Andrew Tracey, Son of Hugh Tracey, Has Left This Earth. But He Left Us His Karimbas.
That is Andrew Tracey when I met him in 2008, with a photo of his father Hugh Tracey (circa 1960) looking over his shoulder. These two men are giants in the kalimba world. Their work is related to the preservation and understanding of the African kalimba family of instruments, and the creation of new kalimba designs. Hugh Tracey spent decades traveling about southern Africa, recording, learning, and documenting the various traditional African instruments he encountered in the hinterlands. And of course, he made the world’s first kalimba business in 1954: African Musical Instruments (AMI). However, it was largely through the work of his sons, Andrew and Paul Tracey, that the