Herbert Buckingham Khaury (4/12/32–11/30/96), known professionally as Tiny Tim was an American singer, ukulele player and musical archivist. He is best remembered for his cover hits “Tip Toe Through The Tulips With Me” and “Livin’ In the Sunlight, Lovin’ In the Moonlight,” which he sang in a high falsetto voice. Herbert was born in NY and displayed musical talent at a young age, teaching himself how to play guitar at age 6 and violin and ukulele by 11. By his pre-teens he developed a passion for records from the 1900s-1930s and spent most of his time at the public library studying the history of the phonograph industry and its first recording artists. He described finding his upper register singing voice as a religious experience after listening to Rudy Vallee sing in falsetto. By the 1950s he landed a job as a messenger at MGM Studios and started performing at dance club amateur nights wearing wild clothing, long hair and pasty white facial make up to stand out from the other performers. He took his ukulele and falsetto act to Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, playing at a gay and lesbian club 6 hours a night, 6 nights a week for $96 per month.

Tiny Tim appeared in Jack Smith’s Normal Love (1963) as well as independent feature film You Are What You Eat (1968) in which he sang the Ronette’s “Be My Baby” in falsetto and also did a rendition of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” which he eventually performed on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In variety show. In 1968, his first full length studio album God Bless Tiny Tim was released on Reprise Records. It featured an orchestrated version of “Tip Toe Through The Tulips With Me” that became a hit after being released as a single. He went on to record 3 studio albums for Reprise between 1968-1969. In 2000, Rhino Handmade released the posthumous Live! At Royal Albert Hall that was recorded in 1968 at the height of Tim’s fame but Reprise never released. The limited and numbered CD edition sold out upon release. ROG presents the recording in its first time on vinyl.