What do you think?
Rate this book
Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim
As Bing Crosby once put it, the rise of Tiny Tim represents ‘one of the most phenomenal success stories in show business.’ In 1968, after years of playing dive bars and lesbian cabarets on the Greenwich Village scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce, the falsetto-voiced, ukulele-playing Tiny Tim landed a recording contract with Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label and an appearance on NBC’s Laugh-In. The resulting album, God Bless Tiny Tim , and its single, ‘Tip-Toe Thru’ The Tulips With Me,’ catapulted him to the highest levels of fame. Soon, Tiny was playing to huge audiences in the USA and Europe, while his marriage to the seventeen-year-old ‘Miss’ Vicki was broadcast on The Tonight Show in front of an audience of fifty million. Before long, however, his star began to fade. Miss Vicki left him, his earnings evaporated, and the mainstream turned its back on him. He would spend the rest of his life trying to revive his career, with many of his attempts taking a turn toward the absurd.
While he is often characterized as an oddball curio, Tiny Tim was a master interpreter of early American popular song, and his story is one of Shakespearean tragedy framed around a bizarre yet loveable public persona. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with family, friends, and associates, plus access to Tiny’s diaries, which have never before been made public, Eternal Troubadour tells the incredible true story of one of the most fascinating yet misunderstood figures in the history of popular music.
While he is often characterized as an oddball curio, Tiny Tim was a master interpreter of early American popular song, and his story is one of Shakespearean tragedy framed around a bizarre yet loveable public persona. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with family, friends, and associates, plus access to Tiny’s diaries, which have never before been made public, Eternal Troubadour tells the incredible true story of one of the most fascinating yet misunderstood figures in the history of popular music.
480 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2015
25 people are currently reading
480 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 27, 2016
We live in a dangerous, cold, hateful, Godforsaken world. And I’m against that.
*
Look at sheep. They don’t brush their hair, and look how much they have.
*
The good Lord could have created me as a lamp, a foot, or a white cloth bag… I am not an ashtray and an ashtray is not me.
- Tiny Tim
*
First, he wasn’t tiny, he was 6 foot 1 inch tall. His real name was Herbert Khaury, father was a Lebanese Christian and mother was a Russian Jew. He was born in 1932. They were poor. They lived in Manhattan.
The pre-Tiny Herbert
He was obsessed by old music – say 1900 to 1920. He was a human jukebox. He knew all the lyrics, all the record labels, he could reel off matrix numbers should you require them, he was an old pop music encyclopedia. He was also obsessed by wearing cosmetics and growing his hair long. This was before Boy George. This was about 25 years before Boy George. How Tiny managed to stay out of the intensive care unit before he got famous is a mystery.
He did all these talent shows and he would sing this ancient stuff in a shrill falsetto, just in case the long hair and white make-up wasn’t strange enough. By the early 60s he had stumbled along to the Greenwich Village folky clubs, and they were the first to think that he might have something, although a lot of people thought that what he had was a mental illness.
He would trip onto the stage carrying a shopping bag holding his cosmetics and his ukulele. He would blow kisses to the audience at every opportunity. And he would fish his ukulele out of the bag and shrill his voice to the rafters.
Village hipsters liked him and he met Bob Dylan, and Lenny Bruce, of all people, became a friend, just before he died. Peter Yarrow put him in a trippy underground movie about the hippies called You Are What you Eat, during which he got to record with The Band. He was signed for Reprise records and just about then he was spotted for a new TV show in late 1967 – they were looking for freaks. This was Laugh-In, and he tiptoed through the tulips for the American public, who were gobsmacked. What was that?
He transitioned almost immediately from being reviled and outcast and mocked to being a slightly beloved TV guest. By mid 1968 Tiptoe was in the Top 20 and his album God Bless Tiny Tim was No 7, and he was meeting people like Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty and he was being endorsed by John Lennon in interviews, was 2nd on the bill at the Newport Pop Festival, and was visited in the studio by Frank Sinatra, and met George Harrison, who taped him doing a falsetto “Nowhere Man”.
By the year end he was on Bing Crosby’s TV show.
*
He met a 17 year old girl called Vicki and they decided to get married. He was 37 at the time but no eyebrows were raised, except when he decided they should get married live on the Johnny Carson TV show, which they did on 17 December 1969 with an audience of 40 million, which was Johnny’s highest ever.
So this couldn’t sustain, right?
Right.
The marriage was a disaster. One thing, Tim and some producers insisted that him and Vicki do duets on shows because it would be cute, and this mortified her because she couldn’t sing.
Vicki :
They played it back. I said “Oh that’s horrendous, can you just take me out?” They said “No no no… they said we’ve heard a lot worse. You should hear Linda McCartney.”
Anyway, it all ended in tears and divorce, because, you see, Tim did not stop being very strange when he got off the stage, he was like that all the time. Praising Jesus and spouting anti-Women’s Lib and pro-Vietnam War opinions right and left, but in this fey, bashful way, in between choruses of “On the Good Ship Lollipop”.
After his three years at the top, if that’s what it was, the next 26 years were a succession of grotty clubs with dwindled audiences, a never ending tour before Dylan’s.
One musician recalls a late night incident:
We hear this tremendous argument next door, screaming and yelling. We hear this woman screaming, with this man screaming! Boom! Stuff is hitting the wall.
Larry says “That’s Tiny’s room isn’t it?” We ran down and knocked on Jimmy’s door and said “Something’s going on in there!” He said “No no, don’t worry about it. That’s Tiny having an argument with himself.”
Channeling Norman Bates!
Let Justin Martell elegantly summarise the last 25 years of Tiny’s career :
His revolving door of managers, producers and female companions, as well as a fickle fan base, bloodthirsty media cohorts, and a largely unsupportive family, frequently left Tiny adrift and lonely.
Most frequent sentence in this book : “nothing from these sessions was ever released”.
Tiny’s managers seemed mostly to be mob-related; one was a grotesquely fat cocaine addict. His demise is worth quoting :
His body was discovered by a bee-keeper and a US Forest Service Officer in a canyon 65 miles north of Los Angeles; according to a report in the Los Angeles Times he had been shot almost two dozen times and for good measure dynamite had been inserted into his mouth and lit.
Love that bee-keeper, what a wonderful detail.
*
Every so often, Tiny would encounter some fan who thought he was a genius and who would arrange some sessions and try to get Tiny back in the charts, and every time it failed. This book is kind of like the latest of those remarkable acts of love.
This is a beautifully-produced book with a nice (but skimpy) photo section but I am thinking – 478 pages about Tiny Tim? I will be the only person who will read this!! And I thought it was 150 pages too long! But if you want to get all the details of Tiny’s obscure single “Santa Claus has Got the Aids” or his role as Mervo in Blood Harvest (1987) (IMDB : he manages to deliver a troubled-childlike creepiness with depths to his character. Dressing him in a clown costume was a masterstroke from the scriptwriters).
Or his non-stop singing marathon world record or his relocation to Des Moines Iowa, it’s all here, right up to his death on stage at the age of 64.
A very remarkable, exhaustive and exhausting read. 3.5 stars.
*
Look at sheep. They don’t brush their hair, and look how much they have.
*
The good Lord could have created me as a lamp, a foot, or a white cloth bag… I am not an ashtray and an ashtray is not me.
- Tiny Tim
*
First, he wasn’t tiny, he was 6 foot 1 inch tall. His real name was Herbert Khaury, father was a Lebanese Christian and mother was a Russian Jew. He was born in 1932. They were poor. They lived in Manhattan.
The pre-Tiny Herbert
He was obsessed by old music – say 1900 to 1920. He was a human jukebox. He knew all the lyrics, all the record labels, he could reel off matrix numbers should you require them, he was an old pop music encyclopedia. He was also obsessed by wearing cosmetics and growing his hair long. This was before Boy George. This was about 25 years before Boy George. How Tiny managed to stay out of the intensive care unit before he got famous is a mystery.
He did all these talent shows and he would sing this ancient stuff in a shrill falsetto, just in case the long hair and white make-up wasn’t strange enough. By the early 60s he had stumbled along to the Greenwich Village folky clubs, and they were the first to think that he might have something, although a lot of people thought that what he had was a mental illness.
He would trip onto the stage carrying a shopping bag holding his cosmetics and his ukulele. He would blow kisses to the audience at every opportunity. And he would fish his ukulele out of the bag and shrill his voice to the rafters.
Village hipsters liked him and he met Bob Dylan, and Lenny Bruce, of all people, became a friend, just before he died. Peter Yarrow put him in a trippy underground movie about the hippies called You Are What you Eat, during which he got to record with The Band. He was signed for Reprise records and just about then he was spotted for a new TV show in late 1967 – they were looking for freaks. This was Laugh-In, and he tiptoed through the tulips for the American public, who were gobsmacked. What was that?
He transitioned almost immediately from being reviled and outcast and mocked to being a slightly beloved TV guest. By mid 1968 Tiptoe was in the Top 20 and his album God Bless Tiny Tim was No 7, and he was meeting people like Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty and he was being endorsed by John Lennon in interviews, was 2nd on the bill at the Newport Pop Festival, and was visited in the studio by Frank Sinatra, and met George Harrison, who taped him doing a falsetto “Nowhere Man”.
By the year end he was on Bing Crosby’s TV show.
*
He met a 17 year old girl called Vicki and they decided to get married. He was 37 at the time but no eyebrows were raised, except when he decided they should get married live on the Johnny Carson TV show, which they did on 17 December 1969 with an audience of 40 million, which was Johnny’s highest ever.
So this couldn’t sustain, right?
Right.
The marriage was a disaster. One thing, Tim and some producers insisted that him and Vicki do duets on shows because it would be cute, and this mortified her because she couldn’t sing.
Vicki :
They played it back. I said “Oh that’s horrendous, can you just take me out?” They said “No no no… they said we’ve heard a lot worse. You should hear Linda McCartney.”
Anyway, it all ended in tears and divorce, because, you see, Tim did not stop being very strange when he got off the stage, he was like that all the time. Praising Jesus and spouting anti-Women’s Lib and pro-Vietnam War opinions right and left, but in this fey, bashful way, in between choruses of “On the Good Ship Lollipop”.
After his three years at the top, if that’s what it was, the next 26 years were a succession of grotty clubs with dwindled audiences, a never ending tour before Dylan’s.
One musician recalls a late night incident:
We hear this tremendous argument next door, screaming and yelling. We hear this woman screaming, with this man screaming! Boom! Stuff is hitting the wall.
Larry says “That’s Tiny’s room isn’t it?” We ran down and knocked on Jimmy’s door and said “Something’s going on in there!” He said “No no, don’t worry about it. That’s Tiny having an argument with himself.”
Channeling Norman Bates!
Let Justin Martell elegantly summarise the last 25 years of Tiny’s career :
His revolving door of managers, producers and female companions, as well as a fickle fan base, bloodthirsty media cohorts, and a largely unsupportive family, frequently left Tiny adrift and lonely.
Most frequent sentence in this book : “nothing from these sessions was ever released”.
Tiny’s managers seemed mostly to be mob-related; one was a grotesquely fat cocaine addict. His demise is worth quoting :
His body was discovered by a bee-keeper and a US Forest Service Officer in a canyon 65 miles north of Los Angeles; according to a report in the Los Angeles Times he had been shot almost two dozen times and for good measure dynamite had been inserted into his mouth and lit.
Love that bee-keeper, what a wonderful detail.
*
Every so often, Tiny would encounter some fan who thought he was a genius and who would arrange some sessions and try to get Tiny back in the charts, and every time it failed. This book is kind of like the latest of those remarkable acts of love.
This is a beautifully-produced book with a nice (but skimpy) photo section but I am thinking – 478 pages about Tiny Tim? I will be the only person who will read this!! And I thought it was 150 pages too long! But if you want to get all the details of Tiny’s obscure single “Santa Claus has Got the Aids” or his role as Mervo in Blood Harvest (1987) (IMDB : he manages to deliver a troubled-childlike creepiness with depths to his character. Dressing him in a clown costume was a masterstroke from the scriptwriters).
Or his non-stop singing marathon world record or his relocation to Des Moines Iowa, it’s all here, right up to his death on stage at the age of 64.
A very remarkable, exhaustive and exhausting read. 3.5 stars.
April 20, 2021
To read a biography about Tiny Tim is to submerge oneself in a seething vat of contradictions.
The gender-bending symbol rose to fame when his nineteen-sixties androgynous image collided with mainstream America's sensibilities on Laugh-In. Despite being embraced by the counterculture, he was deeply conservative. Even though he could be religious to the point of fanaticism, when he indulged in rapacious sexuality, he would do so to extremes. A good portion of his personal diaries at the height of his popularity seem to be endless rounds of slathering various Miss Candys and Miss Bubbles with whipped cream and then licking it from their naked torsos, and the entertainer was even poised to star in porn films ten years later. His multiple marriages, all under constant scrutiny in the media, were studded with indiscretions and affairs that Tim didn't even attempt to hide.
Indeed, self-sabotage is a frequent theme of Tiny Tim's life. Martell's biography painstakingly elaborates the ways in which Tim would, with each ever-decreasing peak of success, manage to alienate producers, allies, and even entire record labels by minimizing or disparaging their efforts during television or radio appearances, or how he would dismiss employees with genuine concern for his self-interest while hiring those least likely to deposit his hard-earned funds into his bank accounts. Although he could win admirers with his encyclopedic knowledge of little-known gems from the American songbook, he could alienate them just as quickly either by recording an entire album deliberately sung off-key, or by releasing unfortunate singles like "She Left Me with the Herpes" backed by the even more misguided 1985 Christmas single, "Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS this Year."
Exhaustive as Martell's biography is, it tends to wander a bit in Tiny Tim's later, wilderness years. That may be because of the scattershot texture of the entertainer's last decade, fueled more by brushes with notoriety and nostalgia than any coherency of goal. As a chronicle of such a unique entertainer who single-handedly managed to reshape a culture's conception of what a singer could be, however, it's both wide-eyed and affectionate—of Tiny Tim's accomplishments and many, many faults both.
The gender-bending symbol rose to fame when his nineteen-sixties androgynous image collided with mainstream America's sensibilities on Laugh-In. Despite being embraced by the counterculture, he was deeply conservative. Even though he could be religious to the point of fanaticism, when he indulged in rapacious sexuality, he would do so to extremes. A good portion of his personal diaries at the height of his popularity seem to be endless rounds of slathering various Miss Candys and Miss Bubbles with whipped cream and then licking it from their naked torsos, and the entertainer was even poised to star in porn films ten years later. His multiple marriages, all under constant scrutiny in the media, were studded with indiscretions and affairs that Tim didn't even attempt to hide.
Indeed, self-sabotage is a frequent theme of Tiny Tim's life. Martell's biography painstakingly elaborates the ways in which Tim would, with each ever-decreasing peak of success, manage to alienate producers, allies, and even entire record labels by minimizing or disparaging their efforts during television or radio appearances, or how he would dismiss employees with genuine concern for his self-interest while hiring those least likely to deposit his hard-earned funds into his bank accounts. Although he could win admirers with his encyclopedic knowledge of little-known gems from the American songbook, he could alienate them just as quickly either by recording an entire album deliberately sung off-key, or by releasing unfortunate singles like "She Left Me with the Herpes" backed by the even more misguided 1985 Christmas single, "Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS this Year."
Exhaustive as Martell's biography is, it tends to wander a bit in Tiny Tim's later, wilderness years. That may be because of the scattershot texture of the entertainer's last decade, fueled more by brushes with notoriety and nostalgia than any coherency of goal. As a chronicle of such a unique entertainer who single-handedly managed to reshape a culture's conception of what a singer could be, however, it's both wide-eyed and affectionate—of Tiny Tim's accomplishments and many, many faults both.
May 24, 2023
May 23, 7am ~~ Review asap. Must sort out my mixed reactions to both the book and the man.
915pm ~~ In this book you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about Tiny Tim.
And then some.
It was interesting to see how 'weird cousin Herbie' turned himself into Tiny Tim. Interesting but very sad at the same time. And a tiny bit creepy. Honestly, in a different era and without the music that gave him a purpose, Tiny Tim would have made headlines for much worse than tiptoeing through tulips.
I saw him on tv in the late 1960's when I was too young to have any real opinion about anything. I never wondered if he was real or was just putting on a bizarre act. People the author spoke to swore that Tiny Tim was authentically himself on stage and off. But the diary entries that were the main source for this book describe a man who at times had physical altercations with his parents, could never hold a regular job, not even as a messenger boy, was feared and despised for being different by nearly everyone around him, was obsessed by and yet afraid of girls, spent most of his youth closeted in his room listening to albums by the crooners of the 1920's and 30's, had temper tantrums and cleanliness issues, and never wanted to be older than nineteen.
A very complex person, to say the least. And an exhausting book, perhaps better taken in small doses rather than in one go the way I read it. There is a lot of information here, we sort of slog through Tiny Tim's life nearly day by day. And more than once there were things revealed that I could have gone all day without knowing.
But I'm glad I read the book and learned what I did about this most unusual man. I found that he had more vocal range than merely that vibrating falsetto. I explored around on YouTube as I was reading, the way I usually do when reading about musicians, and the first time I heard him singing in a lower range you could have knocked me over with a tulip petal.
He truly was talented, I can say that for him. And he became almost an encyclopedia about the singers of those earlier years, the ones known as crooners. He could sing all their songs, and the only real difference between his version of Tiptoe Through The Tulips and that of Nick Lucas, who recorded the song in 1929 and was the first to use it as a theme song, was that Tiny's falsetto was higher and his delivery a little more eccentric.
I am not sure I could ever be a super fan, but I have gotten a kick out of some of his music. I know I will never really understand him; I wonder if anyone could? But he was brave enough to be himself and that is all any of us should care about.
People Are Strange (I only knew the original version by The Doors)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCGLe...
Me And Man On The Moon (This one shows he did not always use that falsetto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNWld...
915pm ~~ In this book you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about Tiny Tim.
And then some.
It was interesting to see how 'weird cousin Herbie' turned himself into Tiny Tim. Interesting but very sad at the same time. And a tiny bit creepy. Honestly, in a different era and without the music that gave him a purpose, Tiny Tim would have made headlines for much worse than tiptoeing through tulips.
I saw him on tv in the late 1960's when I was too young to have any real opinion about anything. I never wondered if he was real or was just putting on a bizarre act. People the author spoke to swore that Tiny Tim was authentically himself on stage and off. But the diary entries that were the main source for this book describe a man who at times had physical altercations with his parents, could never hold a regular job, not even as a messenger boy, was feared and despised for being different by nearly everyone around him, was obsessed by and yet afraid of girls, spent most of his youth closeted in his room listening to albums by the crooners of the 1920's and 30's, had temper tantrums and cleanliness issues, and never wanted to be older than nineteen.
A very complex person, to say the least. And an exhausting book, perhaps better taken in small doses rather than in one go the way I read it. There is a lot of information here, we sort of slog through Tiny Tim's life nearly day by day. And more than once there were things revealed that I could have gone all day without knowing.
But I'm glad I read the book and learned what I did about this most unusual man. I found that he had more vocal range than merely that vibrating falsetto. I explored around on YouTube as I was reading, the way I usually do when reading about musicians, and the first time I heard him singing in a lower range you could have knocked me over with a tulip petal.
He truly was talented, I can say that for him. And he became almost an encyclopedia about the singers of those earlier years, the ones known as crooners. He could sing all their songs, and the only real difference between his version of Tiptoe Through The Tulips and that of Nick Lucas, who recorded the song in 1929 and was the first to use it as a theme song, was that Tiny's falsetto was higher and his delivery a little more eccentric.
I am not sure I could ever be a super fan, but I have gotten a kick out of some of his music. I know I will never really understand him; I wonder if anyone could? But he was brave enough to be himself and that is all any of us should care about.
People Are Strange (I only knew the original version by The Doors)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCGLe...
Me And Man On The Moon (This one shows he did not always use that falsetto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNWld...
March 7, 2017
An excellent music bio about a man who ignored his fifteen minutes being up and doggedly grabbed any opportunity to entertain people regardless of whether he got paid and treated properly. Tiny Tim cut a path for himself by performing largely forgotten standards from the Twenties and Thirties in a carnival freakshow style, singing both the male and female parts like an audio version of the half-man/half-woman performer. He radiated a vaudeville entertainer gone Haight Street hippie veneer that was perfectly in its time.
Once the bloom was off the rose (so to speak) Tiny Tim sank into Jesus tent show preaching and even worse, flag waving patriotics and other right-wing nonsense. It didn't endear him to the American public and he vested his career with one huckster agent after another, signing his life away to any fast-talking crook who strong armed him with a crap contract. Justin Martell has written an exhaustive biography that perfectly captures Tiny Tim's victories and follies with equal attention. I couldn't put this one down.
Five things you need to know about this book:
1. Tiny Tim once played at Charles Manson's farm and formed a friendship with The Crazed One and insisted that Manson was "framed".
2. The girl oohing "Tiny" on the song I'd Be Satisfied With Life was none other than Nico (!).
3. Elton John attended Tiny's funeral in Minnesota.
4. Tiny was into staying clean and healthy but drank tons of beer and avoided doctors.
5. The ukulele on his big hit Tiptoe Through The Tulips was played by someone else.
There's also mention of GG Allin (!), Moondog and Sandy Bull. And I haven't even mentioned his great friendship with Bob Dylan.
Once the bloom was off the rose (so to speak) Tiny Tim sank into Jesus tent show preaching and even worse, flag waving patriotics and other right-wing nonsense. It didn't endear him to the American public and he vested his career with one huckster agent after another, signing his life away to any fast-talking crook who strong armed him with a crap contract. Justin Martell has written an exhaustive biography that perfectly captures Tiny Tim's victories and follies with equal attention. I couldn't put this one down.
Five things you need to know about this book:
1. Tiny Tim once played at Charles Manson's farm and formed a friendship with The Crazed One and insisted that Manson was "framed".
2. The girl oohing "Tiny" on the song I'd Be Satisfied With Life was none other than Nico (!).
3. Elton John attended Tiny's funeral in Minnesota.
4. Tiny was into staying clean and healthy but drank tons of beer and avoided doctors.
5. The ukulele on his big hit Tiptoe Through The Tulips was played by someone else.
There's also mention of GG Allin (!), Moondog and Sandy Bull. And I haven't even mentioned his great friendship with Bob Dylan.
October 28, 2021
Eternally fascinating. Sometime during the pandemic, I watched a little doc about Tiny Tim and got swept up in the nostalgia and of course could not get "Tiptoe..." out of my head. Of course I remembered him as the wacky, androgynous singer from my childhood, but more recently his stints on Howard Stern spouting his contradictory ultra conservative, Christian views and his obsession with S-E-X.
This book is exhaustively researched and very well done. Tiny was his own worst enemy, derailing his career seemingly at every turn. He really was an extraordinary talent, which gets lost in the sideshow distractions of his eccentricities and one-hit wonder status.
This book is exhaustively researched and very well done. Tiny was his own worst enemy, derailing his career seemingly at every turn. He really was an extraordinary talent, which gets lost in the sideshow distractions of his eccentricities and one-hit wonder status.
May 9, 2016
I have been fascinated and obsessed with Tiny Tim ever since the late 70 when I discovered "God Bless Tiny Tim" amongst my father's LPs. I hadn't known at the time about Laugh-In nor his marriage on the Tonight Show. About every five years or so I get obsessed with Tiny, and I look to the internet to learn more about his life.
After reading Justin Martel's book "Eternal Troubador: The Improbable life of Tiny Tim," I can say the journey is complete. There can't possibly be anything else of interest to learn about the man, his career and the lives he touched. The book details Tiny's isolated childhood, his three marriages, and every single TV appearance he ever made. While it's true, Tiny was only "Hot" from about 1968 to 1972 his career spanned nearly 45 years, and he ended up performing with some of the biggest names in show business (Bob Dillion, The Beatles, Elton John to name a few).
The book isn't just a catalog of events, through interviews with Ms. Vicki & Ms. Sue (his 1st and 3rd wives) as well as 20 years of diary entries the author paints a portrait of a brilliant and troubled man. Tiny was deeply religious, obsessed with sex, obsessive compulsive, selfish in all his relationships and yet every description of him by others leaves with the impression that he was a gentle soul.
Read this book!
And God Bless you, Tiny Tim, wherever you are.
After reading Justin Martel's book "Eternal Troubador: The Improbable life of Tiny Tim," I can say the journey is complete. There can't possibly be anything else of interest to learn about the man, his career and the lives he touched. The book details Tiny's isolated childhood, his three marriages, and every single TV appearance he ever made. While it's true, Tiny was only "Hot" from about 1968 to 1972 his career spanned nearly 45 years, and he ended up performing with some of the biggest names in show business (Bob Dillion, The Beatles, Elton John to name a few).
The book isn't just a catalog of events, through interviews with Ms. Vicki & Ms. Sue (his 1st and 3rd wives) as well as 20 years of diary entries the author paints a portrait of a brilliant and troubled man. Tiny was deeply religious, obsessed with sex, obsessive compulsive, selfish in all his relationships and yet every description of him by others leaves with the impression that he was a gentle soul.
Read this book!
And God Bless you, Tiny Tim, wherever you are.
August 2, 2022
Don't meet your heroes and don't read their biographies.
This was a very interesting read and I thought the author did a great job compiling information. It was neat reading diary entries from Herbert Khaury, aka Tiny Tim, even if a lot of them were incredibly disturbing! Some paragraphs I skimmed, as it wasn't terribly interesting to me the line up of songs he played at certain venues.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
"Lists of his loves (which included hotdogs, flowers, and the philosophy of Christ) and hates (war, cigarettes, songs about drugs)"
"Tiny received a standing ovation from the 'standing room only' audience."
"There is no point in eating peanut butter unless you can really feel the chunks" - Tiny Tim
"Unlike some of his other, wilder ideas- which included a scheme to 'dehydrate water and put it into bags'"
"His meals, these days, consist mostly of raw potatoes and beer."
I think Tiny Tim was delightfully weird, but it is important to remember he was also a POS. He had very outdated views on women and gender roles, and hit two of his three wives.
This was a very interesting read and I thought the author did a great job compiling information. It was neat reading diary entries from Herbert Khaury, aka Tiny Tim, even if a lot of them were incredibly disturbing! Some paragraphs I skimmed, as it wasn't terribly interesting to me the line up of songs he played at certain venues.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
"Lists of his loves (which included hotdogs, flowers, and the philosophy of Christ) and hates (war, cigarettes, songs about drugs)"
"Tiny received a standing ovation from the 'standing room only' audience."
"There is no point in eating peanut butter unless you can really feel the chunks" - Tiny Tim
"Unlike some of his other, wilder ideas- which included a scheme to 'dehydrate water and put it into bags'"
"His meals, these days, consist mostly of raw potatoes and beer."
I think Tiny Tim was delightfully weird, but it is important to remember he was also a POS. He had very outdated views on women and gender roles, and hit two of his three wives.
May 30, 2018
For those of us who grew up in the 1960's, we often saw a tall, odd fellow singing with ukulele in a falsetto voice on TV, especially on Laugh-In. His name was Tiny Tim, who was also famous for marrying his first wife, Miss Vicky on the Johnny Carson Show. Last year, Decades started airing the Ed Sullivan Show, where Tiny Tim also appeared. It got me thinking, besides his marriage to Miss Vicky and learning he passed away a couple of years back, I didn't know anything about him. I found this book, Eternal Troubadour by Justin Martell. This book provided everything I wanted to know about Tiny Tim. I now have a new outlook on Tiny Tim and his talent.
April 1, 2023
The subject matter and research gets a 4-4.5 stars for me, but the writing is just not that engaging and not that good. For a guy who was truly larger, and much weirder, than life, the author gets bogged down in a lot of information. I guess it's the burden of setting out to write an "authoritative" biography when the biography you're writing is the second one ever to be written about the subject. You've got to include everything you can because there may not be another book about this guy. I think that Mr. Martell fell into this trap and sacrificed readability.
The subject matter, though, is one that I still think about. I hate to admit how many times I actually think about Tiny Tim in any given week. The guy keeps popping up in my memory. Whether it's about his encyclopedic memory of music, his stage persona, his personal life, his sexual activities, his religions beliefs, his albums, etc. I immersed myself in Tiny Tim's life, and I can't escape him.
The subject matter, though, is one that I still think about. I hate to admit how many times I actually think about Tiny Tim in any given week. The guy keeps popping up in my memory. Whether it's about his encyclopedic memory of music, his stage persona, his personal life, his sexual activities, his religions beliefs, his albums, etc. I immersed myself in Tiny Tim's life, and I can't escape him.
December 21, 2021
A lot of information told very cohesively. A must read for any weirdo out there.
October 10, 2024
this book became my life for three days so i don't know if I'm mentally fit to review it but here we go
Fantastic and crazy level of detail on a fantastic and crazy subject. The author wasn't scared to go into the bad as well as the good and what emerges is a thoughtful and provocative portrait of a singer who was always just slightly out of his time.
the breadth of interviews and archival research is impressive. i did wonder about the ethics of going into his diary like that but then again i refer to diaries in my own writing hand over fist so.... if there was something I'd change, I'd have liked to see more analysis of his music and his influences in favour of some of the more sordid stuff. Given the man himself was seemingly an encyclopedia of knowledge on pop music of the 1900s-30s,rhat could have been integrated a littler better. at least i now know what tiny tim's preferred takeaway pizza was.
I needed to read it all as fast as possible so i could get back to my life but now i feel bereft of purpose. And that's saying something because it was a pdf i was reading
Fantastic and crazy level of detail on a fantastic and crazy subject. The author wasn't scared to go into the bad as well as the good and what emerges is a thoughtful and provocative portrait of a singer who was always just slightly out of his time.
the breadth of interviews and archival research is impressive. i did wonder about the ethics of going into his diary like that but then again i refer to diaries in my own writing hand over fist so.... if there was something I'd change, I'd have liked to see more analysis of his music and his influences in favour of some of the more sordid stuff. Given the man himself was seemingly an encyclopedia of knowledge on pop music of the 1900s-30s,rhat could have been integrated a littler better. at least i now know what tiny tim's preferred takeaway pizza was.
I needed to read it all as fast as possible so i could get back to my life but now i feel bereft of purpose. And that's saying something because it was a pdf i was reading
December 31, 2019
This was a thoroughly researched book, filled with an incredible amount of detail. Tiny Tim was an amazing person, one I had no knowledge of prior to reading this. By amazing I mean that he was prolific and interesting as hell. He was a very self absorbed narcissist with some very odd eccentricities. Often he was kind and gentle, but when it came to women he was an incredible piece of shit. Personally, I am enthralled with his music, as there is nothing quite like it. As far as the story goes, there's nothing left to wonder about. It was a very captivating tale.
October 21, 2022
While a fascinating, strange, utterly unique subject doesn’t necessarily make a great biography, it sure doesn’t hurt. When that biography is as exhaustive and obsessive and over flowing as this, it’s tough to beat. Any minor quibbles I have (the book is riddled with strange typos, and seems to take at face value the info gleamed from Tiny’s last wife Miss Sue who doesn’t seem altogether like a straight shooter herself) mean almost nothing when taking this fantastic book as a whole. It’s mesmerizing, and certainly one of the finest biographies I’ve encountered.
September 6, 2023
Meticulously researched, wonderfully told, remarkable story of this tremendous soul trotting and tumbling up to eternity, with multiple songs in his heart.
October 6, 2025
Wow! This book was so comprehensive, fascinating, and wonderfully bizarre. I could've easily read another 400 pages about Tiny's life!
March 14, 2019
Though it has been fifty years since the pinnacle of his commercial success, and over twenty years since his sad demise, Tiny Tim continues to be pop music's most enduring flash in the pan. Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim is now the definitive literary resource on Tiny after Harry Stein's 1976 biography that has since become hard to find.
From the perspective of a Tiny Tim fan, Eternal Troubadour is an invaluable source of information on the late musician. Martell's comprehensive recount of his unconventional life is both commendable and well-executed, drawing information from both Tiny's personal diaries and over one hundred interviews with his friends, family and associates. The result is a meticulous account of a man barely granted his fifteen minutes of fame, yet one who will still be remembered long after any of us. Many aspects of Tiny's brief mainstream career were unknown to me, including his experiences with stars like The Beatles, Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan, among many others. There are also many facts in this book likely to amuse the less involved readers. For example, did you know that Tiny did not actually play the ukulele on his only hit, Tiptoe Through the Tulips? Though there are many fantastic excerpts that could be pulled from this book, I'll leave it to you to read them for yourself.
If nothing else, Martell's meticulously researched memoir is a respectful and candid tribute to an enigmatic and unpredictable artist who was misrepresented and taken advantage of in the industry for years. Though Martell is little more than a Tiny Tim super-fan, I truly believe there was no other person suitable for the momentous task of piecing together Tiny's life. The respect and sincerity in which his story is presented is the least that Tiny deserves.
God bless Tiny Tim.
From the perspective of a Tiny Tim fan, Eternal Troubadour is an invaluable source of information on the late musician. Martell's comprehensive recount of his unconventional life is both commendable and well-executed, drawing information from both Tiny's personal diaries and over one hundred interviews with his friends, family and associates. The result is a meticulous account of a man barely granted his fifteen minutes of fame, yet one who will still be remembered long after any of us. Many aspects of Tiny's brief mainstream career were unknown to me, including his experiences with stars like The Beatles, Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan, among many others. There are also many facts in this book likely to amuse the less involved readers. For example, did you know that Tiny did not actually play the ukulele on his only hit, Tiptoe Through the Tulips? Though there are many fantastic excerpts that could be pulled from this book, I'll leave it to you to read them for yourself.
If nothing else, Martell's meticulously researched memoir is a respectful and candid tribute to an enigmatic and unpredictable artist who was misrepresented and taken advantage of in the industry for years. Though Martell is little more than a Tiny Tim super-fan, I truly believe there was no other person suitable for the momentous task of piecing together Tiny's life. The respect and sincerity in which his story is presented is the least that Tiny deserves.
God bless Tiny Tim.
February 7, 2025
The best biographies leave you with more questions than answers because they portray their subjects with such nuance and detail that they resist easy categorization. This is absolutely the case here, and Tiny Tim is a figure so confusing and contradictory that by the end of this book, I had stopped thinking of him as a pop culture alien and more as a real human being, flaws and all.
And there are flaws galore. Tiny Tim emerges as someone who is simultaneously naive and predatory, childlike and old fashioned, uptight yet debauched. He also comes across as impossibly stubborn, which is perhaps unsurprising for someone who played music that was always several decades out of fashion. The sections on his decline and death are impossible to look away from. It’s hard to believe that he’d fallen to such depths: living in a hotel in Iowa paid for by fans, ignoring warnings of heart failure, and playing gigs so obscure they almost shouldn’t exist. It’s also tragic, because if he’d lived just a couple years longer, SpongeBob would have given him a much-needed bump in popularity.
This book is well-written and paced and was clearly a labor of love written by a true fan. That’s good for the most part, but it’s also the reason I’m giving this 4 instead of 5 stars. 500 pages is just too long for someone only known for one or two songs. But if you’re willing to take the plunge, it’s fascinating. For good or ill, there will never be anyone else like Tiny Tim.
And there are flaws galore. Tiny Tim emerges as someone who is simultaneously naive and predatory, childlike and old fashioned, uptight yet debauched. He also comes across as impossibly stubborn, which is perhaps unsurprising for someone who played music that was always several decades out of fashion. The sections on his decline and death are impossible to look away from. It’s hard to believe that he’d fallen to such depths: living in a hotel in Iowa paid for by fans, ignoring warnings of heart failure, and playing gigs so obscure they almost shouldn’t exist. It’s also tragic, because if he’d lived just a couple years longer, SpongeBob would have given him a much-needed bump in popularity.
This book is well-written and paced and was clearly a labor of love written by a true fan. That’s good for the most part, but it’s also the reason I’m giving this 4 instead of 5 stars. 500 pages is just too long for someone only known for one or two songs. But if you’re willing to take the plunge, it’s fascinating. For good or ill, there will never be anyone else like Tiny Tim.
January 7, 2019
While this is obviously a well researched book about this unique performer. It’s somewhat marred by multiple typos and minor, but annoying, inaccuracies. Examples of the latter include referring to Cherry Hill, New Jersey as Cherry, New Jersey; stating that Lenny Bruce was planning a joint appearance for him and Tiny at the Fillmore East, which was not known by that name at that time; stating that the Rolling Stones’ first hit was Time Is On My Side, when in fact they had already had several top 40 singles. These types of things should have been caught/corrected by proofreaders or fact checkers.
February 3, 2022
Absolutely fascinating look at Tiny Tim's career. The author deserves praise for his deep knowledge of Tiny's career and the effort put into this work. But, the writing style never rises above the ordinary and I wonder at the accuracy of the book at some points. For example, Tiny's lawsuit against Playboy magazine over the use of his image is mentioned and the author states that the outcome of the suit is unknown. As if it disappeared without a trace. But a quick google search reveals that it was dismissed because of the statute of limitations. This makes me wonder about what other mistakes might be lurking in the text.
May 28, 2021
Author Josh Martell takes an encyclopedic approach to telling Tiny Tim’s story. The book is full of dates & quotations. However, while I learned a great deal about him, I don’t think I ever quite figured out what his life & music MEAN. As I read, I found myself reflecting on the duty of the biographer, not only to relay events in a subject’s life, but also to interpret their significance. Also, small complaint, there are a lot of mistakes (typos, incorrectly punctuated sentences, etc.) that make me wonder how much interest the publisher really had in the book/topic.
January 31, 2021
A little disjointed (especially toward the end), but extremely thorough. I got to know Herbert Kaury a little more than I wanted to.
This bio compelled me to listen to more of Tiny's music (I previously had only heard "tiptoe"...originally on Johnny Carson in the '60s)) The music, if not enjoyable, was at least interesting.
Def worth reading if you are insanely curious about the enigmatic Tiny Tim.
This bio compelled me to listen to more of Tiny's music (I previously had only heard "tiptoe"...originally on Johnny Carson in the '60s)) The music, if not enjoyable, was at least interesting.
Def worth reading if you are insanely curious about the enigmatic Tiny Tim.
November 12, 2020
Good Story
This is a complete story about Tiny Tim's life and death. Lots of information about his music, his friends, his strange mannerisms, and his wives all told in great detail. Like the way Tiny's diary was used throughout the book.
This is a complete story about Tiny Tim's life and death. Lots of information about his music, his friends, his strange mannerisms, and his wives all told in great detail. Like the way Tiny's diary was used throughout the book.
August 19, 2019
Surprisingly interesting book about a genuinely weird but talented artist. Good travel reading.
April 27, 2021
Excellent Biography of a True Original
A fascinating look at a very complex artist who was much more than most thought. Very compelling reading--I could not put it down.
A fascinating look at a very complex artist who was much more than most thought. Very compelling reading--I could not put it down.
May 12, 2023
Could be a good deal shorter if it wasn’t for the excessive listing of names and performances.
August 12, 2018
This is a well-researched account of the life of Herbert Khaury who climbed to the dizzying heights of pop superstar fame for a brief period in the late 1960s before falling to earth. And simply continuing to share his extensive repertoire of outdated early 20th-century pop songs, delivered in his unique style, to any willing audience right up until his death on stage in 1996.
What fascinates and resonates is the power of the artist’s will to protect the treasure he so carefully secreted in his soul. Tiny Tim was the Byzantine persona developed to nurture and disseminate the songs that had saved young Herbert from the cruelty and dysfunction of his Depression-era American upbringing.
As early as 1955 our hero was establishing his alter ego by keeping his curly hair long, applying makeup and affecting feminine gestures and talk—he was neither the first nor the last popstar to find that the ladies love this! ‘Some people think I’m a sissy with my hairdo and complexion but its all for the girls’, he said. In a plastic bag he carried his ukelele and sheet music with assorted toiletries and could strike up for an audition or a performance at the slightest provocation.
The peak of his career was a dazzling sustained lightning flash after a long slow climb encountering myriad ‘managers’, producers and fans. Though he suffered disbelief and outrage from the man in the street and in the media, Tiny Tim, named in 1962, was careful to insulate himself by layering his eccentric religious beliefs, neuroses and impeccable manners against the harsh world of showbiz.
A long time supporter was Australian artist Martin Sharp who instinctively understood the ingenuous authenticity of his bizarre fabrications and sponsored many recordings, films and events with Tiny prior to his passage over the peak of his dazzling US fame and live tv marriage to Miss Vicki in the populist cathedral of the Johnny Carson Show at Christmas in 1969.
Women did love Tiny and he loved them, frequently falling in love but keeping them at a distance, permitting an inner circle of temple priestesses to administer care as needed and ultimately stringing a succession of 3 wives, each distinctive in her relationship to Tiny. We have some sympathy for teenage Miss Vicki who met him at the top and had to travel the downward spiral with decreasingly competent gangster managers while Tiny cultivated his repertoire, acquiescing to perform in lowly dives and to adapt songs old and new to suit.
Our hopes are raised when Tiny meets producers who ‘get’ him and are dashed again when he self-sabotages and disperses his own support. But the persistence over the long haul of admirers who recorded versions of his songs, with widely varying degrees of success, is a testament to Tiny’s keeping of the flame for the songs he loved.
He earns the accolade of Troubadour by this process, keeping the songs alive with idiosyncratic courtly codes and his willingness to simply share the music, his great Gift.
What fascinates and resonates is the power of the artist’s will to protect the treasure he so carefully secreted in his soul. Tiny Tim was the Byzantine persona developed to nurture and disseminate the songs that had saved young Herbert from the cruelty and dysfunction of his Depression-era American upbringing.
As early as 1955 our hero was establishing his alter ego by keeping his curly hair long, applying makeup and affecting feminine gestures and talk—he was neither the first nor the last popstar to find that the ladies love this! ‘Some people think I’m a sissy with my hairdo and complexion but its all for the girls’, he said. In a plastic bag he carried his ukelele and sheet music with assorted toiletries and could strike up for an audition or a performance at the slightest provocation.
The peak of his career was a dazzling sustained lightning flash after a long slow climb encountering myriad ‘managers’, producers and fans. Though he suffered disbelief and outrage from the man in the street and in the media, Tiny Tim, named in 1962, was careful to insulate himself by layering his eccentric religious beliefs, neuroses and impeccable manners against the harsh world of showbiz.
A long time supporter was Australian artist Martin Sharp who instinctively understood the ingenuous authenticity of his bizarre fabrications and sponsored many recordings, films and events with Tiny prior to his passage over the peak of his dazzling US fame and live tv marriage to Miss Vicki in the populist cathedral of the Johnny Carson Show at Christmas in 1969.
Women did love Tiny and he loved them, frequently falling in love but keeping them at a distance, permitting an inner circle of temple priestesses to administer care as needed and ultimately stringing a succession of 3 wives, each distinctive in her relationship to Tiny. We have some sympathy for teenage Miss Vicki who met him at the top and had to travel the downward spiral with decreasingly competent gangster managers while Tiny cultivated his repertoire, acquiescing to perform in lowly dives and to adapt songs old and new to suit.
Our hopes are raised when Tiny meets producers who ‘get’ him and are dashed again when he self-sabotages and disperses his own support. But the persistence over the long haul of admirers who recorded versions of his songs, with widely varying degrees of success, is a testament to Tiny’s keeping of the flame for the songs he loved.
He earns the accolade of Troubadour by this process, keeping the songs alive with idiosyncratic courtly codes and his willingness to simply share the music, his great Gift.
February 17, 2018
A great book about a true enigma and one off. It is written with a love and respect for Tim after extensive research. It's all there warts and all.
Amazing how Tim extended a career over so many years and even more amazing how young adult girls were attracted to him as he was attracted to them.
He was a consummate artist who gave his all to his art.
As I read the book , lines from a Kris Kristofferson song kept going through my mind -
'He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking ever wrong directions on his lonely way back home'.
He was a Christian but used his way to convince himself that sleeping with countless women and having S-E-X with them was not a sin if done with love.
As his first album title said 'God Bless Tiny Tim'.
Amazing how Tim extended a career over so many years and even more amazing how young adult girls were attracted to him as he was attracted to them.
He was a consummate artist who gave his all to his art.
As I read the book , lines from a Kris Kristofferson song kept going through my mind -
'He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking ever wrong directions on his lonely way back home'.
He was a Christian but used his way to convince himself that sleeping with countless women and having S-E-X with them was not a sin if done with love.
As his first album title said 'God Bless Tiny Tim'.
January 10, 2017
Interesting and well written. Herbert Khaury was a figure of contradictions and few people were able to see past the image to appreciate his unique talent. He was a serious student of a pre-electric era in music. He was driven, yet his career was hampered by numerous obstacles that prevented him from advancing his goals. His music and message remain misunderstood by many however his performances were appreciated worldwide by an enthusiastic fan base. Although he suffered from medical issues later in life he remained loyal to his fans.
A wonderful effort by Justin Martell with Alanna Wray McDonald
A wonderful effort by Justin Martell with Alanna Wray McDonald
November 10, 2016
Wonderful, thorough book about the life and career of a true original. There are a couple of typos that detract from things but this is the definitive look at tiny Tim and ranks up there with some of the best music bios I've read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews