Get ready for the 9th Annual New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival at the historic New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Ave., taking place Thursday, January 16 through Saturday, January 18. An astonishing array of talent from far and wide gathers to both perform and celebrate homemade-stringed instruments in the world’s most musical city. Tickets/info: (504) 568-6993 or visit NewOrleansCBG.com.
New Jersey roots trio April Mae and the June Bugs; energetic Florida rockers Memphis Lightning; and super-sensational one-woman band Ghalia Volt lead a lineup that includes popular New Orleans acts Cigar Box Serenaders, Mahmoud Chouki, Ed Wills and Blues 4 Sale, Rumsey Kadar, and Amzie Adams, along with Nashvillian Meg Williams and international CBG ambassador, Steve Arvey. European-based acts slated to perform: La Durance Blues Band (France), Captn Catfish (Germany), John Mary Go Round (Belgium), Riccardo Ferrini (Italy), and El Gordeaux (England). These entertainers are among the leaders of the Cigar Box Guitar Movement. They’ll provide sixteen-plus hours of homemade instrument fun over the course of the three-day event. A Thursday Night Symposium, and Builders’ Forums on Friday and Saturday afternoon, round out the schedule.
Only 150 all-inclusive tickets are being sold to this unique and intimate cultural experience. All aspects of the event will be held within the comfortable confines of the Jazz Museum.
SOME BACKGROUND
The New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival was founded in 2016. During its first four years, the festival gained a reputation for presenting outstanding entertainment. The 2019 edition won OffBeat Magazine’s ‘Neighborhood Festival of the Year’ award. In 2020, NOCBGF partnered with internationally-acclaimed singer/guitarist Samantha Fish to expand
the growth and outreach of the festival and the cigar box guitar. The global pandemic forced the 2021 NOCBGF to go virtual, with two nights of supercharged video streamed via Mandolin.com. Continued pandemic concerns and restrictions caused the festival to be cancelled in 2022. The return to live performances in January 2023 at the venerable New Orleans Jazz Museum was a thrill for everyone involved; 2024’s NOCBGF festivities were the best ever.
Throughout U. S. history, pioneers, Civil War soldiers, farmhands, street singers and other resourceful musicians found ways to build expressive instruments from household items and random hardware, most notably in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. Those simple instruments helped shape almost every style of American music.
“Cigar Box Guitar” is a catch-all phrase used to describe the general category of homemade/stringed musical devices consisting of banjos, basses, dulcimers, fiddles, mandolins, diddley bows, and what-have-you. Many musicians throughout the world are currently using homemade gear to record, perform live, or play at home, making these unique instruments and their authentic, traditional sound a staple of today’s music scene.
(New Orleans LA) – dougdeutschPR