Macon, the birthplace of the kazoo, will once again try to set world record for largest kazoo band

BEAUFORT, S.C. — On most days, Nancy Havey does not wear a string of pearls around her neck.

Instead, she keeps a colorful kazoo attached to a solid, red lanyard. In a moment of joy on the sidewalks of Beaufort, she might break into a kazoo rendition of the circus theme song. Or toot “America the Beautiful” on her kazoo while mailing something at the post office.

Havey enjoys putting smiles on people’s faces … especially children.

One morning last week, she entertained 40 first-graders at the Kazoo Museum & Factory, where she is a tour guide. They browsed the museum’s exhibits, which feature one of the largest kazoo collections in the world and includes a large, American flag on the wall, created with 2,376 red, white and blue kazoos.

Havey showed a short documentary, where the children learned the kazoo was invented in Macon in the 1840s by Alabama Vest, an African American man, who took his specifications to Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German American clockmaker. 

The instrument was exhibited at the Georgia State Fair in 1852, and the collaboration of the two men attracted the attention of a traveling salesman named Emil Sorg. It was sold to a toy manufacturer and manufactured under the name Down Home Submarine. (The name “kazoo” was not coined until 1916.)

Havey also gave the first-graders a tour of the Kazoobie Kazoos factory, where about 1 million kazoos are assembled, imprinted and packaged every year, then distributed to all 50 states and more than three dozen countries. As part of the tour, students got to make their own kazoos.

The school kids had no sooner climbed back onto the bus — where their teachers wisely made them put their souvenir kazoos in their pockets for the trip home — when Havey was back in the factory, helping her co-workers fill a large order.

The 10,000 kazoos were part of an extra-special special order. They were being delivered to Visit Macon, which will celebrate  National Kazoo Day on Tuesday, Jan. 28 with a major announcement. 

The city will make its third attempt at setting the record for world’s largest kazoo band on Friday, March 28 at the Atrium Health Amphitheater as part of the Cherry Blossom Festival. 

Tickets will be $5 per person, which includes a souvenir kazoo and a keepsake commemorative card – providing Macon breaks the record. 

According to Marisa Rodgers, director of marketing at Visit Macon, there will be musical entertainment at the amphitheater, which seats 10,000. Gates will open at 4 p.m. The event begins at 6 p.m. The crowd will play a medley on the kazoo from the works of Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers, Little Richard and possibly James Brown.

Proceeds will go to the Otis Redding Foundation and the Otis Redding Center for the Arts.

The current Guinness World Record holder for the largest kazoo ensemble is 5,190 participants at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the BBC Radio 3’s “Red Nose Show.’’

Another 2,700 kazoos were ordered from the kazoo factory in Beaufort and will be used for a pop-up exhibit, including an archway, at Macon’s Tubman African American Museum as part of Black History Month in February. Rick Hubbard, founder of Kazoobie Kazoos, will be in Macon for the Tubman press conference.

Stephen Murray,  the CEO of Kazoobie Kazoos and the former mayor of Beaufort, said he was excited when the big order from Macon came in … but not just from a business standpoint.

“It pulls at my heartstrings for a number of reasons,’’ he said. “One, I’m a Southern boy. I’m a seventh-generation Carolinian, and I love the fact that the kazoo was invented right up the road in Macon. I’m a big Allman Brothers fan.

“I also like the multicultural origin story … a freed slave and immigrant German clockmaker getting together with the technical know-how and creating this thing we are still playing more than 160 years later.’’

(There is another cultural connection with the Tubman museum, the largest of its kind in the Southeast devoted to African American art, culture and history. Tubman, an escaped slave and abolitionist, was never in Macon but lived in Beaufort in the 1860s. A monument was placed on Craven Street in her honor last year.)

“We’ve been part of a number of record attempts, and our kazoos once held the record,’’ Murray said. “The BBC reached out and got a little over 5,000. We are happy they set the record but frustrated that a kazoo invented in America is an English record.’’

Macon made unsuccessful attempts at setting the record in 2007 and 2008.

The first came on Sept. 27, 2007, at Luther Williams Field as part of the now-defunct Georgia State Fair at Central City Park.  Although the ballpark appeared to be at full capacity, which would have put the figure at more than 3,500, the number of signatures collected at the gate was only 2,002. The crowd was made up of people from 53 Georgia cities and towns and 11 states, and as far away as California and New York.

At the time, the unofficial world record was 2,679, set on Dec. 31, 2006, in Rochester, New York.

The song selected for the record-breaking attempt was Otis Redding’s  “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” Barbara Stewart, the country’s leading authority on kazoos, traveled to Macon to lead the chorus and certify the results. Dave Price, a national weatherman for CBS-TV’s “The Early Show,” was also in attendance. Adrian Gnam, who was director of the Macon Symphony at the time, led the kazoo chorus.

A year later, on Sept. 25, 2008, only 717 people turned out at Luther Williams Field in a second attempt. Disappointed organizers had hoped for about 4,000 in an effort to top the mark of 3,840 set at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, on Nov. 17, 2007.

Murray is in his 25th year working for the kazoo company he now owns and has a collection of antique kazoos. He is excited about the prospects of Macon getting to hang its hat on the world record.

“For me, it checks a lot of boxes,’’ Murray said. “I really want to bring that record back to America. And it would be exciting to see it happen in Macon, the birthplace of the kazoo.’’

Over the years, efforts have been made to debunk the Macon narrative that credits the city as the cradle of the kazoo. Some references have been made to it as “legend’’ rather something documented in the history books.

Some credit is given to American inventor Warren Herbert Frost as the godfather of the instrument after he gave the toy instrument its name and patented it in 1883. The submarine-shaped kazoo was patented 19 years later by George Smith of Buffalo, New York, and the Original American Kazoo Company opened its doors in 1916 ­— the same year as Macon’s famous Nu-Way Weiners – began mass production of the instrument.

Even the museum’s curator, Boaz Frankel, raises questions about the Macon origin story in one of the
exhibits.

“According to our research, this story comes from an article published in a 1951 issue of a British music magazine,’’ it reads on the display. “It’s possible that the article was a humor piece and these names and details were simply made up. Though there was a Georgia State Fair in 1852, there is no record of Vest or Von Clegg in any census records and no mention of the kazoo in any newspaper coverage of the fair.’’

Stewart, however, gave the Macon account credibility, when she wrote about Vest and Von Clegg on page 3 of her book “The Complete How To Kazoo” in a chapter titled “Kazoo Roots.’’

Murray called Frankel  a “smart guy who does his homework.’’ Frankel has helped design the upcoming exhibit at the Tubman in Macon. 

He also lauded Stewart, who died in 2011, as a “remarkable woman.’’ He said her theory is believable. His company has sold thousands of her books, and he always takes a copy of it with him when he is invited to speak at schools.

“In the video, we give Alabama and Thaddeus a lot of credit,’’ Murray said. “For us, we like keeping the story alive at the museum. It’s like, ‘OK, well if it’s not the Macon story then what is it?’ ”