Bud Gambrell
Sep 23, 2026
Inside Huntsville’s Cigar Box Guitar Culture
I'm always searching for inspiration when choosing a topic to write about, and this article is no exception. If you've been following along, you know I've been collaborating with author Zach Taylor. Our partnership works well—he writes, and I photograph, and we each do what we love.
While brainstorming ideas, I considered the many music events in North Alabama. After discussing with Nicole, we agreed each event deserved its own article to do them justice. One event that stood out was The Cigar Box Guitar Festival. Although I've heard about it for years, I've never attended—sometimes due to other plans, or simply forgetting, which is typical for me. I know a few local musicians who incorporate Cigar Box Guitars into their sets. One night at Side Tracks, I watched Mike Roberts play a CBG with such intensity it felt like the guitar might catch fire—truly electrifying.
Curious to learn more, I reached out to the local CBG store—surprisingly, the only one of its kind. I emailed to arrange an interview, but after scheduling a date, both Zach and I had to reschedule due to unexpected conflicts. We finally met this past Saturday.
Meeting Jeff and Tara Mello was a genuine pleasure—their kindness and openness left a lasting impression. As you read this interview, I hope you'll sense some of that warmth. If you're ever in North Alabama, I highly recommend visiting The Cigar Box Guitar Store at Studio 106, 2211 Seminole Dr SW, Huntsville, AL 35805. You won't regret it.
Our conversation with Jeff and Tara stretched well beyond an hour, and we captured nearly fifty minutes on record. We connected before and after the formal interview, and I left feeling genuinely enriched by their company. If you haven’t already met them, I believe you’ll feel the same. Read on to learn more.
*edited lightly for clarity
MaM; Tell me a little bit about your CBG store.
Tara Mello: John Nickel started The Cigar Box Guitar Store back when Lowe Mill was becoming Lowe Mill. Before it was called Lowe Mill, it was Flying Monkey. It was one of the first 20 studios that were here. His dad, Pat Nichol, joined him. John was building cigar box guitars at the time. He was inspired to build and play cigar box guitars after attending the first cigar box guitar festival held here at Lowe Mill. They opened the studio back in 2010. John stayed involved for several years and then, as many young adults do, went off to do other things. Jeff and I wandered in in 2019 with a friend visiting from Kansas City who played guitar. We said, "Oh, there's this weird guitar shop." “Let's go check it out.” And our friend bought a guitar. And he thought it was going to fit in his luggage. It did not fit in his suitcase. He was coming back a couple of months later. So he was like, can I just leave it at your house? And Jeff, being the engineer that he is, started picking it up and looking at it. Oh, that's kind of cool. Jeff was kind of a hobby woodworker. So he made a cigar box guitar based on the one our friend left. But he didn't even use a cigar box. He actually built a box and created his own artwork based on cigar labels and whatnot. And from there, he learned how to play it. Jeff started coming in for free lessons, and a few months later our daughter joined in with a special Harry Potter-themed guitar he made for her; then, a few months after that, I started playing. We took over in February of 2021.
MaM: Jeff, tell me what you know about the history of the cigar box guitar.
Jeff Mello: When a lot of folks come by the store, it's the first time they've ever seen a cigar box guitar because we are the only brick-and-mortar store in the world. I have to explain that we didn't come up with this; it's been around since the 1850s. It was the 1850s when the cigar box was invented. Before then, merchants sold cigars in bundles or barrels. And if you think about packaging round items versus rectangles and trying to display them, the box was a better way to showcase the product.
Merchants made small boxes, stacked them on shelves, and displayed them better. By 1865, the government started taxing cigar sales. The Civil War was happening then. They had to raise money. So we had boxes of 25, 50, 100 with this little stamp, this little label that was put on the side, showing the duty that they would collect. We know that there are written records going back to the 1850s of people being seen playing cigar box instruments. But in 1865, we have our first known illustration of a cigar box instrument. It's a Union soldier playing a fiddle. It has one string. And if he takes that bow and puts it down and plucks that instrument, that would be referred to as a diddley bow. So A one-string cigar box guitar is a diddley bow.
If you've heard of an artist named Bo Diddley, he took his name from a diddley bow. Now, another interesting thing happened back in the 1880s. One of the co-founders of the Boy Scouts of America, a guy by the name of Daniel Carter Beard, put together instructions on how to build a five-string banjo. He published it in different newspapers of the time, as well as in the predecessor to the Boy Scout handbook, The American Boys Handy Book. If you go flipping through the back pages of that book, you will find the instructions on how to make what they call the Uncle Enos Banjo. It's a five-string banjo fashioned with a cigar box as the body.
MaM: Some of your guitars you consider playable art. Explain that a little bit to me.
JM: One of the fun things about building a cigar box guitar these days is the cigar boxes have become so decorative. So oftentimes, I'll have a box that's got some very unique artwork on it, and it gives me inspiration and an opportunity to carry that artwork up the fretboard, maybe onto the headstock, and add other parts that tie it to whatever art is on the box. Beyond that, I've been able to be even more creative by taking things considered non-traditional, even lunch boxes and cookie tins and baseball bats and other items, and being able to fashion instruments out of them. When it comes down to it, all I need is tension on a string to make a stringed instrument, and then some sort of pickup if we want to amplify it. Shovels can be used to build guitars- anything that's rigid enough to hold that tension on the strings.
TM: Cigar box guitars have been used in a professional environment for quite some time. Lightning Hopkins, who is one of the oldest blues musicians around, played a cigar box guitar. We have Billy Gibbons, who used a cigar box guitar on some of his work; the guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd used one. Jimi Hendrix played a cigar box guitar. Paul McCartney won a Grammy for a song with a cigar box guitar when he was doing that collaborative project. So a lot of different folks have done that. I think sort of top of my list, because he plays cigar box guitar a lot, is Grammy winner Gary Nichols, who's out in the Shoals, former frontman of The Steel Drivers. He's sort of become enamored with a bunch of Jeff's instruments and has three of his own, plus two currently on loan from the store. He was literally in an arena in Florida last night as part of the opening act for Brad Paisley. The Band Loula is a band that he co-produces, and he is their lead guitarist. He was playing at least two of Jeff's instruments on stage in an arena with 40,000 people, which is pretty cool. He also headlines our festival. You know, which is great to be able to pull together Gary and the guys from the Fame Gang, the Fame Recording Studio session musicians. Jeff has also built guitars for Willie Nelson, Buddy Guy, Billy Strings, and Billy Gibbons. Oh, yeah, I forgot about Dwight Yoakam and Brandon Coleman from The Red Clay Strays, so It's a lot of people.
*gallery of guitars made for Billy Gibbons, The Red Clay Strays, Dwight Yoakam, and Willie Nelson
MaM: Jeff, where do you get your inspiration for your guitars? Can you walk me through building one of your ‘playable art’ pieces? Where do you find your inspiration?
JM: Inspiration comes from everywhere in everything. I can be walking down the street, see a piece of litter on the ground, and it becomes inspiration for a guitar component. You see the world a little differently when you start to take discarded items and try to bring them together to make instruments out of them. Sometimes it's the artwork on the box, but sometimes it's just another found object, and I think about how I might incorporate it into a design.
MaM: What inspired you to start building cigar box guitars?
JM: I was wondering what this instrument was. I liked that it was a cigar box, and I thought it would be a neat piece of art to build and hang on the wall. With the very first one I built, I didn't think I would ever really learn to play it. I just thought it would be a neat piece of art. I took my woodworking, engineering, and electronics skills and applied them to building this piece. But when I came into the store and got my first lesson from Pat Nichol, and I realized how quickly and how easy it is to play a cigar box guitar, it made me think about them a lot differently. And I started to look at the ergonomics a little bit more and how the neck felt in my hand, and the scale length, and the weight of the box, and the balance. After that, I started approaching my builds a little differently because I was trying to learn to play. So that's really where things started to take off. I realized I could not only create this art, but also use it to create music, which is another art in itself. And one of the biggest kicks I get out of making these instruments is I don't know whose hands they're going to get into, typically, unless it's a commission-built one.
MaM: If a beginner walked in the door right now and bought a cigar box guitar, they're possibly going to say, I don't know how to play. Is there anything y'all can do to help?
TM: We never want somebody to buy an instrument just to have it be perceived as wall art, right? They're so easy to play. I grew up in a family that literally cannot clap to the beat of the music. If I can play a cigar box guitar, anybody can. So don't come in here and say, "I can't play." Anybody can do this. We do free lessons every Saturday from noon to two. Pat Nichol started those when the store opened, and continued them after we purchased the store because Jeff and I weren't able to teach them at that point. As we've upped our game, Pat has shared his wisdom with us, and we've started learning more about music. Pat still comes in the first Saturday of the month. Those lessons come from two very different angles, depending on who's teaching them. When you come in and Jeff is teaching a lesson, he starts from zero knowledge. He and I are talking with people about how to hold a guitar, how to hold a pick, how to make a good-sounding barre chord. Pat looks at those things and approaches them with 50 years of experience. He starts with "Let's strum" and "Let's keep a beat." So, we're approaching it from two different angles. The lessons happen for two hours, and it's a drop-in event. You can come in, stay for one song, and get up and walk out.
MaM: How long does it normally take to build a cigar box guitar?
JM: There's no normal. For my basic entry-level guitar for folks on a budget, I've had to come up with methods to build things quickly and in batches. I can spend a week building six guitars, and I'll do them all kind of at the same time, where I'm drilling some of them and cutting another. I build jigs to keep things uniform and to help them come together a little quicker. So, that's kind of the everyday bread and butter guitars that we will sell in here. But the fancier ones have special inlays, adjustable truss rods, and fancier electronics. I spent months working on Willie Nelson's guitar. Just the design and the various parts that I had to come up with. I didn't get through the entire design early on. I had portions I was really excited to do, and as I finished them, I came up with other ideas to add to the guitar.
MaM: Do you build special orders or do collaborations for special guitars?
JM: All the time. I have a lot of fun collaborating with other artists. We recently did a project to benefit the Huntsville Hospital's Music Therapy Department in which I built ten essentially blank canvases. They were cigar box guitars that were simple wooden boxes. We collaborated with ten artists, some of them here at Lowe Mill, some of them outside of Lowe Mill, and they all decorated those cigar box guitars with their own style of art. Those went on display at Huntsville Hospital, and we held a silent auction to raise money for the therapy group there.
TM: Jeff will also collaborate with people who bring in an object that has sentimental value. Sometimes people will come in with an actual cigar box that has meaning to them. But people have come in with all sorts of objects, special coins, miniature flags that have flown on the space shuttle. We had a husband bring in his father-in-law's dental tools that his wife had kept and treasured because he had been a dentist for 40 or 50 years, but she didn't know what to do with them. Jeff made a dental-themed guitar and put the tools in the sound hole so they were viewable through the box. So it doesn't have to be a box shape or anything like that. There are creative ways to incorporate lots of things in a collaboration that has meaning for just a special gift.
*a custom build
MaM: Try to explain to me how you feel when you see somebody like Gary Nichols or another notable musician use one of your guitars on stage.
JM: Oh, it's just joy, I think, the easiest thing to say. It brings us great joy. He is out there entertaining a lot of people. So this thing I cobbled together in my garage is now being used in stadiums. And getting people up and dancing and having a good time, and knowing that I can be a very small part of that excitement for a whole group of people is just so cool.
TM: I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with what Jeff is saying, but I want to reiterate what he said a moment ago because it is less about the Gary Nichols of the world and more about the average person who is in this studio. Our joy comes from obviously both of those things, right? It's awesome to see a high-caliber musician on a huge stage. But when you have a dozen or more people in here playing what is a very basic song, but they are making music, and they are playing a song, and they are lighting up, that's incredible! Occasionally, a professional musician comes in and joins unexpectedly. We had Shaun Ferguson; he's a local musician. He stopped in a few weeks ago. He just walked by, and he's like, “What is this all about?” He picked up a guitar and started playing the blues. So there is a huge amount of joy in having people go, "I didn't think I could do that."
MaM: If you could take one of your guitars and put it in the hands of a person anywhere in the world, I guess dead or alive, who would that be and why?
JM: This is not a particular person. It's anybody who is in a place that needs music. We see these instruments as instruments of change. We see people who are recovering from strokes, have Parkinson's. They're trying to do something with their hands, and it brings them relief or helps them heal. We see people struggling with something in their life; they come in here, play the guitar, and it brings them to a happier place for a moment. We had a small child who came in who was autistic, nonverbal, and Tara was showing him how to strum the guitar. And I was shouting out the numbers to tell people where to put their finger next. The boy started making noises while I was saying the numbers, mimicking what I was doing. The father was surprised to see his son trying to verbalize with this music. We've had a young blind girl come in here with a guitar that wasn't set up properly, and I had the opportunity to make her a guitar with more tactile features, which allowed her to play a little easier. So the people I want to have my instruments in the hands of are the people who need them and will make a difference.
MaM: There is a cigar box guitar festival. How did that start, and how has it progressed and grown from Festival 1 to Festival 22 this past year?
JM: That's right. The very first festival was in 2005, but it was at Flying Monkey Studio at the time. A gentleman named Matt Crunk, a tattoo artist, organized the very first festival. And it was called the Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza. They pulled in some regional artists and some local folks, got together, and played music. And I think people were selling guitars that they were making. That went on for several years. That was one of the inspirations for John Nickel, who started the store, to go to those festivals. We've been able to collect memorabilia from every single one of those festivals. So we've got posters, flyers, and photos where we can find them, and some video snippets here and there from each festival. And always some part of it has been here at Lowe Mill. When we took over the store, Pat Nichol nudged us a few months into it and goes, "You guys are going to have a festival, right? You got to have the festival. You got to keep that going.”
TM: I'm like, OK, we can put on this event. We know the components. Our first event was on September 11th, 2021. And that was because normally the festival happens on the weekend after Memorial Day, so late May, early June, but we were in COVID then, right? So there was no point in doing that. So Pat sort of said, hey, you know, you gotta do this, you gotta, it's the world's longest-running one, you have to do something. And he told us that Microwave Dave had always been a part of every festival. So I went to Lowe Mill and saw what dates we could do something out on the lawn by the water tower. And then I went to Dave, whom I did not know, whom I'd never had a conversation with before, and said, "Will you come play?" And the only date he was available was September 11. We put on an event in about eight weeks. From there, we saw potential to raise money. So there was ancillary work raising money for the Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation. We continued that tradition. Arts Huntsville was running a program that was putting music in schools as well. So we raised money and then split it between those. And then I don't know, because we're gluttons for punishment or because the good idea fairy visits too often. It was like, oh, well, let's have a kickoff concert and let's do this and all that, you know, let's do that. And we started to expand it into more than one day. So for year 20, we did an event on Thursday night, an event on Friday night, all day on Saturday, and all day on Sunday at The Orion. And we've continued that tradition dropping Thursday, but always doing a kickoff concert on Friday night, all day here at Lowe Mill on Saturday, and all day at The Orion on Sunday. But I think the collaboration with The Orion has really allowed us to up our game. They're a wonderful partner in marketing and getting the word out. They're fantastic to work with when putting on a large event.
MaM: Putting on a festival like that, especially a three-day event, there'd be a lot of work going into that and probably a little bit of stress. What's the most rewarding part of it? There's got to be a reward, or you wouldn't keep doing it.
JM: It's an opportunity to bring our community together and just celebrate. I mean, this simple instrument with a cigar box and a stick of wood and three strings on it, we just get together and celebrate music and life, and people get to create and show off their instruments and perform with them and just share music. And we've done it for a good cause too. The Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation is bringing the concerts into the classroom and also helping out the folks over at Huntsville Hospital and the Music Therapy Department. It's great to bring people together in the community, raise awareness for some of our local businesses that support it, create awareness about these instruments for people who are curious about making music, and raise a little money to help others in our community.
MaM: Unfortunately, we lost Microwave Dave Gallaher earlier this year, on Feb. 6th. I understand one of his guitars appeared at the festival this year. Tell me about that.
TM: Yeah, two of his guitars.
JM: We currently have a couple of his guitars displayed in our store. One is a special six-string guitar I built for him with a wide neck that was easier for him to play. He performed in a couple of festivals with that, and Mike Roberts used that guitar during our festival. We also have one of his Lobo guitars. John Lowe designed and built that guitar in Memphis, Tennessee. This guitar is well loved; it's really well-worn, and Dave used to play it a lot. It's a slide guitar with two necks. One has a bass string, and the other has the other three strings and two pickup outputs; on one you get kind of a bass drum sound, and on the other you can do a little more slide. And so John Nickel enjoyed playing that guitar at our festival this year.
MaM: We're right on the heels of Cigar Box Fest '22. Is there a sneak peek? Anything y'all can tell us that's in store for Cigar Box Fest 23 next year?
JM: We know we're going to try to follow the same structure because people are getting used to that, and it seems to be working where we have elements of it here at Lowe Mill and then working with the folks over at the Orion. So we think we'll have similar programming in both places. I think we still want to pull in an educational element for cigar box enthusiasts who want to learn how to build or improve their building, share their art with each other, or learn how to play a little bit more. That seemed to be well received. So we want to bring more of that in and do something a little different to keep everybody's interest. The artists, we always try to add some new people. We try to add big, recognizable names and make sure it's a big party where everybody's having a good time.
TM: We know for sure we'll have Gary Nichols and The Fame Gang. Last year was the first time we did a stage-on-stage experience at the Orion, so it was 300 seats for the audience on the stage at the Orion with the band on the stage as well, which was a really unique opportunity for people to have this intimate experience and be on that big stage where maybe they've seen a big show. I'm sure we'll have some special guests, but we're not ready to share those yet. And June 4, 5, and 6 next year. It's always the weekend after Memorial Day. Memorial Day is on the 31st. So it's June 4, 5, and 6 in 2027.
MaM: At the time of this interview, we're about three months away from Christmas. Do y'all do just in-store purchases, or do y'all do online sales, or how can someone get a cigar box guitar?
JM: We prefer in-store sales over online. A lot of people sell stuff online. We want people to have an experience when they come into our store. You asked earlier about people coming in and buying guitars. We often discourage people from buying guitars the first time. We want them to play them and know that that's an instrument that's going to work for them. The holidays, usually people are coming in, and they're like, I've been thinking about this all year, and I'm going to get that guitar for Uncle Larry, or I'm buying it as a gift for myself. So usually people come in, look around, and we know they're there to get that special gift for somebody. Right now, I'm making a lot of wood dust and trying to fill the store. We will have over 50 instruments in the store by the time the holiday shopping season starts. We'll have a wide variety of instruments for people to choose from.
*a collection of goodies
TM: We don't maintain an online store. What we discovered is that because the instruments are unique, if it sells in the store and it's still online and someone happens to buy it, that's a problem. So if somebody has traveled to Huntsville and they've seen the instruments, but they've gone back to another state, and they're like, oh man, I really want one of these. We will work with folks one-on-one. And there's information on our website on how to do that. But we really like to get folks in here. The thing is, every single cigar box guitar sounds different. If you're looking at a picture, you can't hear how it sounds. A Fender Strat sounds like a Fender Strat. A manufactured guitar is designed to sound a specific way. They all sound different because the boxes are different, and even a different box with a different sound hole will sound different.
After reading the interview above, I hope you can feel, in some way, how good this couple is. The joy they express in bringing and sharing music with others is priceless. The enjoyment they express about seeing children learn to play, even if only a little, is irreplaceable.
For me, this interview went from being about simple cigar box guitars to how involved a caring heart can be. If you are in the Huntsville area, take my advice and go meet Jeff and Tara. They welcome you to just drop by and shop. I think you will eventually go back and buy one, but that is between them and you.
Until next time,
Keep your diamond down in the groove!
This article is dedicated to the loving memory of
David Thomas "Microwave Dave" Gallaher
April 25, 1946 – February 6, 2026
His contribution to local music education will live on.
Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation
To Donate: Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation [Home] - Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation
Huntsville Hospital's Music Therapy Department
To learn more: Music Therapy | Huntsville Hospital Health System
To learn more about The Cigar Box Guitar Store:
Where to find Bud:
Email:
the_budgambrell@mixedaltmag.com
Website:
https://bgambrellphotography.com
Amazon:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/bud.gambrell
*Additional photo credits - Jennifer & Company Photography
Home - Jennifer & Company Photography
