[Ads-l] Kazoo Old Wive's Tale

[Jonathan Lighter]

Sugg. by _Corporal Si Klegg and his "Pard"_, by Wilbur F. Hinman (1887),
possibly consulted by Stephen Crane?

JL

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 3:19 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I've found an interesting connection between Pink Floyd and the old wives'
> tale about the origin of the kazoo.
>
>
> The story goes that the kazoo was invented by a black man from Georgia
> named Alabama Vest recruited a German clockmaker named Thaddeus Von Clegg
> to manufacture the first kazoo, and they exhibited it at the 1850 Georgia
> State Fair in Macon, Georgia.
>
>
> Sadly, that story has found its way into a few serious-minded cultural
> history books.
>
>
> The story is almost certainly a fabrication by the Kaminsky International
> Kazoo Quartet, who had five members, performed with another trio called the
> Fie-on-the-Arts Trio, and none of whom were named Kaminsky.  When they
> performed at Alice Tully Hall in New York City in 1977, they gave several
> interviews with mostly tongue-in-cheek responses - the Von Clegg story was
> one of those.  The members had all studied at the Eastman School of Music
> and performed as a group at a picnic in Rochester NY as early as 1972.
>
>
> But why the name Von Clegg?   I just learned the Pink Floyd had a song
> called "Corporal Clegg" that prominently features a bunch of kazoos.  Funny
> stuff.
>
>
> https://youtu.be/Idffmc8KuMg?t=187
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org