Festival of the Rivers 2004, in Hinton, West Virginia, featured Tomi-O and dozens of cigar box guitar builders, players and enthusiasts! Delta Fox played bass with Cigar Box Guitar Slim and the Porch Pilots, and Tommy is seen holding the cigar box bass guitar that Delta Fox built.

During Festival of the Rivers, Tomi-O helped forty-eight people assemble and play a simple 3-string guitar--using a humble cigar box and real ingenuity. From Congressmen to first graders, all of Tommy's graduates had great fun, took home a cigar box guitar, and Tomi-O's class has now become a mainstay for future Festival of the Rivers!

Congressmen Nick Rahall and Hinton News Editor Fred Long, class of 2004! Our local newspaper was very supportive of this international music event, and the Congressmen has formally endorsed Festival of the Rivers as a valuable cultural experience and an asset to the community of Hinton.

Front page of the Hinton News (September 7, 2004). "Rahall decided to participate in the first class that was being taught by Tommy Hartwell of Hinton. Rahall was also being introduced to the cigar box guitar for the first time and, once he had assembled his /CBG/, enjoyed strumming it for the TV camera, saying seldom has he had such fun."

Doc Williamson, a blues piano player and cigar box guitar enthusiast, is shown holding Tomi-O's very first double-neck cigar box guitar... a priceless piece that will never be duplicated!

Tomi-O with Ralph Hartwell and Rosco McGhee, standing outside Beach Road Records (of Virginia Beach, Virginia), right before recording a third amateur record.

Chris Hartwell of Panama City, Florida, playing his Tomi-O cigar box guitar.

Boz (from Michigan) with his Tomi-O cigar box guitar that he purchased at the Festival of the Rivers 2004.