albums of my own: “Whiter,” “I Will Be Sitting Here” and “Blue’s Glory.” All of the Whiter tracks were played on a cigar box guitar and featured one of my favorite singers Delia.


“I Will Be Sitting Here” has many facets to it – covering the whole spectrum of country rock, blues rock, funky blues, soul and jazz – making use of cigar box guitar, sax, violin, harp, double bass, and so on. Blue’s Glory is a classic blues album and was a real pleasure to produce. I sing vocals and play electric, lap steel and cigar box guitars and harmonica, supported by great musicians – Tony Braschi on lead guitar, Roberto Cola on bass and Hammond, Marco Brozzi sax, Cristina Romagni violin and Domenico Ciucci on drums.

What can I say about blues in Italy? Well let’s just say it still has a lot of potential – meaning I think it still has a long way to go before people really start to sit up and take notice. It doesn’t have the cult status yet that it has in other countries, but this will change because the guys that play it are really good. It’s for people of all ages, but I’m trying to raise my level of appeal with younger audiences as I really appreciate their energy and enthusiasm. This year’s Subiaco Rock Blues Festival, for example, was great fun and a big success, with thousands of people in the audience. ■

Subiaco Rock & Blues Festival 2017

© Massimilano Ciamilli


Big Daddy Wilson, Germany


When Wilson Blount was a country boy growing up in a small US town in North Carolina, listening to gospel music at church and country music on the local radio station, he never dreamed he would end up living for over 30 years in Germany and performing all over the world as a singer/songwriter and renowned blues artist. Ironically, it was Wilson’s wife who introduced him to the blues in a smoky little blues club in Bremen, northern Germany. After his first blues concert, he became so inspired that he took five of the strings out of an old guitar and started writing and playing his own brand of music on it.

Neckbone StewBig Daddy Wilson, GermanyHuey Ross

The funny thing is that, at the time, he didn’t even know that other blues musicians played on one-string instruments (he later bought a diddley bow of his own at a blues festival in France). Wilson says he didn’t know what the blues was before he moved to Germany. It was in Germany that he found a part of himself that had been missing in his life.



“I didn’t know what it was, but it was mixed in my blood, I was born with the blues”

Wilson then started digging into the history of blues to get a feel for it. A little later, “Big Daddy Wilson” enters the German blues scene, touring and releasing albums. Since then, he has played in clubs, theaters and festivals all over Europe, and as far off as Australia, New Zealand and the USA. In 2010, he won the “Best Blues Band” award in the German Blues Challenge. In 2012, he was honored with the keys of the city when he returned back to perform in his home town Edenton, North Carolina in the States. The mayor of Edenton then declared the 13th of September 2012 as “Big Daddy Wilson Day.”

In 2013, Big Daddy’s “I’m Your Man” album won Best Blues Album in Germany and, in 2014, Wilson won the “Blues in Germany” Best Acoustic Artist Award.

“Big Daddy Wilson is the real deal, a true bluesman in every sense of the word” — Bluesforum

Big Daddy is equally at home performing at a small venue drumming on a box and accompanied by acoustic guitar, as on a big stage with many backing instruments and a chorus of singers. He’ll tell you he is no stranger to a two-man band and the intimacy of a small gig, but that he also enjoys the big band atmosphere, with all the different potential sounds and rhythms.


With a title like “Neckbone Stew,” Big Daddy’s fifth and latest album and winner of the 2017 German Recording Industry Award obviously has its share of “Down South USA” flavor, with a mixture of blues, folk, soul and gospel. But you will also hear some funk and reggae in there. It’s not just his charismatic manner and powerful voice, but Big Daddy’s lyrics are upbeat and positive. He either writes or co-writes his music with his friends and says, if you give it time, the songs write themselves. He writes what he feels and aims to tell a short story with each song – things he has seen or heard. He composes many of his songs with simple guitar licks on his Gibson 335 or on one of his diddley bows (he has a few of them), which he especially likes because they only have one string. ■

According to Big Daddy, there have been many musicians like Jack Dupree, Louisiana Red, Eddie Boyd and others who made Europe their home and brought the blues with them. He himself was influenced by Robert Cray and Luther Allison, and then later by artists like Taj Mahal, Keb Mo and his long-time friend and musical collaborator Eric Bibb. He says his style has a European influence owing to all the outstanding musicians he plays with from countries like Germany, Italy, France, Sweden and Hungary.

“Blues to me is worldwide and is a feeling that has no color or border”



Rob’s Cigar Box GuitarsRob Wrobel, USA

I got into CBGs by chance a month before my 55th birthday when a friend of mine was talking about a cigar box guitar his nephew had made – it had three strings and was tuned in open G, and you could play with one finger. I was intrigued and went home and Googled it and was amazed that I had never heard or seen one as I have been playing guitars since the early 80s. Unfortunately, while Motocross racing in my late 40s, I had a bad crash tand I lost a lot of motor skills in both hands, which made playing a guitar an impossible feat.

Now fast forward back to my 50s, when on my 55th birthday I built my first CBG. It was a wall hanger to say the least, but that weekend I built five guitars. They were pretty crude, but I found it interesting. I had no wood-working background and was a sheet metal worker by trade, so yes I had a lot to learn and kept building them by trial and error in my spare time. I had like 30 of them hanging around, and they were becoming playable, so I gave them away to friends and kids in the neighborhood, and the cigar shops I visited as wall hangers.


But two things changed things for me and the direction I took. First a friend called me one day and said “hey I’m going to the Sea Biscuit Fest in Arkansas, and want to buy four CBGs to give as gifts to my family.” I was surprised that someone would want to buy them, (remember I knew nothing about the cigar box nation or any of that, and thought it was just a hobby thing). Second, I got really annoyed one day when I went to a local guitar shop with my latest CBG, walked in and was totally ignored. When one of the guys finally did talk to me, he said CBGs weren’t real guitars and true guitar players would never play them. He gave me a run-down on what was wrong with them – action too high, bad fret work, no intonation, weak necks, poor sound, and pretty much told me they were useless! Naturally I left with a burning passion to prove him wrong!

“He said ‘what is it?’ I told him and asked if he wanted to try it out, and he said ‘hell yeah!’”

So I went back to my shed and taught myself fretting and how to make good necks and inlays. I learned about tuners, pickups, wiring and intonation. Then I built my first electric CBG and went over the top with twin humbuckers and a 3-way Tele switch. I made sure the action and intonation were spot on, and went back to the same guy in the same shop and put it in his hands. He looked at it and said “yeah that’s neat, but I still wouldn’t play it live.” Meanwhile, the whole time I notice this kid looking over the isle at it, so I walked over and asked him what he thought. He said “what is it?” I told him and asked if he wanted to try it out, and he said “hell yeah!” So we plugged it in and he commenced to rock the whole shop for 20 minutes!


“I want to build guitars that bring a new weapon to the gig set of performers and smiles on the faces of shed players”

The shop guys couldn’t believe it and the kid was totally amazed by the tones and sounds the guitar made. That’s when Jason Tyler Findley and I became friends (the picture on the right was taken the day I met him). Since then, he has tested and played over 100 of my “gittys,” helping me to develop my style and challenging me to try different ideas. I bring new guitars to his Monday night shows, and he plays them and gives me feedback on all aspects of my builds. He just picks them up and plays amazing stuff in open or standard tuning!

I know CBGs will never take over completely, but I want to build guitars that bring a new weapon to the gig set of performers and smiles to the faces of shed players. I build my guitars to last and to stay the course, and the neat thing is that the future of CBGs is an open book with no finial chapter. I myself do not mass produce, although I have built 176 gittys in the last year and a half. Needless to say, no two are the same – I want each guitar to be one of a kind, and when someone buys one they know there will never be another like it.

“When I see one of my gittys on stage and the player shredding on it and people digging it, I am rich!”

We builders all have our own style. It took me a long time to find my way and a lot of trial and error. Builders are never wrong in what they do – its all about the passion and the love that each builder puts into his or her instrument. If your doing it to make a buck, that’s fine. Me, I’ve never thought about the

money. While I need it to keep building, its not why I do it. I have given away lots of gittys that cost me a lot to build (let alone my time), but the smiles and friends I have made by far outweigh the money. I know I will never get rich and I don’t care – when I see one of my gittys on stage and the player shredding on it and people digging it, I am rich!

After I met Jason, I was eating dinner with my wife Lena and sharing some wine, and I told her if I’m going to do this I have to be all in, and that it was going to take a lot of time. I told her how I wanted to build CBGs from old reclaimed woods and the finest materials I could get my hands on, and get them into the


hands of guitar players. That was 16 months ago and, with Lena’s support, I have worked hard at it, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and I’m still at it!

These days I am happy to say that when I go to that guitar shop, they all know my name and are now happy to put a couple of gittys in their store alongside the Taylors, Martins, Fenders and Gibsons. Like I said, the future of CBGs is an open book and it will stay that way as there will be new styles and sounds forever. I am just happy and proud to be a part of the movement and the cigar box nation.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone for welcoming me in and letting me be part of it all, and, while there’s not enough space here to mention the many people who have helped me along the way, I would like to give special thanks to Ben Gitty of C.B. Gitty Crafter Supply, Don Lace Of Lace pick-ups, Bill Wiggins’s of Wiggins brand pick-ups, Shane Speal and Jason Tyler Findley for giving me direction, and John Nickel for helping me think outside the box. ■


Editor’s note: See what people around the world think about Rob’s CBGs in the the CBGR website “Read me” section at: cbgreview.com/read-me


Miku CBGsMikolaj Sikorski


Low-end instrumentsMikolaj Sikorski, Poland

I’m not really a luthier at all. Instead I’m part carpenter, part electrician and part musician. That’s why my guitars are what they are – simple and verging on primitive. CBGs don’t have to be hi-tech, you can make them out of anything. To be honest, you have to have a good sense of humor for this job and be a little crazy. Remember Frank Zappa’s album “Does Humor Belong in Music?” from 1984? I would rather use an old fashioned fork for a bridge than one you buy on the Internet. Why go online, when it’s just sitting in the drawer or someone has thrown it away?

“Why go online, when it’s just sitting in the drawer or someone has thrown it away?”

Basically all the tools I had in the beginning were a screwdriver, a drill, a hammer and a saw. I suppose I could buy expensive luthier tools, but I like the rustic touch and my low-end instruments. That’s the kind of guy I am and the way I look at things. It’s a terrible compulsion. When you make your first instrument, you have to make another one and another one. If you’ve ever built your own guitar, you’ll know what I mean!

So now my instruments are played in the USA and the UK, as well as Canada, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. They have featured on the Discovery


Channel and in 12 albums by many talented and versatile artists, including the band Mikromusic with the guitarist David Korbaczynski, Katarzyna Pietras, Maja Kleszcz and Wojtek Krzak, and the list goes on. Becaye Aw from Mauritania plays his guitar like an African stringed instrument, but with jazzy improvisations and a bluesy undertone. He uses three of my instruments, including guitars with quarter-tone frets to play African scales. I have also conducted several workshops in Poland on how to build CBGs, with people participating from as far away as the UK, Norway, Germany and Slovakia.

“Now we see professional musicians picking up CBGs...and they make them sound beautiful”

One principle I live by is that, no matter how ugly the instrument is, it has to sound good because it’s meant to be played. You can take it to the beach or the park to play. It has to be for fun. If people hadn’t made their own instruments in the past, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Now we see professional musicians picking up CBGs and playing them, even though they have access to the best instruments in the world. And they make them sound beautiful. My guitars have their own sound, but a guitar from the store for around 5,000 US dollars will not play such organic tones like the ones I build.

You can make an instrument in one day and it will last forever. You don’t need a workshop with a toolbox. I know people who build instruments in the kitchen or on the balcony (even on the window sill). It may not work out the first time, but the whole process of creating these guitars is incredibly satisfying. They’re really priceless! ■


reverb.com/shop/ robs-cigar-box-guitars

TWO-MAN OUTLAW SWAMP BLUES BAND

Bristol, UKwww.duskbrothers.com

I Will Be Sitting Here

https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/RobertL1

Robert L


AuthorsGraeme Moncrieff plays swamp-blues slide guitar songs on self-built instruments with his brother Iain (better known as “E”) in their Bristol-based two-man band Dusk Brothers. He started learning guitar at the age of sixteen and has now been playing for over twenty years. The brothers began building their own instruments less than three years ago. Graeme currently hosts various open mic nights in Bristol alongside gigging with Dusk Brothers and playing the occasional show for old time’s sake with his old rock band Halo.

Cathy Mullaert was born in 1955 and resides in Herminie, Pennsilvania. She is a self-taught musician since the age of eleven – playing piano, mandolin, guitar and CBGs, as well as helping others learn to play CBGs. She loves playing slide guitar, Delta blues, rock, country and folk in her own style, and performs at local shows in her area. Cathy owns many CBGs and has also started building her own, starting with “The Frontier” and its 1800s theme. She wants others to enjoy playing and creating music with CBGs the way she does.

Robert L Whiter is a musician and songwriter born in Rome, Italy in 1978. He plays guitar, harmonica, stomp box and piano, and handcrafts his own lap steel and cigar box guitars. His music ranges from blues to pop rock, but draws on a number of different genres like country, hard rock, grunge and more. He currently has three albums available: “Whiter” (played with cigar box guitar); “I Will Be Sitting” (classic blues); and “Blue’s Glory” played with lap steel guitar.

Rob Wrobel was born in 1960, grew up in Montana, and has been living in Florida for the last 25 years with his wife Lena and six children. A sheet metal man by trade, and a perfectionist at heart, he threw himself into building CBGs 18 months ago and they really have changed his life. Rob loves to build them and promote the CBG nation, and is on a mission to expose all standard guitar players to the fun and simplicity of three- and four-string guitars.


Mikolaj MIKU Sikorski (49) lives with his wife and two daughters in Leszno, western Poland. He built his first CBG six years ago, but has always been curious to see how they sound. Miku aims to keep building instruments for pleasure and as a creative hobby rather than a business. That way he still has the freedom to enjoy them and experiment with different builds. He says that CBGs are proof that music can be fun as well as serious.

Ross Hewitt a.k.a. Huey Ross was born in Australia in 1953 – the same year that color TVs and transistor radios appeared for sale in stores and the first James Bond novel was published. Over the years he has worked as a tennis teacher, journalist, translator and editor, and now lives in a village in Switzerland. He enjoys building and playing cigar box guitars, as well as editing and contributing to CBG Review.

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