There once was a man named Herbert Kaury who was more popularly known as Tiny Tim. At a time when it was not unusual to be unusual, Herbert was truly unusual.
He was born in 1932 and discovered a love for the music of another age. In fact he became an archivist, a one man repository of obscure knowlege of composers and performers.
Though he had a quite normal speaking voice, one day, singing along with his beloved 78 records, he discovered that he had another voice...
Tiny Tim became a fixture in Boston and New york in the early 60's, obsessively performing in coffee houses, or where ever he was allowed to be on a stage. He developed a cult following and released a few records as an Atlantic recording artist. He did have a major #1 single in 1968 with his falsetto rendition of Tiptoe Through The Tulips.
I’m reading the latest Thomas Pynchon book, Inherent Vice, and he makes reference to this song.
It’s like Tiny Tim is tripping on acid, entertaining children, and predicting global warming — all at once.
We'll never know what the children in the video were thinking at the time.....
4 comments:
Thanks, microdot, for the memories. Kaury was clearly gifted in both that odd voice and the substance of his songs.
Here we are in 2009 reading about the Greenland ice melting at record rates, while we Americans cry over the exit of Oprah in 2011.
I quite enjoyed the poke at Noah in Kaury's song, 'to wash away our sins.'
Those kids are now in their late 40's and it would be curious to find out how that song impacted their lives. Did any become research scientists? How many are fundamentalist-literalists?
Or, maybe it didn't do anything but scare them with his odd facial gestures and long mane.
Hello Microdot,
I just showed my 15 year old daughter this clip. How bizarre he was! I would have loved to see a political debate between Sarah Palin and Tiny Tim…I think that they would be in such parody because they have the same act don’t they?
I have recently spoken of Tiny Tim to a few people who were around in Greenwich Village when he was a regular in the Coffee Houses.
He really did live in his own alternate reality. He lived apart, in his world of music. People who conversed with him said that once he began to speak of his music, he became like a college professor and was totally focused and instantly able to supply performers names, their songs, composers, anecdotes, historical trivia...
Yet, he would show up with his pasty powdered face and ukelele in a shopping bag and be happy with what ever paltry sum he was given just for the privelege of being allowed to perform.
I don't know, Mr. Engineer, where the comparison with Palin comes in, except for a love of the stage...
She is a true media pig...
He was an obsessive innocent.
Thanks Micro. I loved that video and was amazed at the "ice caps melting" line. What a character he was. I remember seeing him on Es Sullivan when I was 15 or so.
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