Dr. D's Tribute to Tiny Tim
David D.T. Tanny
Hello:
This past 12/1/96 on KSCA, Dr. Demento paid a five-minute tribute to Tiny Tim.
Although this segment won't air until next year and for the benefit
of the fans who don't wish to be spoiled by looking at the playlist for
an upcoming show 1/19/97 (my sister Carolyn's birthday BTW) just to see
what was said, I'll post the segment here.
d.t.
And now, we say goodbye to Tiny Tim, by Dr. Demento
Dr. D begins the tribute by playing an excerpt from his "Tiptoe Thru
The Tulips"
Tiny Tim was singing that song at a benefit concert in his adopted
hometown of Minneapolis on Nov 30 1996 when he collapsed onstage. He was
rushed to the hospital where he died of cardiac arrest.
Were not quite sure how old he was, but mid to late 60s is a good guess,
so he would have been in his late 30's when he recorded the above song
as part of the album "God Bless Tiny Tim" in 1968.
He'd been singing that and other songs for many years before anybody
got around making a record of him, but that "God Bless" album exqusitely
produced by Richard Parry made him an overnight celebrity, and his wedding
to Miss Vicki on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on Dec 17, 1969,
was one of the most watched latenight television events of all time.
To most folks, Tiny Tim was a larger than life cartoon character,
perfectly designed for 15 minutes of fame, especially in the 1960s. His
odd appearance and his quaint old song with his ukelele and his manner of
being so formally polite and respectful to everyone he met or spoke about
calling everyone Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, and of course there were all his
little eccentric habits real and rumored.
In any case, the media used him up and spit him out, soon there was no
more network TV, no more major label records, but Tiny Tim still had a whole
lot more music in him, a whole lot more entertainment in him, after all,
this was a man who knew 10,000 songs, and for the rest of his life, he
performed and recorded for nearly anyone who wanted him and anybody who
wanted his old songs, and anybody who wrote some new songs and wanted him
to sing it, he sang all over the world.
He made some wonderful records and some that, I'd have to say, ill
conceived or poorly produced or both. There was that one called "Santa
Claus Has The AIDS This Year" for instance that somebody wrote for him.
Well, here are two of the nicer ones, and this first one features his
baritone voice...
Dr. Demento played excerpts from Tim's "Mr. Ed" and "I Saw Elvis Tip-
Toeing Thru The Tulips" songs.
It was our great privelege and pleasure to have Tiny Tim perform with
us on the Dr. Demento 25th Anniversary concert and TV special on October
13, 1991; I still remember on one of those concerts, we rehearsed a bunch
of songs with Tiny Tim and the band that we'd hired, then when he went out
on stage, well, he got in the mood to sing something else altogether
and the band followed along as best as they could.
He did it from his soul. He did it from his heart. It was really nothing
artifical about him. What a warm and wonderful man he was, not to mention
the knowledge he had of pop music history.
To Tiny Tim, the song was the thing. His performance really was just
incidental, he thought. "I'm not a performer," he'd tell me, "I'm a song
plugger," referring to the guys who were hired by the music publishers
years ago to demnonstrate their songs live in the days before it became
easier to do demos on tape.
But there were always some loyal fans who never could get enough of
Tiny Tim's performances, and his career seemed to have been gaining steam
once again in the last couple of years as he found new happiness in his
personal life with his new wife, Miss Sue, and a new home in Minneapolis,
and he made his best album since "God Bless Tiny Tim".
We'll say goodbye to Tiny Tim with the title song from that album,
"Girl" (an excerpt).
God bless you, Tiny Tim.
iamno...@aol.com
In article <583c9s$8...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
71041...@compuserve.com (David "D.T." Tanny) writes:
>...to see
>what was said, I'll post the segment here...
>{transcript follows}
Thank you! How do you do all this? Are you a refugee from a transcript
service?
("For a transcript of this show, get a pen and paper and write down
everything that's said ...")
Chris Rutkowski
.... and there's my own memories of Tiny Tim.
I saw him performing live in Canada in June, 1975, onstage at a cabaret
called the Town and Country, in Winnipeg.
It was a relatively small venue, and his appearance wasn't plugged that
much, so I was quite surprised to find that we got a table adjacent to
the stage. Even at that time, I was into demential music, so I was
looking forward to the night.
He came onstage right after dinner and started off by blowing kisses to
everyone and doing some banter about being in Canada. I was astounded
at how *tall* and broad-shouldered he was, completely unlike the way he
came across on TV. He took his ukelele out of his bag and began his
signature song. Halfway through, he stopped and took some leis out of
the bag and placed them around our necks. He continued the song and
went into a medley of other tunes, backed up by the house band. The one
that I most clearly remember was his version of "Great Balls of Fire",
which nearly brought the house down! He had a falsetto tremolo that you
could drive a truck through.
The only other thing I remember distinctly was the other surreal
element to the night. My date that night was a girl from my high
school, and we were there on our prom night. What was a bit different
was that she had a medical condition which caused her hair to fall out.
She was completely bald, and at that time (unlike today!) her
appearance was rather striking, to say the least. We had quite a few
looks directed our way that night, especially since Tiny Tim at one
point began working the audience - including us! Imagine the sight of a
tall man with long kinky hair and wearing a tuxedo, talking with a
petite, bald-headed girl wearing a strapless evening gown. Neither she
nor I were particularly self-conscious, but I recall getting some
interesting stares from others in the audience!
After his set, he went to the back of the cabaret where his
closet-sized dressing room was, near the washrooms. I excused myself so
I could talk to him personally. When I got to his open door, he was on
the phone, talking in an agitated tone with somebody. I waited until he
was finished, then announced I was a fan, and shook his hand.
He smiled and said, "Thanks."
That's my memory of Tiny Tim.
--
Chris Rutkowski - rut...@cc.umanitoba.ca
(and now, also: Chris.R...@UMAlumni.mb.ca)
University of Manitoba - Winnipeg, Canada
Felixx the Katt
I still have a copy of the Dr. Demento Show taped in late November,
1988 when Dr. D had Tiny on the show for the first time. On that show
he sang a bunch of old old songs dated to the 1920's and before.
Plus I also saw Tiny Tim live on stage at The Bottom Line in NYC when
they had the Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Tour there. Just like what
somebody else posted here: What you saw was exactly what you got, a
true original.