Tiny Tim
(Collectors' Choice Music)
The rehabilitation of Tiny Tim's legacy - from weirdo novelty artist with a bizarre falsetto to gifted American original - has been going on ever since his death in 1996. He's now becoming recognized as a sort of Harry Smith of Tin Pan Alley, a man who cherished, discovered and preserved old standards when nobody else was interested. It would have been nice if he could have benefited more from it while alive; he spent a lot of his last years paying bills by grinding out amusing versions of rock hits like "Highway to Hell" and performing, his trusted ukulele by his side, songs from the early 20th Century American songbook in less than optimum club situations.
One of the posthumous albums that has emerged - 2003's Tiny Tim Live! At the Royal Albert Hall, a 1968 show with an orchestra directed by Richard Perry - shows just how enchantingly magical he could be, with his extensive range and intonations, behind musicians capable of as much coloration instrumentally as he had vocally. Had he lived to see this respect for his work, he more than likely would be performing with pops orchestras around the world today, a revered if eccentric musical figure. His "standards" albums would be perennial sales generators, if not quite as big as Susan Boyle.
The recently released I've Never Seen a Straight Banana (Collectors' Choice Music) isn't an album of Royal Albert Hall musical importance, but it does have its charms. Best of all, it's not out to exploit Tiny Tim's weirdness, but rather to let him enjoy himself - and some of his favorite songs and stories - in a natural, intimate environment. He responds free of shtick, offering a glimpse into how much he loved his music.
The album has an unusual story, which echoes a bit the Robert Johnson recording sessions in a San Antonio hotel. In 1976, a 16-year-old Richard Barone - who would go on to be in the Bongos and have a subsequent solo career - wasn't able to get into a Tiny Tim show at a TraveLodge bar in Tampa because he was underage. But he and two female friends listened from the lobby. The singer emerged after the show, asked them what they thought, and when they said they couldn't get in to watch he invited them up to his motel room for an unrushed private audience, just him and his ukulele. Barone returned the next night with a stereo tape deck to record another relaxed motel-room show.
Tiny Tim introduces the provenance of each song, and changes his flexible voice to recall each original (and obscure) singer of his material, be it Billy Murray, Henry Burr, Byron G. Harlan, Lewis James and other forgotten names of the recording industry's early days. He also performs and explains some of his own compositions, including his mash note to Tuesday Weld, "Dear Tuesday," and "You Are Heaven Here on Earth," written for a "Miss Snooky" that he met while performing at a Greenwich Village bar "where the girls liked each other" in 1963. (Tiny Tim had a very complicated relationship with women.)
Although the CD's liner notes are unclear on this point, it appears Barone got Tiny Tim into a studio on a return visit for several more songs. But the material thereafter just sat there while Barone began a career and Tiny Tim ended one, never released until now. Barone has fiddled with the recordings a bit - to the detriment of historic authenticity yet at the same time showing his good taste in arrangements. Added is a string arrangement featuring Deni Bonet to a mysteriously dreamy song called "What Strange God Designed Me?," which may be a Tiny Tim original. He also added backing vocals to the comic title song, a perky vaudeville relic; and an accordion part by Bonet to a 1930 ballad, "With My Guitar," that sounds very much like Edith Piaf's "La Vie en Rose." Tiny Tim plays guitar on it, a rarity, and sings in a high-tenor-to-falsetto range that is remarkably sweet and heartfelt. His tiny motel-room audience breaks out in spontaneous applause after he finishes.
By now, Tiny Tim's friendship with Bob Dylan is well-known - Dylan wrote about it in Chronicles and Tiny Tim sings about it on Royal Albert Hall. But he gives Barone and friends a funny account of being a guest at Dylan's home, punctuated with him singing a snippet of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" in Rudy Vallee's delicate croon and then doing Vallee's "My Time Is Your Time" with Dylan's stretched-out, drawling enunciation. The story ends with Tiny Tim recounting that Dylan offered him a banana and he replied, "No, I have my own fruits."
Oddly, Tampa was very good to Tiny Tim. One of his last albums, Prisoner of Love, took place there in late 1994, when University of South Florida music teacher Paul Reller assembled an orchestra to back him on a tribute to the crooner Russ Columbo, a contemporary of Bing Crosby and Vallee who died in a 1934 shooting accident. In a splendid voice close to Columbo's own gentle baritone, clearly comfortable with the care and respect he was being given, Tiny Tim responded with one of his best performances ever. It would be wonderful if, as interest in Tiny Tim continues, this would be reissued.
Standout Tracks: "Prelude (What Strange God Designed Me?)," "With My Guitar." STEVEN ROSEN
