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Shane Speal & the Snakes "Stay Primal" CD

SKU:
23-015-01
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  • Shane Speal & the Snakes "Stay Primal" CD
  • Shane Speal & the Snakes "Stay Primal" CD
Now: $5.00
Was: $10.00

Description

Shane Speal's first album in three years!  The "King of the Cigar Box Guitar" returns with a surprisingly unplugged album that mixes the wild jug band traditions with hard rock.  The centerpiece of Stay Primal is a G. S. Monroe Masterworks 4-string cigar box guitar.  "That instrument dictated most of the album," Speal says.  "It had that acoustic sound of the Depression Era and I just wanted to capture the true essence of an acoustic cigar box."  

Listen to the first single, "Drinkin' Beer" and then scroll down for a video lesson on how to play it!

Songs:

  1. Drinkin' Beer
  2. Widow Someday (the electric diddley bow song)
  3. If It's Too Loud (the cigar box guitar builder's anthem!)
  4. Hard Times & Cigarettes
  5. Quarter to Nine
  6. Rehmeyer's Hollow
  7. Dance
  8. Everybody Get a Rock
  9. Minivan
  10. Poor But Satisfied

Shane Speal - cigar box guitar, lead vocals, cigar box mandolin, diddley bow, Marxophone, tin can mic, washboard, bass

Farmer Jon - electric washtub bass, background vocals

Derick Kemper - harmonica, background vocals

Rick Stepina - percussion, cajon, background vocals

 

note:  Stay Primal was issued with four different album covers.  You will receive the cover shown in the main photo.

Shane Speal "King of the Cigar Box Guitar" Bio:

It all started with an empty cigar box, a plank of wood from the family barn and three used guitar strings.  That was back in 1993 when Shane Speal build his first cigar box guitar.  Music hasn't been the same since.

"[Shane Speal] is universally recognized as the prime mover of the Cigar Box Guitar cult, a man who has made it his life’s crusade to spread the word and promote the popularity of CBGs."
- Premier Guitar Magazine, August 2009


Shane Speal is a performing blues rock songwriter who plays a primitive guitar made from an empty cigar box and a stick.  He is also the leader of the modern Cigar Box Guitar Revolution, a growing fanbase of cigar box guitar builders and players who congregate at Speal's website, CigarBoxNation.com.  Speal has performed concerts throughout the country and has been featured in many TV, newspaper and national magazine features.  He is also the central figure in the Max Shores' documentary on cigar box guitars, Songs Inside the Box.

Speal has recorded and released more than 10 cigar box guitar albums, including his latest, the self-titled "Shane Speal" cd.  Speal's music is a loud, gritty blues-rock style, performed live with the sole accompanymant of his right foot stomping on an electrified floorboard.  Mike Argento of the York Daily Record newspaper states, "The best way to describe [Speal's music] is to take blues and gospel and country and Hawaiian and ragtime and put it through a meat grinder that's missing some teeth."   Bill Jehle, curator of the Cigar Box Guitar museum says, “Shane sounds like Motörhead in a jug band!”  In addition to his own recordings, Speal has also appeared on releases by Crow Tongue, By The Way and The Presidents of the United States of America's frontman, Chris Ballew. 

Few artists are as committed to expanding the boundaries of such a primitive instrument as Speal does.  Speal says, “a Cigar Box Guitar is quirky and appears ‘broken’ from the start. They just don’t look like they should play any music. I love to see jaws hit the floor when I shove a socket on my finger and wail away."  (from Premier Guitar Magazine, August 2009)

Somewhere, today, Shane Speal is engrossed in a cigar box guitar project, whether performing a concert, recording a new album, expanding the reach of the instrument or just out in his woodshop, building a new guitar from a box and a stick. 

 

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