In Peanuts Guide to Life, the collection of one-frame wisdoms of Charlie, Lucy and Linus, cartoonist Charles Schultz advises, “As soon as a child is born, he or she should be issued a new dog and a banjo.” Good advice for anyone wanting the right start. The idea begs two questions though-what kind of dog and which type of banjo? The answer to the first is obvious, it’s a beagle. The second answer concerning the right banjo is a little more elusive.

Many different types of high quality banjos are available. There are metal ones, some use wood and plastic; others involve a combination of each. There are banjos that have their beginning with other instruments, ukuleles, guitars or mandolins. There is a stand up type made from a bass, definitely not your father’s drumhead with strings. String sets vary too–there are banjos with one, three, four, five, six, up to ten strings. They come with open backs or closed backs, with or without pickups for amplification. Considering all the possibilities can boggle your mind.

Cigar box banjos often get lost in the shuffle. They are often simple instruments that long ago were made by beginning players from whatever components they had available at the time. Often the first exposure a beginner had to music was from a cigar box made from scratch. Today cigar box banjos can be made from scratch or from a building kit that has all the basic components. Even though they are relatively simple to make their quality of sound and playability doesn’t suffer. It depends on the effort and commitment to excellence the builder is willing to make. Whether made from scratch or from a kit, the builder can let his or her creative imagination run wild while building a unique, well playing instrument.

Mark Twain had some experience with the banjo sound. He recognized that what to some was painful and piercing was plunky hollow and incisive to others. “Good sounding banjo” was a relative term dependent on the music and the hearer as much as on the instrument. Twain also remarked that a gentleman was a person who knows how to play a banjo but doesn’t. He recognized that the experience of banjo playing and that inimitable sound couldn’t be matched. The cigar box banjo doesn’t play quite as loud as a conventional banjo. With care and craftsmanship, many players use the cigar box to create a deeper and mellower sound.

“Easy Lovin’” was a 1971 country hit that peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard chart by Freddie Hart. Hart was one of many well known people who are not so well known for their banjo playing, but got their first exposure to making music with a cigar box instrument. He grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama in a large, sharecropping family of fifteen children. Freddie said he got started musically by cobbling out a cigar box instrument using strings made of wire from the copper coil of a Model T Ford.

For others, the roots of their iconic musical style were developed from the very rudiments of instrument making, creating what would scarcely be considered a musical instrument today. Jim Reeves, the youngest of nine children, made his first instrument from a cigar box and rubber bands. Stringbean Akerman made his first banjo from a shoebox with thread from his mother’s sewing kit.

Many who had no claim to playing any instrument well experimented early with cigar box banjos. Carl Sandburg, recognized as the American Bard, tried his hand at a willow whistle, then a comb with paper over it, a tin fife, a flageolet (a type of wooden flute), and an ocarina before developing his own brand of music early in life using the banjo. He is quoted as saying, “My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself”, and these experiences helped define who he really was.

Only the minutest part of their gift of originality may be what ties these artists together, and these early-in-life experiences being the spark that kindled that originality. But if you can identify in the minutest way with that experience, than my work here is done. Are you ready now to go find a beagle?

Get more information about cigar box banjos or buying and building a banjo here, or email me at walker@papasboxes.com and I’ll send you a follow up with photos.

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