Girl (feat. Brave Combo)

by

Tiny Tim

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If you are interested in Tiny but don't know much about him, or if you are building a collection, this one is essential. Tiny was involved in an unfortunate number of cheesy productions after the early Reprise recordings, so I am forever grateful that he left us on this very high note.

The wonderful thing about Tiny Tim was that he was at once a very savvy song stylist with an unparalled knowledge of popular music history and an utterly genuine eccentric who used his gifts and deep love of music in startlingly strange and wonderful ways. Listen, then, to Tiny the vaudevillian, singing the marvelous 'Sly Cigarette', a show-tune from 1898. Then there is Tiny opening up his great, big pipes and singing 'That Old Feeling'. Beautiful!! Then the infectious 'Bye Bye Blackbird, which makes me want to jump around the room. And of course that incredibly weird and compelling cover of 'Stairway to Heaven', done in perfect lounge-lizard persona. There are some turkeys here, it is true, but they are safely outnumbered by the gems. It's just a great cd.

I must not neglect to mention the wonderful Brave Combo, who bring great virtuosity, imagination, and life to the entire production. Don't miss this one.

I was a bit disappointed with this CD on first listen, concluding that perhaps Brave Combo is not the best fit for Tiny Tim, who has trouble being taken seriously as it is. "Bye Bye Blackbird" (rendered here as the "Bye Bye Blackbird Twist") is amazing, and "Sly Cigarette" is real vintage Tiny Tim, but did we really need to hear Tiny Tim's version of "Stairway to Heaven?" But I find myself coming back to this CD from time to time, and with every listen, I appreciate it a bit more. I still find this verison of "Stairway" forgetable, but the "Hey Jude" Cha-Cha is something to hear. The liner notes indicate the difficulties that arose in making this album, with Brave Combo coming back to Tiny Tim to expand the original product, which they admit was just a novelty record, into something more. What they ended up with, I've come to realize, is a nice mix, both having fun with and venerating some popular tunes of the recent and distant past. I'm still a bit on the fence on this one, but it's hard not to recommend a chance to hear a mature Tiny Tim working with a great band.