Cigar Box Scott

Folk Songs, Cigar Box Scott Style

As Cigar Box Scott, Scott Atkinson presents traditional and classic folk and roots music in a completely new way. With strong rhythms and a driving beat, he takes songs he loves and gives them new life, making them accessible for audiences of all types on cigar box guitar and his homemade foot stompbox.

A longtime folkie and musician, when Scott Atkinson got his hands on a cigar box guitar for the first time in spring 2022, it changed everything. “I could finally play these old songs the way I’ve always wanted.” Unlike most cigar box players who focus on blues and rock, Scott took to it like it was a banjo, combining melodies and rhythms for old-time, bluegrass, blues, and folk songs. Old songs get new rhythms, chords, and sometimes melodies.

Scott worked at iconic folk music journal Sing Out! Magazine from 2000 - 2006. Under the mentorship of Mark D. Moss, he gained an even greater appreciation for this music. Scot had the pleasure of working with Pete Seeger and was the organizer of the Pete Seeger Tribute Concert, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, featuring Pete ,Natalie Merchant, July Collins, Janis Ian, and many others.

Scott is the author The Essential Bluegrass & Old-Time songbook, a collection of 50 traditional songs for jamming and song circles with melodies, chords, lyrics, and stories and background. He has several other songbooks of traditional songs planned.