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The rooms of Eddie Osborne’s home in Miami contain musical instruments
from throughout the African world. Shelves and corners are filled with
assorted West African drums and lutes, Central African marimbas, and one-string
instruments from Brazil and the American South. All of the instruments
are made by Osborne and represent years of study of transatlantic cultural
connections.
Osborne was born in Griffin, Georgia, in 1946. “In my family, there
was always an awareness of African ancestry,” he notes. “My
interest in things African started with language. Because learning of
the African origins of words that I grew up hearing in Georgia led to
wanting to explore other connections, including musical instruments.”
At Friday night fish fries and other social occasions, he encountered
hand-made instruments, such as glasses of water struck with spoons and
drums made by stretching animal skins over nail kegs. From his father
he learned about the one-string diddly bow of Mississippi and the one-string
gut-bucket bass that used to be played in Griffin and other communities.
Eventually, he fashioned a single-string lute from a cigar box and began
to make keg drums himself.
Over the years Osborne became increasingly interested in the African
antecedents of such instruments. A particularly important experience was
a trip to Spain in 1970, which offered him the opportunity to meet musicians
from several African countries. In 1971 he settled in Miami and, by the
end of the decade, began making instruments on a regular basis. Childhood
memories, books and conversations with other musicians have all provided
him with models for instruments. He states: “I oftentimes will see
an instrument and, because I’m familiar with something that’s similar
to it and can make that, I will transfer that knowledge to a new instrument.”
In his home workshop, Osborne continues to experiment with a wide array
of instrument materials and designs. He makes a gut-bucket bass by attaching
a flexible stick to an inverted wash tub and running a string from the
top of the stick to the center of the tub. His diddly bow consists of
a banjo string nailed to the ends of a small board, with a spool or other
object serving as a bridge. An akam, based on models from Senegal and
Cameroon, has a body made from a goat skin stretched over a wooden bowl
and a neck consisting of four curved sticks. Kite strings provide the
primary tones, while a secondary buzzing sound is produced by a piece
of a Vienna sausage can with metal rings. A Central African style marimba
has hardwood keys of different lengths, suspended on foam rubber above
a plywood sound box. In addition to making these and numerous other instruments
for musicians and collectors, Osborne uses them in educational workshops
on African cultural heritage. “My whole desire,” he states,
“is to show that we didn’t just stop being African at some point
in this country.”
— Stephen Stuempfle
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