Not only does the world have more than one museum dedicated to the kazoo, but several famous musicians have used the instrument in song. The Beatles, Wilco, Jimi Hendrix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, Cheap Trick and Portishead…just to name a few. In case you don’t already know, a kazoo is is a wind instrument that modifies the player’s vocals with a buzzing timbre sound.
South of Buffalo, New York is the town of Eden, the “Kazoo Capital of the World”. The local kazoo-manufacturing company has been in operation since 1916. It is North America’s only metal-producing kazoo factory still using original equipment. At their Kazoo Museum, you can check out liquor bottle-shaped kazoos; which were made to celebrate the end of prohibition; kazoos made of wood, silver and gold as well as everything you ever wanted to know about kazoo history.
The other Kazoo Museum is in Beaufort, South Carolina. This museum is also associated with a factory, but the plastic kind. Before its move to the south, Boaz Frankel’s collection was once located in Seattle and Portland. I like this one because I can take home a souvenir kazoo.
