Way back in 1968-69, I was fortunate enough to spend a day and night (ALL night, consuming plenty of gin and reefer) hanging out with Fred McDowell when he came to play at my white-bread college. By then, he had (I suppose) graduated from the masking-taped-together cheap acoustic mentioned above to a nice cheap Sears Silvertone hollowbody electric. Even unplugged, Fred could play the shit out of that thing, easily making himself heard above my rudimentary accompaniment on a full-bodied acoustic box (D-18 Martin).

I suppose part of what makes a cheap guitar cheap is the nasty high action (i.e., not having to fine-tune the action, or even to assure that the neck is dead flat). When you play nothing but slide, of course, you don't need or want the same nice low action that a "regular" playing is looking for, and an inexpensive intrument can serve you quite well, and can be made to sound *very* good by the right musician.

Fred's Silvertone was made to look like a BB-King model Gibson, with that big round red hollow body. There are still inexpensive electric guitars being sold under the name Silvertone, but no longer as a Sears & Roebuck product. Nowadays, they're still red, but they are made to resemble Stratocasters (solid body) instead of the earlier hollowbody model.