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Keni Lee Burgess plays "Baby Please Don't Go" on his cigar box guitar

Mark Frauenfelder at 5:27 pm Thu, May 7, 2009

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Keni Lee Burgess plays Muddy Water's "Baby Please Don't Go" on his cigar box guitar.

And here's Burgess' MySpace page with streaming music.

(Via Cigar Box Nation)

Previously:
  • Steve Lodefink's first cigar box guitar - Boing Boing
  • Video profile of cigar box guitar maker, Mark Vickroid - Boing Boing
  • Shane Speal plays Guitar Rag played on cigar box guitar - Boing Boing
  • Out of Milk and Butter Blues played on cigar box guitar - Boing Boing
  • Shelley Rickey plays "Tonight, You Belong to Me" on her handmade ...

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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  • DianneS

    #9: Didn’t Howling Wolf do “Highway 49″?

  • Anonymous

    well, (as with many blues songs), the origins of the true author are cloudy at best. as such; most would attribute this song to Big Joe Williams, at least in so far as his was the first known recording of it. Flavin’.

  • Anonymous

    @ #8: I got to meet him one time / about a year before he died…

  • Alpha Omicron

    He has a very good version of Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” done on a bigger cigarbox guitar on YouTube.

  • Alpha Omicron

    I’ll also note that the original is by Big Joe Williams (played on his 9-string modified guitar), not Muddy Waters. I made a blog post about Williams and his guitar: http://thefringthing.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/big-joe-williams-and-his-amazing-9-string-guitar/

  • DianneS

    Seconding the correction of the attribute from Muddy Waters to Big Joe Williams from down in Crawford, MS (gawd, lord, he must have sold a million).

  • FoetusNail

    Damn Fine!

  • Anonymous

    Ive chatted with kenny lee a few times, I make my own cigar box guitars too and play them but not quite as well. There really is something to be said about playing a fine instrument that you built from crap. Even have a few electric cigar box guitars, loads of fun for the kiddies.

  • Anonymous

    Big Joe said “Huh! He tried.”

    I’m from the same town as Webb, except there everyone calls him “John.”

  • Anonymous

    The attribution is correct. The arrangement of the song he’s playing is based on Muddy Waters’ version of the song, not Big Joe Williams’.

  • Anonymous

    Well, it is great to see all the interest in Cigar Box guitar. Due to their simplified tuning and fewer strings, they are the perfect instrument to use to start learning music. If you would like more information, please wander over to my page at http://www.youtube.com/kenileeburgess and “write me a few lines” and I will be glad to send you some information. Enjoy, Keni Lee

  • Blackhat

    That was awesome! I will never make fun of cigar-box guitars again…