A sound thats sweet and smokin: ; Multi-talented Statehouse employee transforms cigar boxes into guitars

Dennis Loudermilk is by no means your typical Statehouseemployee.

Technically, his job title is web engineer for the state Officeof Reference and Information.

He's the guy who makes sure the Legislature's website stays upand running and all of those live streams of floor sessions andcommittee meetings are properly piped into your computer.

But dig a little deeper, past his 21st century job title and soft-spoken demeanor, and you'll find a multi-faceted craftsman withtalents rooted in classic Americana.

When you walk into his workspace tucked away in the basement ofthe Capitol, you might notice something that doesn't quite fit inwith all the computer servers and audio processing equipment:guitars made of cigar boxes.

It's not the first thing you'd expect to find in a stategovernment office, but cigar box guitars are nothing new.

They're a product of the Great Depression - an era whenwidespread poverty and economic strife failed to stifle artisticexpression.

In this age before the Gibson Les Paul and Fender Strat,musicians turned to whatever they could scrap together to carry atune.

And while the times changed, the art form remained.

Loudermilk, 55, said he stumbled upon the simple craft during hispursuit of a more complicated undertaking.

"I took it up as a hobby because I really want to build a full-size, western European dreadnaught type guitar," he said. "Butthat's a very long, drawn-out process. It takes about a year part-time just to build a nice guitar."

So he decided to aim small and turn to the less time-consuming,cigar-box style of instrument.

"I took this up just to learn all of the techniques," he said.

While the look is different, the basic elements remain the same -resonator chamber, fret board, strings. The ingredients are justeasier (and cheaper) to assemble.

But that's not to say the process is simple.

Constructing an accurate fret board is a tedious affair.Loudermilk says he has measuring devices finely tuned to sub-millimeters to ensure the frets are properly placed to make theright musical tones.

Loudermilk has been making two versions of cigar box guitars forabout a year: smaller, four-string ukuleles and longer, three-string steel string guitars.

He's made 10 of the steel strings and nine ukuleles, each bearinghis signature brand name Blue Haze - named after the haze one mightfind in a room of cigar aficionados.

By the way, Loudermilk doesn't smoke all the cigars to get thebox. He gets the occasional leftover from a cigar store or buys themoff the Internet for $5 to $10.

And like Bob Dylan in the 1960s, he's gone electric.

Throw an electric guitar pickup into one of his Perdomo cigarboxes and you've got a distinct, bluesy-electric sound ready to pipeout the jugband blues.

And while the cigar box guitars are Loudermilk's latest creativefare, his foray into instrumental construction actually began in thewoodwinds group.

About five years ago, Loudermilk started making Native American-style flutes, which are similar in operation to a recorder. He'smade about 35 of these long, wooden flutes.

Just like the fret boards on the guitars, these mahoganycreations must be crafted just right. Each of the inner chambers ofthe flute must be precisely carved to produce just the right musicalpitch.

The flute is constructed in two parts.

"You carve out the chambers and you put it together like a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich," he said.

Loudermilk will say he's no musician, but don't believe it. Oneminute he's sporting his homemade brass slide and jamming out ablues riff on the steel string, and the next he's singing a three-chord folk song on the nylon string ukulele. Then he can round outwith a few bars of "Amazing Grace" on the Native American flute.

On those long nights during the waning days of the legislativesession, Loudermilk says the music is a great way to ease thetension.

He has a favorite spot picked out in the Capitol for optimumacoustics: the Great Hall, just outside the House of Delegates andSenate chambers.

"It's like, you can play and it's just unbelievable with all thegranite and marble," he said.

With those hard, reflective surfaces, he gets about six seconds'worth of echo, just the right amount of reverb. He said the GreatHall is much better than right under the Rotunda, where there isactually too much echo, which can drown out whatever is beingplayed.

Like many other Capitol staffers, Loudermilk needs something totake his mind off the often-intense legislative process.

"It's really more about rest and relaxation more than anythingfor me," he said. He has worked at the statehouse since 1984.

Loudermilk doesn't limit himself to musical instruments. He hasmade a variety of wooden items over the years, none more visiblethan the ones he created for the leaders of both houses of theLegislature.

When House Speaker Rick Thompson, D-Wayne, was elected to thatpost in 2007, Thompson's wife, Beth, entrusted Loudermilk with thejob of creating the speaker's gavel.

He was tapped by Senate staffers earlier this year to create anew gavel for acting Senate President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall.

He was asked to make a large one.

So he spent two weekends designing and crafting the new walnutand maple gavel and a sounding block to go with it in the small shopat his Charleston home.

On the day it was given to the Kessler, Loudermilk said hesneaked into the back of the Senate Chamber to watch the leader'sreaction.

"When he came in, he didn't see it at first," Loudermilk said.

But then another senator walked to the president's podium anddrew Kessler's attention to the new addition.

"His eyes got real big; he was quite surprised," Loudermilk said.

BOB WOJCIESZAK/DAILY MAIL PHOTOS Dennis Loudermilk dreams ofmaking a hand-crafted guitar, but to hone his skills he turned firstto a Depression-era craft of making guitars from cigar boxes. Andyes, he can play them - even hook them to an amplifier if he wishes.

Loudermilks real job at the state Capitol Complex is to maintainthe state Legislatures website. But the longtime state employee alsois a craftsman who has been tapped to make gavels for two Senatepresidents. This one recently was finished for acting SenatePresident Jeff Kessler.

Loudermilk stores his carefully crafted cigar box guitars inspecial cases.

Contact writer Jared Hunt at jared.hunt@dailymail.com or 304-348-5148.