It’s been said that Hendrix actually learned to make music with something a lot more humble — a guitar made from scratch using a wooden cigar box.
Like most people, Dan Thomas, a lifelong Springfield resident, had never heard of a cigar box guitar until a trip to Memphis three years ago, when he saw a street musician playing one.
“It blew me away,” Thomas said. “Just the idea of it.”
Thomas was fascinated enough to come home and craft one himself — which ignited an admittedly obsessive hobby of building guitars.
He’s built four cigar box guitars, a cigar box ukulele and has plans for a cigar box bass and a cigar box mandolin.
Then he set out to try to build a regular guitar — and ended up crafting a few gorgeous, modified versions of Fender’s Strat and Telecaster.
For one, he turned a Mexican-built Squier guitar into an exact replica of the Strat used by surf-guitar legend Dick Dale. (Thomas is quick to note it’s not gold — it’s chartreuse.)
And that’s just the stuff he’s done within the past couple of years.
Not bad for a guy who, at 57, once sang with a band in high school but couldn’t strum a chord if he wanted.
Thomas can build cool guitars — he just doesn’t know how to play ’em.
“I’ve become obsessed,” he remarked.
“It’s my way of giving back to music what music has given to me.”
Darrell Gossett, the Springfield guitarist who acts as Thomas’ test player, is impressed with the attention to comfort and electronics.
“He’s real meticulous for not even being a player. He comes from a player’s point of view,” Gossett said. “He doesn’t play a lick. He wouldn’t know a D chord if it came up and tapped him on the shoulder.”
It hardly matters.
“He’s got it down,” Gossett said, “that’s for sure.”
But along the way, Thomas stumbled onto the secret history of the cigar box guitar — an instrument used so widely throughout history that it somehow remains totally obscure.
The list of guitar heroes who worked up their calluses on homemade, cigar box guitars includes Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins and Carl Perkins, to name a few.
Blues legends Lightnin’ Hopkins and Blind Willie Johnson played cigar boxes as kids, too.
“Up until three years ago,” Thomas said, “I never knew they existed, even though they’ve been around for 100 years.”
Initially a product of desperation — all you needed was an empty cigar box, a plank of wood and some baling wire — the cigar box guitar became the ax of choice for budding musicians with nothing but a burning desire to express themselves.
Some have frets on the necks, some don’t.
Thomas’ cigar box guitars have just three strings — Blind Willie’s had only one.
“When you start playing it, it will tell you how it wants to be played,” Thomas said. “You just have to feel it. The songs are inside the box.”
During the Depression, even Mickey Mouse was illustrated playing one.
“It’s pretty bizarre. It changes your thinking,” Gossett explained. “You’re making music as opposed to just playing a song.”
Oh, you can do the latter, too.
Just visit YouTube and type in “cigar box guitar” and “Hendrix” and you’ll get a video of some guy playing the meanest, scuzziest, front-porch version of “Voodoo Child” you’ll ever hear.
“I’ve always liked making stuff. Creating something out of something else,” said Thomas, a machinist since the age of 19.
Like in Lightnin’ Hopkins’ day, it remains dirt cheap to build your own guitar using a cigar box as its resonator — only about $35.
For his first one, Thomas used an ax handle for the neck.
Unlike in previous eras, though, plans for building a cigar box guitar are readily available on the Internet.
His cigar box guitars are electric, too. Just plug in to the nearest amp.
“I’m doing my little bit to help popularize it,” he said.
He’s never sold any of his guitars, but there’s a good chance that if Thomas shows up to your band’s gig — which is likely — he has one out in his car.
“It’s helped me get to know a lot more musicians in the area,” he said.
Crazy Joe Tritschler, the Enon native who plays a mean rockabilly and surf guitar, played an entire set recently using Thomas’ Dick Dale guitar.
“He played it,” Thomas beamed, “the way it should be played.”
One of his cigar box guitars has been on permanent loan since March to 14-year-old Blaze Wright, who plays with his dad and brother in the Yellow Springs jam band Full Circle.
Wright also plays Thomas’ replica of the Hendrix Strat — full circle indeed.
“I feel like I’m a father watching his kid on stage in a Christmas play,” Thomas said. “ ‘That’s my boy.’ ”
Naturally, he’s referring to the guitars.
Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.
About the Author