SPRINGFIELD — If you want your kid to be the next Jimi Hendrix, you wouldn’t dare think of giving him several tabs of acid, 20 milligrams of amphetamines and a horde of groupies with loose morals. So ...

One of the best things about making music is that it’s so easy to do. There are countless ways to make interesting sounds out of nearly anything if you’re willing to experiment a little bit — just ask ...

Ever played a cigar box guitar? The customarily homemade instrument follows the design of a regular guitar. But they traditionally use a cigar box as the resonator. Of course, creative musicians who ...

LOS ANGELES — The pages of newspapers, or history books for that matter, don’t runneth over with stories of happy accidents involving chain saws. But that’s just what put Philadelphia musicians Lucy ...

WITH THESE UNIQUE INSTRUMENTS. AND OF COURSE, IT’S MADE MASS. THE SOUND THAT COMES OUT OF THAT IS UNBELIEVABLE. IT’S CRAZY. FOR THE UNINITIATED, THE SOUND COMING FROM THIS CIGAR BOX IS MIND BLOWING.

He works with the precision and concentration of a surgeon because, well, he is one. But in the basement workshop of Kirk Withrow’s Birmingham home, the stakes are much lower. The ear, nose and throat ...

Back when cigars were plentiful and money was not — especially during the Civil War, for example, or the Great Depression — some musicians decided to work with what they had close at hand and built ...

The pages of newspapers, or history books for that matter, don’t runneth over with stories of happy accidents involving chainsaws. But that’s just what put Philadelphia musicians Lucy Tight and Wayne ...

It has been said that no zydeco band is complete without a rubboard and an accordion. But deep in the birthplace of zydeco, an exhibit at the St. Landry Parish Visitor Center features a different type ...

For three years, Archie Storey had been on a steady diet of Mississippi blues and was looking for a way into the music. The longtime BeBop Records employee listened to the blues constantly and ...

Mike Snowden plays bluesy rock as a one-man band. But he’s not playing a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender Stratocaster – his music comes from a guitar he built from an empty cigar box. “If I met you on the ...