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The Gitty Gang couldn't do a show this past Friday, so the King of the Cigar Box Guitar Shane Speal stepped in to host one that everybody's still talking about! Sometimes duty calls and the Gitty Gang can't get into the studio for the regularly scheduled Gitty Gang Show on Friday afternoons.  When that happens, Shane Speal takes over just like he did this past Friday. With an unparalleled enthusiasm for handmade musical instrument history, Shane did a deep dive into his private ins …

Seven years ago, I had never heard of cigar box guitars or other homemade instruments.I had dabbled a little with "restoring" an old Kay guitar and had read a book on how to build a bluegrass mandolin. But the idea of crafting musical instruments out of everyday objects had never occurred to me.That all changed in the summer of 2008 when my friend Dan "Deke" Caldwell and his wife Laurel (who now works in the C. B. Gitty packing department) took a vacation to Tennessee. While in Gatlinburg, they …