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My CBG History

I built two dulcimers from scratch in the early 90s. No instructions, just a borrowed dulcimer to use as a pattern. I bought used tuners and frets from a shop in Omaha, Nebraska. My dulcimers came out pretty okay.

Then I built a travel guitar somewhat modeled after a Martin travel guitar. It had tuners salvaged from an Ebay purchased guitar that was pretty much a wreck. My home made travel guitar had a poorly tapered neck, a too thick top and a poor fret job. It was crap, but the building process was fun.

Then approx 2006 or 2007, I saw a video on CBGs. I made one, a fretless with a piezo pickup salvaged from a door bell! THAT WAS FUN. But I got that 3 string done and pretty much did not know what to do with it. The few how-to play-videos did not click for me.

In 2008, I built a shop to work in. I busted the crappy travel guitar on the concrete floor and used the tuners and frets to make a fretted cigar box banjo. It was pretty good and I kind of knew how to play it. Four strings tuned DGBD.

In about 2009 I found CBN and lurked here off and on and joined in (I think) 2010. Those were my fave days of the CBG world. I don't recall for sure if Gitty was going then. I think so. I remember being pretty excited about the availability of economy tuners, piezos and jacks.

Those were thumping days. We thumped boxes for tone. We hot melt glued piezos in boxes and then in a moment of great anticipation, we hooked up to an amp and thumped the box to see if the piezo worked.

Those were the days of found objects that we could use in our CBGs. We went through thrift stores, dollar stores and hardware stores looking for parts and inspiration. Sink drainer sound hole covers. Tarp grommet sound holes covers. We peeked into dumpsters for CBG parts. We salvaged wood from construction sites. We lost sleep thinking about the next step on our builds.

Knotlenny's CBG 101 was the playing video that worked for me. Then Keni Lee Burgess lessons helped and through him, I learned about DGB and ADF#. I felt like I was off and flying. I learned to make a video. It was poorly lit, kind of crudely done and I did not know how to edit the start and stop.

Other folks had other teachers that clicked for them: Shane Speal, John McNair and others. Those were great days for me and lots of others.

Wes Carl and others started making amps. That was a whole new thing. And a good one.

And then along came festivals. I was in the hinterlands and far from fests. In 2011, I got to go to a KC fest. It was in a great blues and BBQ venue. I got up the nerve to do the open mic. :D

I've made a lot of friends on CBN and in the CBG world. Some have come and gone. I've probably made an enemy or two or more. I don't know of any, but written communication and my smart ass nature surely fosters people taking me in the wrong way. I apologize for any feelings I have hurt.

Of the friends and personalities that have come and gone.... Where did they go? Some or many have moved to Face Book or just moved on to other things. I hope they still have a CBG to pick up now and then or maybe even build. A few have died. Dan Sleep comes to mind as I say that. A great guy and innovator in our world. Oh, and Jamie Mac Blues. He was funny and talented... And others...

MONEY MAKING! I once thought I had found a hobby that paid for itself or maybe even MADE money! That never worked out to be true for me. Some folks make a little money on CBGs, but the vast majority of us make nothing or a pittance of profit. But we do it for fun.

I wish now that I had never sold a CBG. I would rather gift them. My builds seldom cost much to make. I am picky about who I gift to. I want my babies to be appreciated. And if the build is a good player, I want it to go to a player.

Those early CBG days seem long past. Now you can buy ready made or even FACTORY MADE CBGs! We can buy pre-made necks, fret boards, boxes with the sound holes cut, boxes with cutouts for pick-ups. We can buy fancy boxes and designer fret boards. We can buy a vast selection of pick ups. We can buy CBG and uke kits. Those parts allow us to build more easily and with better instruments. But to me, they don't seem as sincere and honest.

These are good times, but I am an old fart and I liked the old times better.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 3, 2019 at 11:38am

Ernest, what a prehistory and back story! I think it would be great fun to hear some of those stories. I hope to see and hear more from you.

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Permalink Reply by Ernest Gusella on November 3, 2019 at 4:49pm

Uncle John, my life has been one of following my bliss, being lucky, and is a matter of being at the right place at the right time! I have met a lot of pretentious professors and artists and curators and critics in my life, while traveling, videotaping, and teaching all over the world.

What is great about cigar box guitars is the mundane quality of their origins and the desire of people to create instruments to play 'people's music'. Some of the people I have sold cigar box guitars to, have TONS of guitars and are serious musicians. Yet, they see something more 'real' about cigar box guitars. Also, the fact that it is possible to wring such great music out of 3 and 4 strings. Popular music and instruments have become too slick; the instruments have become too expensive, with the big companies even selling factory 'distressed' road worn guitars costing thousands. Yeah sure! Part of the appeal of cigar box guitars is that they are cheap and reflect a creative urge by people to make sound from 'junk'.

I got a Guggenheim grant of about $25,000 for my video pieces in 1980 or 1981 while I was living in New York (of course all of these grants are highly competitive, with famous artists and critics sitting in judgement on applications nation wide). As I result I was invited to sit on an 'arts panel' at the Quaker's 'Friend's School' in downtown Manhattan, where a painter friend of mine taught art to junior and senior high school students. I was up on state with a producer from Columbia Records, a famous author and little ole' me. There were about 300 students in the auditorium and the big people on stage got most of the questions. Besides, at that time, most people didn't even know what video art was! Finally a little smart-assed New York kid stands up to ask me a question, which was: 'I have been to the Museum of Modern Art with my parents. A lot of the art there looks like garbage. I would like to know how much of art today is garbage'. I knew from past experience teaching art, art history, photography etc. in various universities in and around NY City, that I was being set up. So I decided to adopt the rhetorical answer which Socrates used when asked a question by students i.e. you answer every question with another question to force the student to think for themselves. So what I said to the little shit is: 'you are asking the wrong question. If you study the history of art throughout the world, you will see that artists have ALWAYS made art out of what is thrown away by society. Instead of asking how much of today's art is garbage, you should be asking how much of today's garbage is going to be art'. The little smart ass must have had a reputation, because the rest of the 300 kids stood up and gave me a standing ovation, while the little YUKKIE (young upwardly mobile kreep), slunk down into his seat to the general guffaws of his classmates. Just sayin' how ya gotta keep them honest!

Of course I have had to deal with similar crap from faculty members who were tenured and thought that their... didn't stink. You know the rest of the expression. Today we are crawling with little 'dot-communists' who walk around with dented foreheads from crashing into telephone poles while mindlessly stumbling down the sidewalk looking at their stupid cellphones. at their latest Facebook 'likes'. Students have said to me: 'I LOVE MY IPHONE' I tell themL 'BS! WE TOLD YOU TO LOVE YOUR IPHONE. They say, 'what are you talking about?', and I tell them: 'one day you will figure out how you are being manipulated without even knowing it'. Now Silicon Valley has figured out that facial emotions are more telling of a person's true thinking than which sites they go to on the Internet. Oh yeah. Edward Bernais, advertising genius and Freud's nephew figured this all out in the 1920's. He wrote Uncle Ziggy in Vienna and said: 'Uncle, I am thinking of starting an ad agency. What do you suggest. Freud wrote back: Eddy my boy, remember one thing and you will be fine. People think with their spines and not their brains. And away it went!.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 4, 2019 at 2:53am

LOL on that last part, Ernest. Sorry, got to check my smart phone.

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Permalink Reply by Ernest Gusella on November 4, 2019 at 3:43am

Uncle John, your response is my kind of humor! Kids who arrive on campus these days can't find their way to the bathroom. Seriously! For the past twenty years faculty members are told NOT to discuss students with their 'helicopter parents'. who call up and try to micromanage their kids lives. You know HOVER HOVER HOVER. The kids start bawling about trying to find their around campus to the cafeteria (where all of the food is provided by food chains!). And they all are such wizards on their cellphones! This country is a mess. That is why cigar box guitars are cool. Back to the basics! Nobody knows how anything works any more and has to call in an expert with cyber skills to put washer fluid in their car!

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 4, 2019 at 9:19am

So true about so many things that I use, but don't know how it really works or how to fix it. I could keep those old cars running back in the day!

And yup on the basics and simples and home mades and especially the self mades.

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Permalink Reply by Poorness Studios on November 4, 2019 at 3:18am

Wow! You've been at this for a bit Unc. Thanks for the history lesson. It's always good to see different people's paths.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 4, 2019 at 9:21am

Thanks, PS. All this conversation puts me in a building mood. My shed is almost ready. This week should be the week and several ideas in mind.

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Permalink Reply by Bob "Ambrose" Negus on November 4, 2019 at 5:12am

That is a very interesting account and an inspirational insight (for me) you have shared with us Uncle J. Thank you.

I am approaching almost 3 years (newbie-ish level) CBG-ing and my interest and invovlement has heightened, particularly since joining CBN.

I do use some off-the-shelf products (convenience) but I'm always rummaging around in antique stores, flea markets etc... for "bespoke build" component items and making some components from scratch (much more fun). In doing so, I hope I am capturing and releasing some of the spirit of CBG'S and the like.

P.S. Never thought I'd actually build a musical instrument that I would learn to play as well as perform with... It also draws in a fair bit of public interest.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 4, 2019 at 9:22am

Same here Ambrose on the building AND playing it thing. I STILL LOVE IT>

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Permalink Reply by T-Gripped on November 4, 2019 at 7:51am

Thanx for sharing Unk. And some great comments by co-horts in the CBN. Onward!!

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on November 4, 2019 at 9:23am

Thanks T-Gripped. I agree. Lots of good and innovative folks here in the CBG and home made music arenas. Lots of entertainment.

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Permalink Reply by Ernest Gusella on November 4, 2019 at 1:09pm

Uncle John: I got another story about the type of people who have been 'discovering' cigar box guitars. A couple of years ago, a middle aged guy and his younger wife came into my wife's shop 'the Social Studies store (which is filled with imported silk scarves, jewelry, handicrafts, and stuff like that which we buy every winter in southeast Asia from poor Indian Hindus, Muslims, untouchables, ex-prostitutes with HIV, Thai and Myanmar tribals, Cambodian land mine victims, Vietnamese farmers, Nepali Buddhist craftsmen,etc.).

It turned out that the this guy was a professional git picker and had been a backup guitarist for the late ARKANSAS WILD MAN, SONNY BURGESS (anyone who hasn't heard of him, go look it up... Sun Records and the whole ball of shakin' original rockabilly insanity). Sonny kept rocking until 2017 when he died at the age of 88. This guitar player must have gotten tired of 'white line fever' after Sonny died, because he married wife #3, a preacher's daughter from West Virginia, across the Potomac from where we live in Western Maryland. I guess he decided he wanted some of that home cooking instead of constantly eating at greasy spoons and fast food joints (wives #1 and #2 were probably waitresses, but then I have no proof of that!). I grew up in the fundamentalist religion of Methodists (ya gotta be saved and sanctified), Pentecostals (ya gotta speak in tongues), and Baptists (ya gotta be dunked!). I know from personal experiences which left me scarred for life, that preacher's daughters used to come out of the bedroom windows at 2am. Let's just say, they had a wild reputation. And then the anvil comes down once they get their hooks into some unsuspecting innocent wearing a 'bible belt'! Little does this guy know what he has gotten himself into! Never mind 6 strings and the truth- he is gonna learn about G-strings and the truth! In any event, he HAD to have one of my cigar box guitars and he started playing on 3 or 4 strings as though he had been doing it all of his life. Plinkity, plankety, plunk. Kind of a fun story. And it's all true! Cross my heart and swear to D_G!