Kazoo trivia: Macon, look what you gave the world

— Barbara Stewart was perhaps the most well-known kazooist in the world. She performed at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as on “The Tonight Show” and “Prairie Home Companion.” She also appeared on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” Her 2006 interview can be found on YouTube.

— Wearing a tuxedo and a top hat, Stewart joined the festivities at Luther Williams Field  in Macon in 2007 when the city tried to set the world record for the world’s largest kazoo band.  She wrote the best-selling “How To Kazoo” book and once petitioned Congress to make the kazoo the “national instrument.” 

— The kazoo made it to the stage of the biggest musical event of the 20th century when the psychedelic rock band Country Joe and the Fish included it in the song “Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” at the Woodstock music festival in 1969. 

— Actress Carol Burnett played a bugle version of the kazoo on the song “Easy Street” in her role as  Miss Hannigan in the 1982 movie “Annie.” 

— Using a comb and tissue paper, legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix devised a homemade kazoo when he recorded “Crosstown Traffic”on his third album, “Electric Ladyland” in 1967. 

— Adriano Lameira, a primatologist and evolutionary psychologist from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, did a 2019 study on the evolution of speech in humans. He gave kazoos to six orangutans at the Indianapolis Zoo. Although several of the kazoos were “destroyed” during  the experiment, some orangutans demonstrated “active voicing,’’ something scientists originally thought was capable only by humans.

 — Famous conductor Leonard Bernstein played the kazoo on several episodes of his CBS special “Young People’s Concerts.’’ He was conducting the New York Philharmonic on stage at Carnegie Hall when he invited opera singer Anita Darian to play her kazoo at a concert for young people and their families. (Fun fact: Darian was also the voice behind the ‘wordless’ high-pitched vocals on the 1961 song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens.) 

— The January 2021 issue of Garden & Gun magazine references  the story of Robert Burns, a Marine officer stationed on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1910. Burns got the attention of his platoon, the magazine said, by “playing what he called a ‘bazooka’ kazoo fashioned out of a stove pipe and a whiskey funnel.”  The magazine said soldiers during World War II referred to anti-tank weapons as “bazookas” because of the resemblance to Burns’ instrument.

— Richard Sherman, an Academy Award-winning songwriter, played the kazoo in the animated penguin dance scene with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in the 1964 movie “Mary Poppins.’’ Sherman and his brother, Robert, wrote the musical scores for many Walt Disney films. Their best-known work is the theme park tune, “It’s a Small World,’’ which Time magazine called the “most publicly performed song in history.’’

— Fred Rogers played the kazoo on “London Bridge is Falling Down” for an episode of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” in August 1992. He was accompanied by American singer-songwriter Ella Jenkins.  Jenkins, who was sometimes referred to as the “first lady of children’s music” often carried a kazoo with her when she toured. She died in 2024 at age 100.

— Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, produced a Canadian Broadcasting Company special called “Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas.’’ The hour-long show was about a band of woodland characters who wanted to compete in a talent show. The music featured kazoos, with the musical score by composer Paul Williams.

— Paul McCartney, of The Beatles, is credited in the liner notes as playing a solo on the kazoo on Ringo Starr’s “You’re Sixteen,’’ which was released in December 1973 and was Starr’s last No. 1 hit.  (A reviewer later reported that the song’s producer, Richard Perry, admitted it was not actually a kazoo. Still, it remains one of the few No. 1 songs to feature a kazoo sound.)

— The video game “Minecraft’’ features the high-pitched sounds of kazoos. Some of the animals in the video game make  kazoo-like sounds.

— Big Dave’s Fish Caller was once a popular gag gift – a kazoo equipped with a funnel that could be lowered into the water to attract fish.

— There is a kazoo solo at the end of singer Dionne Warwick’s “This Girl’s In Love With You.’’ You also can hear a kazoo solo on the song “Collegiana” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, as well as on the 1961 hit song “So Long Baby” by Del Shannon and the 1962 song “Little Diane” by Dion DiMucci.

— During the 2019 Grammys, Facebook premiered a commercial that featured the International Kazoo Players Association. Thanks to the exposure on national television, membership in the association grew from 500 to more than 8,000 in just a few weeks.

— Kazoos were used on the instrumental break of the song “Jugband Blues” by English rock band Pink Floyd on the group’s second album, “A Saucerful of Secrets,’’ which was released in 1968. Kazoos also formed a horn section on the 1996 song “Roller Coaster’’ by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

— Even country artists have climbed aboard the kazoo train. There are a kazoo solos on Toby Keith’s 2006 song “Brand New Bow.’’

— Although there are no kazoos playing on the tune,  they are mentioned in the lyrics to the hit song “Down on the Corner” by Creedence Clearwater Revival  in 1969.

— On the cover version of “San Francisco Bay Blues’’ on his 1991 album “Unplugged,’’ guitarist Eric Clapton plays the kazoo. 

— Members of The Grateful Dead struck up a kazoo band on their 1968 album “Anthem of the Sun,’’ and the kazoo is prominently featured on the 1969 song “She Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina”  by the Kinks. 

 — Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor brought out the kazoos for the 1974 song “Seaside Rendezvous” from the album “A Night at the Opera.’’  

— Members of The Partridge Family played the kazoo on the band’s 1970s comedy show on ABC-TV. 

— A kazoo solo is featured on the soundtrack to the 1987 movie “Raising Arizona.’’ 

— Folk singers Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger played kazoos while visiting the hospital room of Woody Guthrie (“This Land is Your Land”) in a scene from the movie “Alice’s Restaurant.’’