An Obsession with Cigar Box Guitars: 120 Great Hand-Built Examples

Before Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton whaled away on their Fenders or Les Paul cranked up his Gibson, numerous guitar players were coaxing sound out of diddley bows, or cigar box guitars. Hendrix, for example, wanted to play guitar so badly that he often used a broom to strum out rhythms until he crafted a cigar box into his own guitar. In this lavishly illustrated follow-up to his best-selling chronicle Cigar Box Guitars (2012), photographer and cigar box luthier Sutton lovingly captures the artistry of several individuals devoted to building and playing the instruments, illustrating the broad range and musical diversity of cigar box guitars. Ted Crocker, the host of Handmade Music Clubhouse, uses empty beer bottles as resonators on his experimental two-string guitar. For his four-string acoustic/electric named Steampunk Ophelia, Shawn Denman inlaid a coin into the headstock and uses a maple neck with a red-oak fretboard. Sutton also showcases Shane Speal, a former divinity school student who is now the "self-proclaimed king of the cigar box guitar" and who started a social networking site called Cigar Box Nation that claims over 10,000 members from around the world. (Oct.)