Thursdays are for the blues at Jiggs Landing

Jiggs Landing Outpost offers live music every night of the week through May, but Thursday nights are reserved for blues fans. 

Steve Arvey, a blues musician from Chicago, plays the blues on every type of guitar imaginable. Detroit’s Miguel Primero backs him up on the harmonica. 

Arvey started the Sarasota Cigar Box Guitar Festival 11 years ago and has hosted others around the world. Arvey will be on tour in Europe this summer. 

His merchandiser Gigi Wiegman was selling shirts and cigar box guitars at the show. 

She said a guitar can be made out of pretty much anything from canoe paddles, like the guitar Arvey was playing on stage at the time, to brooms and bedpans. 

Mick Lutz was in the crowd. He learned to make cigar box guitars during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Lutz spent 39 years working for Manatee County in the Public Works department. Now retired, he started his own business called Mick’s Licks. 

He said a cereal box is the ideal size, but as long as it’s not too big or too tiny, he can turn a jewelry box or any other kind of box into a guitar. 

Since paddles make great guitars, too, Lutz plans to experiment with shovels next.