Tiny Tim

God Bless Tiny Tim Coloured edition

If you think, based on "Tiptoe Thru' the Tulips

with Me" and his nationally televised marriage

to Miss Vicki on The Tonight Show, that Tiny

Tim was a mere novelty act, think again.

Behind that ukulele, pasty white make-up,

falsetto, and prominent proboscis was a

serious scholar of American music, perhaps

the only performer of the '60s (and certainly

the only performer of his age group) keeping

the torch alive for songs from vaudeville and

Tin Pan Alley. Tim (born Herbert Buckingham

Khaury) also was blessed with a stupendous

vocal range, from baritone to his trademark

falsetto, and was adept on not just ukulele but guitar, mandolin, and violin. Even with

all that talent, though, had Tiny Tim just made a straight '20s trad jazz/pop/folk album

for his debut record, God Bless Tiny Tim would not be the stone-cold cult classic

it is today. But the album married Tim's innate eccentricity with stupendously lush

production from Richard Perry, who was fresh from working on Captain Beefheart's

debut, Safe as Milk, and would go on to produce everybody from Diana Ross to Rod

Stewart. With Perry's production, and Artie Butler's arrangements, God Bless Tiny Tim

featured an incredible assortment of instruments, from didgeridoo to koto to celeste

to tympani, with nary a ukulele to be found on many of the tracks. Furthermore, the

album was sprinkled with some of the psychedelic fairy dust that was in the air at the

time (1968), full of non sequiturs both verbal and musical (like the cover of Sonny

Bono's "I Got You Babe"). The result: an album that stands outside of time, defying

categorization or description. Now, Real Gone Music is releasing God Bless Tiny Tim

on LP in an oh-so-appropriate yellow "tulip" vinyl edition limited to 700 copies. This

record belongs in any serious--or not-so-serious!--record collection.