"Oh . . . hello to you nice . . . Beatles . . . " -- Tiny Tim, on the 1968 fan club Christmas message
Right. The beak-nosed, frizzy-haired guy who was on "Laugh-In" all the time, who plonked his ukelele and sang "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" -- a 1929 hit for uke master Nick Lucas -- in a creaky falsetto, who got married on the Tonight show in December 1969. Who became a regular on the TV talk show circuit. Whom television turned into a cartoon character.
Fans, however, know that Tim -- real name Herbert Khaury -- spoke and sang in a rich baritone, was a gentle soul who loved old songs, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of turn-of-the-century popular music. If anyone casually mentioned Byron G. Harlan, who in 1906 popularized "Wait ‘Till The Sun Shines, Nellie," Tim could name a half-dozen of his other songs.
Tim had a heart attack in September 1996 but kept doing the other thing he loved: performing. During a concert in Minneapolis on November 30, he suffered a second heart attack, and died that night.
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
"I’ll have the first universal passport, that will allow me to visit Mars, the moon, and other hot spots." -- the Ledge
Norman Carl Odam atteneded the same Lubbock, Texas junior high --W.T. Hutchinson -- as Buddy Holly. Like Buddy, he’s unassuming and a little shy off stage. There the similarity ends. Buddy sang about traditional boy-girl dilemmas, while the Ledge’s albums contain songs about the IRS, trash cans, cactus, and outer space, backed by a high-octane rockabilly beat, punctuated by rebel yells, and bugle blasts not always in the same key as the band’s.
In the United States, the Ledge is strictly underground where he’s known at all. In Europe, he’s an American original. He fills clubs in Holland and Belgium, and in Paris where he’s known as "Monsieur Stardust." Broadcasters in over forty countries, including Australia, Israel, and Albania, pay annual royalties for using the Ledge’s 1968 signature song, "Paralyzed."
The Ledge’s two favorite topics for songs? "The old West and space exploration," he says in the notes of his 1981 album Rocket To Stardom. "Everything in between is all garbage and I’m not interested."