When most people think of the kazoo, they think of a funny, buzzy instrument (often considered a toy) used for happy and comic purposes. Kazoos have been around for a long time, dating back to the middle 1800s. Kazoos have seen some time in the professional limelight – they have appeared on hit songs by Del Shannon, Dion, Joannie Sommers and Ringo Starr; and have also been used on recordings by such artists as the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix (who used a makeshift comb-and-paper instrument based on the same premise as the kazoo on the song “Crosstown Traffic”), Arctic Monkeys, Steel Panther, and live acoustic performances by Ghost.
And your Professor has become a kazoo fancier over the years. If you’ve seen me perform with my acoustic group the Backyard Rockers, you may have seen me play the kazoo on songs like Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock.”
Several years ago, I found out about the Original American Kazoo Company, which was the first American manufacturer of metal kazoos, and now the last one remaining. It is now housed inside the Kazoo Boutique, Factory & Museum in Eden, New York (a few miles south of Buffalo). During my recent sojourn to the Erie area, I did the one-hour-plus pilgrimage to Eden to check it out!
The front part of the building is a gift shop, with the kazoo factory in the back. The lady in charge eagerly told several other visitors and me about the history of kazoos and the factory itself. All kazoos are handmade, with parts manufactured on site with belt-driven machinery. The museum contains some of their original kazoos plus other kazoo artifacts – including several kazoos made in the shapes of classic liquor bottles in 1934 to celebrate the end of Prohibition!
Not surprisingly, I ended up purchasing two kazoos, one an original design metal kazoo, and a plastic “Happy Birthday” kazoo that will be my instrument of choice during my trivia nights when I lead the audience in singing “Happy Birthday” to birthday celebrants! (I considered buying more kazoos, as several are created in different shapes and motifs, such as a railroad steam engine, a race car, airplane, french horns, trombones, and even corn on the cob!
The pictures below show some of the things I described, plus a teenager manufacturing his own kazoo with the museum’s curator assisting. (Anybody can make their own at the museum; it’s a fairly simple process, and costs just $5.99.)
I am elated that I was able to visit here, and if you’re ever in the neighborhood, this is well worth checking out!
