NATURALLY all of your tunes will be either ‘sweet’, or ‘smoking’, if the guitars are made out of biscuit tins and cigar boxes.

Or at least that’s the theory for Colne musician Andrew Deighton, who has mined inspiration from the original Delta bluesmen for his six-string creations.

Back in the Depression era, struggling artistes used whatever came to hand and fashioned their instruments accordingly.

Even guitar wizard Jimi Hendrix, long before the days of Purple Haze and Voodoo Chile, started his strummings on a cigar box guitar.

Andrew said he started making the instruments after disaster struck at a gig, which was part of the town’s blues festival last year.

The 30-year-old, of Ellesmere Avenue, who has a foundation degree in music production, said: “I was taking part in the showcase for the Jessica Foxley stage.

"I was using a guitar which I’d repaired and glued the neck back in place.

"But throughout the course of the gig the neck kept moving out. It was one of those things.

“So I went online, trying to find out how to repair guitars and I found some pages from America which explained all about cigar box instruments.”

Andrew said the more he researched the different types of instruments made from cast-off boxes, the more determined he became to create his own line of home-made guitars.

Andrew, a former Park High School pupil, who counts original blues legend Robert Johnson and former busker Seasick Steve among his heroes, is now selling his guitars at the Ethiko store and Uncle Neil’s music shop, in Colne.

“The cigar box guitar sounds very much like the old blues recordings you hear, but the biscuit tin guitar gives a much louder and brighter sound,” added Andrew.

The Jessica Foxley Stage was launched in memory of the budding musician and Colne Muni box office worker, who was killed in a car crash in July 2009.