WE LOVE...Tiny Tim's Version of "Be My Baby"

HERBERT KHAURI, better known as TINY TIM, was an eccentric and yet strangely talented that time seems to have forgotten. Dressed in colourful attires and greasy wavy long hair, he looks like a cross between PEEWEE HERMAN and the singer of THE DARKNESS (what an annoying mix...)

 

Yet, his strange looks are nothing compared to the strange noises coming out of his mouth. Accompanied by a basic strumming of a ukulele, his falsetto and vibrato voice, which made him quite famous for a whole season as a TV personality on US late night television, made him sound like the androgynous mixture between GOLDILOCKS and PAUL BEARER. In other words, it is other wordly, simoultaneously the voice of an angel and the voice of the dead messing with you in the middle of the night.

 

Such amazingly original style reached the peak of its popularity in TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS, his most popular number. Yet, here's a gem that was concealed in the meanders of YouTube. An amateur recording of the Phil Spector classic BE MY BABY, live from a gig in live at the Hunt Club (Festival Green Room, Monterey Pop Festival, 1967). 

 

The low quality of the recording, which misses the very beginning of the song, possibly makes the performance of that misuderstood genius TINY TIM all the more...chilling. Therefore, it's perhaps best not to listen to it alone in the dark.

 

Nevertheless...we LOVE IT!