Played in Africa’s backyards for decades, the oilcan guitar is making its debut on world music stages after an entrepreneur and guitar enthusiast from South Africa started to manufacture stage-quality instruments.
Local musicians like Valiant Swart and David Kramer, who have used the guitars in shows, think it is the unique African look, together with a quality that makes it good enough to play on stage, that will make it world famous.
Manufacturer Graeme Wells has made the guitar electrical and fitted it with top-quality parts, offering a distinctive-looking instrument that plays well and can easily be compared to cheaper, professional guitars.
His guitars are even good enough for Madiba. Wells made Nelson Mandela a guitar for his recent 84th birthday and it is currently at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, where it will be handed over to him.
Wells started Afri-Can Guitars in pursuit of a lifelong dream to ”own an African oilcan guitar that plays well”.
Today, in a small workshop in Bellville, near Cape Town, he produces up to 130 guitars a month. He is the only tin guitar producer in South Africa.
His business is based on respect and love for the African oilcan guitar.
The guitars have proved popular among local musicians like Sons of Trout, Blk Sonshine, Steve Hofmeyr, Dozi and Thys Striegher alias ”Die Bosveldklong” and celebrities like comedian Barry Hilton and Alex Jay of 5fm.
Internationally the message is spreading. With companies like Shell and Castrol wild about the guitars (their names appear on several of the oilcans), visiting groups like Spyro Gyra and UB40 received guitars as corporate gifts. And orders are streaming in from musicians from Germany and the United Kingdom, who have heard about the guitars.
Two types of guitars are manufactured: the tourist version, decorated with the South African flag, and the professional version, fitted with high-quality guitar parts.
Valiant Swart says good construction and expensive materials ”make the guitar more than a curio”.
”The Afri-Can Guitar will probably not take over from the Fenders and Gibsons of the world, but I don’t know of a musician who is aware of it who doesn’t want one himself,” he says.
But it is definitely also the unique look and sound of the guitar that makes it a sought-after instrument. Swart fell in love with his guitar the moment he saw it, while Kramer thinks there is a life in the inter- national music world for the guitars because they play well and have an unusual look.
Artists can choose the look they want for their guitar. Swart’s guitar has Windhoek Lager beer lids for volume control and he will soon get a Tassenberg version.
Wells’s enthusiasm for guitars regularly leads him to invent something new that makes the production of the guitars easier. He has invented a new guitar neck from wood and aluminum and came up with the idea for a unique pickup — also cheaper and easier to manufacture.
Soon he will introduce an amplifier manufactured from an oilcan that will enable a musician to play the electric guitar anywhere. And because Kramer, who calls himself ”the original Blik musician”, was one of the first musicians playing with an oilcan guitar, a series of David Kramer Blik Guitars will also be introduced.
However, the best is yet to come. Wells has drawn up plans for a space guitar — if his dream comes true it will be the first to be played in space — and is developing a guitar that can fold up and be carried in an oilcan for the bundu-bashing musician.