Subj: Lord Buckley (Gz)
(Includes 1 jokes and articles)
Calvin cartoon
from
Josephs Free Stuff
| >>>
Subj: Lord Buckley (Gz) (Includes 1 jokes and articles) |
|
Calvin cartoon from Josephs Free Stuff |
by Walt Stempek
Copyright 1996 Walt Stempek. Used by Permission.
| "Hipsters, flipsters and
finger-poppin' daddies,
Knock me your lobes! I came here to lay Caesar out, Not to hip you to him. The bad jazz that a cat blows Wails long after he's cut out, The groovy is often stashed with their frames. So don't put Caesar down...." |
 |
Buckley drawing vy Doug Allen
from WJMu at 91.1 fm |
What a gas! Willie the
Shake flipping wigs once again in this
wild, crazy, "hipsemantic" translation
of Marc Antony's funeral
oration. And what sweet,
swingin' stud laid this beautiful jazz
down? None other than
Lord Richard Buckley - a far out, wailin',
nonstop, groovy gasser who stomped
virtually unknown through the
pages of comedic history.
He came upon his title one day
while visiting a bankrupt circus
with a friend. From one
of the wardrobe trunks he pulled a
rather large purple robe (it
belonged to an elephant) complete
with glass emeralds, rubies
and sapphires. He draped it around
his shoulders and proceeded
to march through the streets of
Chicago to his party pad, where
he began celebrating his new
title: Lord Buckley, hip English
nobleman. His followers became
the Royal Court and were christened
with nicknames such as
Prince Owl Head, Lady Renaissance,
Prince Hair Head, and
Princess Water Lily. His
Lordship's graciousness was not
reserved only for members of
the Royal Court, but was extended to
all, for he truly believed:
"...people, yes people are the true
flowers of life, and it has
been a most precious pleasure to have
temporarily strolled in your
garden."
Although his manner was that
of an English nobleman, his language
was the argot of the streets
of black America: "Negroes spoke a
language of such power, purity
and beauty I found it irresistible.
I could not resist this magical
way of speaking, nor the great
power it had for good in its
purity and sweetness. A power that
said by hip-zig-zag-urmph, everything
is understandable. A voice
spoke to me from within.
Doesn't it, to you?... And this black
riff-voice swung, grooved and
gassed me - triple hipped my soul -
launching the fabric of my very
being into the outer realms of
the FARGONASPHERE!!"
The whole world truly was his
stage, as his son Fred explains in
the liner notes of Buckley's
Best: "...his Lordship took every
 |
opportunity
to perform wherever he happened to
be. In a private home or in a supermarket, in a concert hall or standing on the desert at sunrise, his Lordship was prepared to and most often did perform for whoever was present." Photo from It's a Hot'un |
One thing was for sure, His Majesty
lived every day as if it were
to be his last and he never
let money get in the way of having
fun. He was always broke,
and if you knew him, chances were he
owed you money. He once
bought dinner for thirty people with money
he borrowed from those he invited!
However, he was as generous
with his own as he was with
others'. His generosity took many
forms and was often extended
to other performers. Jazz singer
Anita O'Day speaks fondly of
Buckley in her autobiography High
Times, Hard Times, noting that
he took her under his wing early
in her career and helped her
develop as an artist.
Richard Myrle Buckley was born
on April 5, 1906, in Toulumne,
California, a mining town in
the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
mountains. He was the
youngest of eight children (some accounts
say ten, some six), and as a
boy he and his sister Nell would sing
for the cowboys who passed through
town in the hopes of earning
some small change. In
his youth he worked as a dishwasher, truck
driver and lumberjack.
In the mid-1920's he set off for Mexico to
join a brother in an oil venture.
He got as far as Galveston where
he met up with a Texas guitar
player and began his show business
career. His first gig
was at the Million Dollar Aztec Theater in
San Antonio. In a radio
interview years later Buckley recalled
that the manager of the Aztec
called his "the lousiest act I ever
played in my life."
"And he was right!" exclaimed the Lord.
The 1930's found Buckley working
in Chicago. He began the decade
as a walkathon Master of Ceremonies
and later gigged in speakeasies
run by the mob. During
an engagement at the club Suzy Q Buckley
hired a hearse to drive around
the streets of Chicago. Dressed in
a tuxedo he would lie in a coffin
in the back, and when cars pulled
up alongside he would sit up
holding a sign reading, "The body
comes alive at the Suzy Q."
Buckley eventually caught the eye of
Al Capone, who set him up with
his own nightclub, the Chez Buckley.
His Lordship hired some of the
best jazz musicians to blow at his
club, and it was perhaps during
this period that he developed his
love of black dialect.
Eventually Chicago vice-squad pressure
forced him to leave town.
| In the
1940's Buckley worked the vaudeville circuit
and developed his "Amos 'n Andy" act, which was the precursor of the routines for which he is noted. Four audience members would be seated on stage with Buckley crouched behind them. His Majesty would supply the black idiom while the participants would lip-snych and gesture when prodded by Buckley. He used this skit on U.S.O. tours with Ed Sullivan |
 |
Photo
from
It's a Hot'un |
The 40's were a wild time for
Buckley. Berle Adams, his manager in
the latter part of the decade,
recalled: "Dick was unpredictable
even in those days. These
were his big drinking and womanizing
days. Many clubs wouldn't
bring him back, especially hotels. It
was precarious to have him work(ing)
the hotel or working the
floor because you didn't know
what was going to happen next." He
was known to ridicule an unhip
audience, and was not adverse to
doing his act with a joint dangling
from his lips.
After the war, while acting in
a Broadway play called The Passing
Show, he met and married one
of the show's dancers, a beautiful
20 year old blonde woman named
Elizabeth Hanson. The couple
moved into a Manhattan apartment
and spent the next few years
entertaining anyone and everyone.
They had two children, Laurie
and Richard Jr. (Buckley's son,
Fred, was from a previous union)
and were together until he died.
Lady Buckley: "I loved the man
and I loved the artist, too.
I was just happy that he passed my
way, because he looked at life
differently than anyone else. We
always ate well and we always
were warm and had shelter. We
lived in palaces and we lived
in tiny places like the Crackerbox
Palace. It never seemed
to make any difference - we were happy
together..."
In 1950 the Buckleys moved West
to Los Angeles. With two
children money was tight and
Buckley was hoping to break
into films or at least find
work in Las Vegas, Reno or San
Francisco. The film career
never quite worked out, although he
did have a bit part in the 20th
Century Fox comedy We're Not
Married (now available on video),
starring Fred Allen, Ginger
Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, and
a walk-on in Stanley Kubrick's
Spartacus.
It was also during this time
that Buckley began, according to
Oliver Trager, Buckley's biographer,
"...taking the persona of
"His Lordship" both onstage
and off. At Lady Buckley's urging,
 |
the four-way
"Amos 'n Andy" bit was deemphasized
in the act. In its place were the classic Lord Buckley raps, recasting incidents from history and mythology into a patois that blended scat- singing, black jive talk, and the King's English." Drawing from Columbia University |
In California Buckley found the
perfect place to continue the
free-spirited lifestlye he had
pursued back East. It made no
difference whether he and his
family lived in dilapidated places
like the Chicken Coop or the
Crakerbox Palace or in a mansion (The
Castle) in the Hollywood Hills.
The latter, complete with moat,
once belonged to the silent
movie actress Barbara La Marr. It was
owned by an old widow and Buckley
used his considerable charm to
talk her into renting it to
him for a song and a dance. The
Castle had its own throne from
which His Lordship would hold court
for the likes of Sinatra, Sammy
Davis, Jr., and Tony Curtis. Also
welcome were junkies, musicians
and virtually anyone else who
wanted to join the party.
It was at the Topanga Canyon art
gallery owned by his friend
Bob DeWitt that Lord Buckley started
the first jazz church, which
he christened "The Church of the
Living Swing." Said Lady
Buckley, "All the people sat on railroad
ties, and it was the first time
they had a light show. His
Lordship would perform, and
there would be music. It only lasted
four weeks but it was wonderful."
From 1954-1962 Los Angeles psychiatrist
Dr. Oscar Janiger
conducted clinical research
to study the effects of the then legal
drug LSD on a cross-section
of the population. Lord Buckley, not
one to pass up a possible mind-altering
opportunity, agreed to
participate in the project.
Those who took part were expected to
write down their reactions to
the experience shortly after taking
the drug. The following
is an excerpt from His Majesty's encounter
with the psychedelic drug:
"LSD, first trip, by Richard
Lord Buckley, ordinary seaman on
the good ship lovely
soul detonator, under the command of Fleet
Admiral Oscar Janiger,
head detonator and...head head. Intro-
duction: I first felt
a tenseness in my groin and chest, as if
something big was there,
something I knew was going to rise up
to break through to something
new. My whole body was jingling
with alert signals.
This is gonna be one mother of a takeoff!
Hang on! It felt
like a soul pressure. I felt strong. I felt
words shooting out of
me like projectiles, acres of untapped
sound were waiting to
be put in the gun of expression! And
with the physical feelings
of rising and breaking through, came
a great sense of expanding
freedom. I knew I was there when I
saw the high florescency
of vivid colors..."
| It was
also during the 1950's that Buckley made his
recordings on the Vaya, World Pacific, hip, Straight and RCA labels (more on these later), did radio interviews in Chicago and San Francisco, and also made appearances on Steve Allen's Tonight Show, Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, and The Milton Berle Show. In 1957, their fortunes on the wane in California, |
 |
Photo
from
LordBuckley.com |
From late August until mid-September
he was in Chicago where he
worked the Gate of Horn (A short
clip of one of his performances
appears in an obscure BBC documentary,
Chicago: First Impressions
of a Great American City.)
He also did an interview with Studs
Terkel on radio station WFMT.
His Lordship fell ill in Chicago
but recovered adequately enough
to move on to New York, where he
was scheduled to work the Jazz
Gallery in early October. Novelist
Harold Humes had also wanted
Buckley to do the voice-over sound-
track for Don Peyote, a film
he was working on.
On October 20, while working
at the Jazz Gallery, the New York
vice squad appeared and confiscated
Buckley's cabaret card, a
requirement of employment for
all restaurant and club workers in
New York. The cabaret
card law, which had been in effect since
Prohibition, prevented anyone
with a police record from working in
a restaurant or club.
Buckley had been busted in Reno in 1941 for
public drunkenness and was,
according to the New York Post,
"accused of having falsely stated
on his (cabaret card) application
that he had never been arrested."
His Lordship maintained that
the questions on the application
were confusing. A Citizens
Emergency Committee, composed
mostly of writers and magazine and
book editors, came to Buckley's
defense. The CEC's accusation
that cabaret cards were not
issued unless a bribe was paid to the
Police Cabaret Bureau made front
page news. The committee was
counting on Buckley to testify,
but unfortunately, The Hip Messiah,
as he was then being called,
was not going to make the scene.
On November 12, 1960 His Lordship
called Harold Humes, explaining
he was afraid, broke and hungry
(Humes immediately arranged to get
him some money), and that the
daily rejections by the cabaret
bureau were causing him great
anxiety. He told Humes he had the
"bugbird" in him (a reference
to Buckley's "hipsemantic"
interpretation of Edgar Allen
Poe's, "The Raven"). Later that day
he became ill and was taken
by ambulance to Columbus Hospital. He
died later that night.
The original cause of death was given as
kidney failure, but the two
attending physicians later said he
died of a stroke caused by "extreme
hypertension." A friend later
 |
commented
that he died of a broken heart as much
as anything. Buckley's friend, comedian Larry Storch, upon hearing of his death, said, "You know, we never really thought Lord Buckley would die. We thought he had it from his mouth to God's ear." Photo from LordBuckley.com |
Eventually, the Citizens Emergency
Committee succeeded, through
public pressure, in forcing
New York City to abolish the cabaret
card licensing requirement.
A few weeks later a memorial
service was held at the Village Gate
to benefit the Buckley family.
Those in attendance grieved,
eulogized, traded stories and
toasted His Majesty, while Ornette
Coleman and Dizzy Gillespie
wailed into the night.
Lord Buckley left behind a substantial,
if generally unknown,
legacy. Honey Bruce in
her autobiography says, "Lenny did
vocal impressions of famous
stars, but I believe he learned he
could use his voice to create
many comedy characters from his
experiences with Lord Buckley.
With Lenny's talents there was no
problem coming up with the voices,
but it was the dear Lord
Buckley who did it first."
Larry Storch, Jonathan Winters, Whoopi
Goldberg, and Robin Williams
have acknowledged their debt to him.
Henry Miller, Greer Garson,
and Charlie Parker were some of his
admirers. Frank Sinatra
was his friend, until His Lordship
supposedly marched sixteen naked
people through the lobby
of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
where Sinatra was performing.
George Harrison's 1977 hit song
"Crackerbox Palace" was indeed
named after Buckley's tiny Hollywood
dwelling. The Mr. Greif
referred to in the song was
once Buckley's manager, and "...the
Lord is well inside of you..."
refers to the earthly, not the
heavenly, divinity. Jimmy
Buffett has recorded and performed an
original Buckley number called
"God's Own Drunk." Bob Dylan fell
in love with "Black Cross,"
the story of a black man who is
lynched for his supposed lack
of religious beliefs. Written by a
Cleveland poet named Joseph
Newman, it was one of the few works
Buckley recited in its original
form. Dylan performed "Black
Cross" in concert and two bootleg
recordings from 1961 and 1962 do
exist. If you look closely
at the cover of Dylan's album, Bringing
It All Back Home, you will see
a copy of Buckley's album, The Best
of Lord Buckley (Crestview),
on the mantle over the fireplace. And
Frank Zappa edited His Lordship's
LP, a most immaculately hip
aristocrat, when he was sixteen
years old.
His Lordship lives on in other
ways. In 1983, English actor John
Sinclair performed a one-man
stage show called Lord Buckley's Finest
Hour in Los Angeles and London.
A Santa Cruz jazz musician named
Don McCaslin has produced a
radio show called The Nazz: A Bebop
Drama, based on Lord Buckley's
work of the same name, and is
currently working on a related
venture called Lil' Nazz, the story
of the birth of Christ.
In 1960, and again in 1980, City Lights
Books in San Francisco published
the lyrics to some of His Lord-
ship's routines called Hiparama
of the Classics. (It is currently
out of print.) Since 1988
an annual Lord Buckley Memorial
| Celebration
has been held in the hills near Santa
Barbara, California. In addition to commemorating His Lordship, the non-profit event raises money for such causes as Amnesty International and Greenpeace. Oliver Trager, a New York writer, has been assiduously compiling a biography of Lord Buckley over the last few years. |
 |
Photo
from
The Catalog of Cool |
And let us not forget the legacy
Lord Buckley left to his children.
A tribute to His Lordship from
his daughter, Laurie: "He kept my
brother Richard and I separate
from the crazy world he lived in.
He always made sure we were
well-spoken, led orderly lives, and
got to bed at the right time.
He made us believe in goodness and
honor. I may've had my
rude awakening later, but he tried to live
on a level of graciousness.
He didn't want the past to be for-
gotten. He wasn't always
understood. In fact, you either loved
him or hated him. He gave
his money away to anyone who needed it.
I think he created the Royal
Court to protect his own mind,
because he was always so far
ahead of everybody else. He
consumed people. He digested
their minds. He was a magnificent
spirit. He made a great
impression. When you heard Lord Buckley,
you were never the same again."
In 1946 jazz bandleader Lyle
Griffin (who later produced and
played on Buckley records for
the hip label) recorded a tune
called "Flight of the Vout Bug"
for his own label, Atomic.
The song was reissued on IRRA
and reissued again on hip.
Buckley dubbed a vocal over
Griffin's instrumental track in
1956 resulting in "Flight of
the Saucer", a far out audio
exploration of the solar system.
Two of Buckley's first known
commercial recordings, Euphoria and
Euphoria, Volume II, were made
for the Vaya label. Both were
recorded in 1951; Euphoria was
most likely released in 1955 with
Euphoria, Volume II following
in 1956. Euphoria was released in
three variations, all containing
the same material. There was a
twelve inch version called Euphoria,
Volume 1, and two 10"
releases, both called Euphoria,
but one pressed in black vinyl
and one in red vinyl (with a
different label and number). This
LP contains Buckley's most famous
work, the story of Christ,
otherwise known as "The Nazz":
"...and I dig all you cats out
there whippin' and whalin' and
jumpin' up and down and suckin'
up that fine juice, and pattin'
each other on the back and tellin'
each other who the greatest
cat in the woild is. Mr.
Malenkoff, Mr. Dalenkoff, Mr. Eisenhower,
Woozinweezin, Weisenwoozer,
and Mr. Woodhill and Mr. Beechhill
and Mr. Churchhill and all them
Hills, they gonna get it straight.
If they can't straighten it
they know a cat that knows a cat
that's gonna get it straight.
Well, I'm gonna put a cat on you
was the sweetest, gonist, wailinest
cat that ever stomped on
this sweet swingin' sphere.
And they call this here cat...the
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Nazz, that
was the cat's name. He was a carpenter
kitty. Now the Nazz was the kind of a cat that come on so wild, and so sweet, and so strong and so with it, that when he laid it, it stayed there..." Buckley on "You Bet Your Life" from The Airbrush Museum |
Also included on Euphoria are
"Marc Antony's Funeral Oration,"
an exercise in "hipsemantic";
"Nero," an outrageous account
of the infamous Roman emperor;
and "Murder," a crime we have all
daydreamed about committing
at one time or another. The latter
is a Buckley original and one
of a number of routines which is
done straight, that is, not
translated into "hipsemantic." This
album is representative of the
range of Buckley's passions. It
eloquently displays his sense
of rhythm, his love of language
and literature, his admiration
for historical figures who did
good for humankind, and his
fascination with the dark side of
the human soul.
Euphoria, Volume II contains
other popular Buckley numbers,
including "Jonah and the Whale"
(complete with a marijuana
smoking Jonah), and his tribute
to an obscure Spanish explorer,
The Gasser, who landed in Florida
in 1528 (not 1410) and
"made a connection that shook
the peninsula." Interestingly
enough, Buckley misnames this
historical figure, calling him
Cabenza De Gasca. In a
live version of "The Gasser" recorded in
1959 he uses his correct name,
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. "The
Hip Gahn" recalls an incident
in the life of another Buckley
hero, the "all-hip" Mahatma
Gandhi. The remainder of Euphoria,
Volume II consists of Buckley's
interpretation of four of Aesop's
Fables: "The Dog and the Wolf";
"The Grasshopper and the Ant";
"The Mouse and the Lion"; and
"The Lion's Breath." These
routines do not appear on any
other Buckley recording.
In 1963 the Crestview label issued
an album called The Best of
Lord Buckley, which contained
all the released Vaya material
except the Aesop's Fables, "Murder,"
and "Cabenza De Gasca,
The Gasser." In 1969 Elektra
released in the U. S. and England
a duplicate of the Crestview
album, also called The Best of
Lord Buckley. These recordings
both include an additional cut,
"Gettysburg Address," Buckley's
hipsemantic translation of
"Lanky Linc=B9s=B2 historic
speech. In 1992 the Discovery label
reissued most of the Vaya material
on a CD entitled His Royal
Hipness, Lord Buckley.
All the routines from Euphoria, Volume I
and Euphoria, Volume II are
included, except the fables and
"Murder." Like the Crestview
and Elektra vinyl it has the
additional cut, "Gettysburg
Address."
| A historic
Buckley recording has surfaced
recently which apparently was released only in England. Issued by Nonesuch Records in the 1960's, the album is entitled The Parabolic REVELATIONS of the Late Lord Buckley and was recorded in a Hollywood studio in front of a small audience in 1952. It includes "The Nazz," |
 |
Photo
from
The Airbrush Museum |
In 1955 and 1956 Buckley released
his only seven inch extended
play recordings. Nineteen
fifty-five's Hipsters, Flipsters and
Finger Poppin' Daddies Knock
Me Your Lobes was issued on RCA in
a two EP gatefold format (it
was also released as a single ten-
inch LP). Lord Buckley
himself wrote the liner notes; here is
what he has to say about four
of the EP's five cuts:
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen"
- "I lay the true story on you
about Marc (Antony).
He swung like nobody before him has
ever swung. In fact,
I spread the word like it has never been
spread before."
"To Swing or not to Swing?"-
"Have you ever tried to decode
what that cat (Shakespeare)
was trying to say about the stud
with the flipped lid,
Hamlet? For the first time in history
the true story of Hamlet
and his Number One chick, Ophelia
(who, if you remember
correctly, was a seven-ply gasser), is
told."
"Hip Hiawatha" - "He was
a jumping, stomping, hopping hipster
that really cut a mean
groove. His was the tale that history
was so easy on that you
won't believe it until you've heard it."
"Boston Tea Party" - "Do
you realize (this fact never came out
in history books) that
those cats in Boston poured so much tea
in the ocean that all
the fishes in that area got hung on tea
balls and the only way
to catch fish in the next fifty years
was to tie a tea ball
on the end of a hook? Without it, man,
they were dead."
For some reason His Lordship
makes no mention of the fifth cut,
"Is this the Sticker?" which
is his translation of the last half
of Act II, Scene I of "Macbeth."
 |
The three
Shakespeare pieces are remarkable in
that Buckley's narrative is done in graduate level "hipsemantic," perhaps as a tribute to The Bard. By this I mean that most of his routines (e.g. "The Nazz," "Jonah and the Whale") can be apprec- iated and enjoyed even if one is not familiar with many "hip" terms. But unless one is very familiar with Shakespeare, the Buckley excerpts, ironically, Photo from FlickR.com |
Buckley's other three seven-inch
EP's were released in 1956 on
the hip label. "The Gettysburg
Address" appears on both sides
of one disc, Buckley giving
his own rendition of the actual
address on one side, and a "hip"
translation on the other (this
version is different than the
one on The Best of Lord Buckley
LP's). The only known
copies of this disc are in red vinyl,
some of them even signed by
Lord Buckley. "James Dean's Message
to the Teenagers" describes
Buckley's only meeting with the
teen idol, which took place
at Jazz City in Hollywood. Buckley
was very impressed with Dean,
who had none of the affectations
of the stereotypical Hollywood
star. Dean thought that the
youth of America ("the brightest,
strongest, and most intelligent
of all the generations") were
"looking for some kind of a cop-
out in the face of the bad jazz
of the atomic age." He felt
they were having "a ball before
the blast," and that Buckley's
hip translations of the works
of Christ and Gandhi could help
them understand the power of
love. "James Dean" is backed with
"Speak for Yourself, John,"
Buckley's version of the love
triangle in Plymouth Colony
between Miles Standish, John Alden,
and Priscilla. The third
EP, "Flight of the Saucer," Parts 1
and 2, is a science fiction
fantasy with a message. It is the
story of a spaceship from Jupiter
which lands on Earth. While
stopping on Mars to refuel on
its return voyage, a reporter
from Earth interviews a Martian,
who tells Earthlings not to
"play the fool and lose the
cool" with our Atomic and Hydrogen
bombs.
A most immaculately hip aristocrat
was recorded in 1956 but was
not released by Straight Records
until 1970. It was also
reissued that same year by Reprise,
which reissued a number of
Straight and Bizarre recordings.
Although the sound quality
is good, it is a somewhat amateurish
recording with starts/
stops, airplane noises in the
background, and people talking.
But it does contains some classic
Buckley riffs. Side one's
"The Bad Rapping of the Marquis
De Sade/The King of Bad Cats"
is Buckley's defense of the
historic villain (more about this
routine later). "Governor
Slugwell" is virtually identical to
"Governor Gulpwell" on Parabolic
REVELATIONS. Side two has
three recordings found on no
other commercial release. "The
Raven" ("so many times when
you don't want the bird, when you
don't need the bird, when you
haven't got the first possible
use for the bird, that's when
you get it.") is a wonderful
tribute in hip to that tortured
soul, Edgar Allen Poe. Buckley
has another peek at the dark
side in "The Train," the tale of
a seemingly ordinary train ride
that ends in disaster. His
voice is extraordinary on this
track as he recreates the
various sounds of a locomotive.
"The Hip Einie" could refer
to none other than that "sphere
gasser," Albert Einstein:
"He became the king of all space-heads.
He goofed through
the zonasphere and the voutasphere
and the routasphere and
the hipasphere and the flipasphere
and the zipasphere and the
gonasphere and the waygonasphere
- he was way on out there."
A most immaculately hip aristocrat
was reissued twice in 1989,
on vinyl by Demon Verbals in
England and on CD and cassette
by Enigma Retro in the U. S.
| In 1959
Buckley gave a series of concerts at the Ivar
Theatre in Hollywood, California. Hisperformance on February 12, 1959 (Lincoln's birthday) was recorded and released that year as Way Out Humor, the first of five LP's issued on World Pacific Records. It is on stage where Lord Buckley's genius is most noticably in evidence, fueled by a rare synergism between |
 |
Photo from It's a Hot'un |
Way Out Humor contains a wonderful
version of "The Nazz"; a
moving "Black Cross"; a short
tribute to Shakespeare ("Willie
the Shake"); and four original
routines which, interestingly
enough, are not done in hip.
On "Supermarket" His Lordship
excoriates the "greedheads"
who own the supermarkets and
expect us to do their work for
them, "pushin' the mother
cart." "Lions" is a short
take about some foul smelling
beasts on a boat, possibly Noah's
ark. "My Own Railroad" is
a fanciful, and supposedly autobiographical,
sketch about
getting away from it all by
going for a drive and winding up
cruising out of town on Chicago's
State Street trolley tracks.
The fourth original number is
a "creative wig-bubble" about
a man of temperance who watches
over his brother-in-law's
still and becomes "God's Own
Drunk."
What is particularly significant
about Way Out Humor is that
for the first time on record
Buckley presents the philosophy
which is a driving force in
his life: "Laughter, it truly is
religious; it gives off vibrations
from the subconscious...
when a person is laughing he's
illuminated, he's illuminated
the full beauty of a human being,
and the womanhood, when
she's happy and laughing is
ooooh mother magnate...it's a
prayer." He demonstrates
this with a selection from Joyce
Cary's "Horse's Mouth."
In the last scene of the book the
main character, Gulley Jimson,
is brought, dying, into a
Catholic hospital, but "he's
swingin', he's leapin, he's
jumpin', he's layin' it down."
When a nun comments that at
such a serious time it would
be better for him to pray than
to laugh, Jimson replies, "It's
the same thing, madam."
Way Out Humor was also reissued
by World Pacific in 1964 as
Lord Buckley In Concert.
The jacket cover photo of Buckley
wearing his favorite pith helmet
is the same on both albums,
as are the liner notes and the
material; however, "Lions"
is not listed as a track on
the In Concert LP. Way Out Humor
was also issued with an alternate
jacket which says "Far Out
Humor" on the back, with the
words "High Fidelity Long
Playing" near the upper left
and right hand corners. A
British label, Demon Verbals
(a subsidiary of Demon Records),
re-released Lord Buckley In
Concert in 1985. The cover
photo is identical to the World
Pacific releases, and the
inner sleeve has some interesting
and amusing liner notes
as well as rare Buckley photos
taken at The Music Box, a
club in Los Angeles.
In 1966 World Pacific released
Blowing His Mind (and yours,
too). Side one was recorded
at the same Ivar Theatre concert
(February 12, 1959) as Way Out
Humor and includes "The Gasser"
as well as four new tracks.
"Subconscious Mind" is the story
of a beautiful daydream someone
has while driving on a sunny
afternoon. "Fire Chief"
is a short bit about a fireman who
drops a woman he's trying to
rescue. "Let It Down" is a
"commercial kick" about a farmer
urging his reluctant cow to
give milk. The final live
cut, "Murder," is a shortened
version of the Vaya recording.
Side two was recorded at
World Pacific Studios in 1960.
"Maharaja" is the story of
"The Cop-out," a man who has
done something so outrageous as
to be unforgivable, yet manages
to talk his way back into the
maharaja's good graces.
"Scrooge" needs no explanation, "You
can get with it if you want
to - there's only one way straight
to the road of love."
Blowing His Mind was also released in
England (Fontana) and reissued
by Demon Verbals in 1985.
The fourth World Pacific album,
Buckley's Best, was issued in
1968. Six of the seven
selections are from the February 12,
1959, Ivar Theatre date and
are available on either Way Out
Humor (Lord Buckley In Concert)
or Blowing His Mind (and yours,
too). They are: "Supermarket,"
"The Naz," "The Gasser,"
"Subconscious Mind," "Willie
The Shake," and "God's Own Drunk."
The only new cut, "Martin's
Horse," was also recorded at the
Ivar, most likely on the same
date. It is another story of
love, this time between a jockey
and his horse.
As great as the Ivar concert
albums are, the quintessential
Buckley disc is his last officially
released recording, made
in the year of his death.
The Bad Rapping of the Marquis de
Sade (World Pacific, 1969; Demon
Verbals, 1986), recorded live
in Oakland in 1960 at "The Gold
Nugget", is the culmination of
a lifetime of work. The
club atmosphere is intimate, Buckley
is at his funniest, his timing
is impeccable, and he is one
with his audience. He raps about
his favorite subjects: history,
literature, the outrageous,
social concerns, and between cuts
 |
he philosophizes
about religion and the nature
of humor. And yes, we have that marvelous Buckley voice, sometimes singing, sometimes imitating musical instruments, sometimes stentorian, sometimes whispering, but always stimulating. Photo from SFGAte.com |
Side one opens with The Bad Rapping
of the Marquis de Sade,
which, as mentioned earlier,
is Buckley's defense of the "hero
in evil." How can one
defend the man whose actions gave us the
word "sadism"? Buckley's
point is that de Sade never forced
his desires on anyone, yet "they
bad-rapped the poor cat every
step of the way." As he
is about to translate one of de Sade's
favorite stories, a hilarious
tale about the cannibalistic
Prince Minski (The King of Bad
Cats), Buckley explains:
"You know, there's a lot of times
when you hear of something
wild, something crazy, something
insane, and you see the
humorous thing will reach such
a high altitude, that you say
to yourself, 'Man, that's, that's
no longer funny.' But, if it
is humor, and you proceed further,
instead of earning a negate
under the license of humor,
you'll find out there's a whole
new strata up there. 'Cause
humor goes in a complete circle,
like the world. Humor
is the oil of the soul."
We get a glimpse of Buckley's
religious leanings in "Black
Cross" (Way Out Humor; Lord
Buckley in Concert), when main
character, Hezekiah Jones, declares:
"I believe that a man
should be beholdin' to his neighbor
without the reward of
heaven or the fear of hellfire."
Here, he takes this
philosophy a step further: "I'm
a people worshiper. I think
people should worship people,
I really do." He apologizes
for offending anyone's religious
beliefs, but his credo is:
"I like to worship somethin'
I can see, somethin' I can get
my hands on, get my brains on.
I don't know about that Jehovah
cat, I can't reach him.
Seemed like every time I found myself
in a bind nothing mystic came
to help me, some man or some
woman stepped up there..."
Indeed, he opens side two by
informing his audience that
they are not in a bar but in a
modern chapel and welcomes them
to high mass.
The second, and last, cut on
side one, "H-bomb," revisits a
theme touched upon in other
recordings, the fear of impending
nuclear holocaust. Buckley's
antidote for such fear is, of
course, humor. Invoking
British philosopher Lord Boothby and
American humorist James Thurber,
he contends that in times of
urgency it is the responsibility
of a nation's humor "to attack
the catastrophe that faces it
in such a manner as to cause the
people to laugh at it in such
a way that they do not die before
they get killed." Buckley's
plan would be to spend a billion
dollars on an advertising campaign
to make people laugh at "The
Bomb."
Side two opens with perhaps Buckley's
funniest routine, a
fantasy on the origin of "The
Chastity Belt," complete with a
white duke, a black duke, the
holy grail, and a golden belt
with "little phallic figurines,
each and every one of them
engraved in virgin pearls."
His Lordship's love of literature
is in evidence in "The Ballad
of Dan McGroo," a "hipsemantic"
treatment of the Robert Service
poem, "The Shooting of Dan
McGrew." In the finale, "His
Majesty, the Policeman," he not
only sings but plays the parts
of an entire marching band.
How ironic, given the circumstances
of his death, that Buckley
should pay tribute to the "draggiest
job in the world" on the
last song of his last recording.
In 1991 Shambala Lion Editions
(a division of Shambala
Publications) released a cassette
called Lord Buckley Live,
produced by Buckley's son, Richard,
Jr. Most of the cuts are
available on the World Pacific/Demon
Verbals recordings,
including "The Hip Ghan," "The
Gettysburg Address," "God's
Own Drunk," "The Nazz," "Scrooge,"
"The Gasser," and "Murder,"
although some are slightly different
versions, possibly
unreleased hip label material.
"Is This the Sticker?" and
"James Dean" are available on
the EP's, but these are very
difficult to find. Two
of the tracks are not available on
any other commercial recording.
"Baa Baa Black Sheep" is the
allegorical tale of a large
family of sheep, one pink (the
mother), one blue (the father),
nine white and one black.
The black sheep is scoffed at
until one day he helps out a
small boy and girl in trouble
by giving them not one, but
three pounds of wool ("he turned
out to be whiter than the
rest of them"). In the
story the song "Baa Baa Black Sheep"
is sung by a young boy, most
likely Richard, Jr. In "Trouble"
Buckley does a hip/scat interpretation,
with piano accompaniment,
of the standard "Nobody Knows
the Troubles I've Seen."
| There
are five known compilation albums with Buckley
cuts. In 1970 Reprise issued two Bizarre/Straight samplers called Zapped, each with a different cut from "a most immaculately hip aristocrat." One has Frank Zappa on the cover and includes "Governor Slugwell." The second has a collage cover with Zappa and other artists whose work appears on the |
 |
Photo
from
LordBuckley.com |
Buckley did two public radio
interviews, one with Bill Butler
for KPFA in Berkeley, California
on September 16, 1959, and
one with Studs Terkel for WFMT,
Chicago (August, 1960). Prince
Butler is unsettled, awed and
mystified by His Lordship, yet is
impressed by Buckley's intellectual,
non-derogatory humor. By
the end of the interview he
becomes a convert. Buckley talks of
many things - his show business
beginnings, the beauty of people,
"the brotherhood of the Negro
race," which has come up against
the "granite walls of stupidity"
in this country - and performs
two bits, "The Gasser," and
a hip translation of an excerpt from
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin."
Studs Terkel, being an experienced
interviewer, is at ease with
His Majesty and can be heard laughing
in the background as Buckley
does his bits, which include
"Hipsters, Flipsters...," "The
Pied Piper of Hamelin," "The
Raven," the inimitable "His
Majesty, The Policeman," and "His
Majesty, The Pedestrian" (done
to the same tune as "Policeman").
Terkel is, of course, hip to
the "jazz tempo," "the beat," and
the "blues feeling" in Buckley's
work and says he has "the mark
of an old time Shakespearean
actor." In discussing his translation
of historic works into hip,
Buckley notes: "When you start to
fool with these classics, you
have the tremulous stature of an
amateur architect goofing in
the Taj Mahal." He also touches
upon familiar themes: "We have
to spread love...rehearse kindness
and graciousness with other
people...learn to give more. Buckley
closes by calling upon the gangs
of America to "quit squaring up
and get hip, which means to
be wise, and make the people who love
them proud of them."
Both interviews should be available
from the respective radio
stations for a small fee.
On December 16, 23, and 30, 1988
radio station KRCW-FM in Los
Angeles ran three hour-long
shows on Lord Buckley, hosted by
Roger Steffens. The first
show included Dr. Oscar Janiger,
Buckley friends Dr. James Macy
and Doug Boyd, and actor John
Hostedder. Janiger, Macy
and Boyd shared Buckley anecdotes
and Hostedder performed some
well-known Buckley riffs. The
second show, with Hostedder
and actor Charlie Halahan (Hunter),
centered on Buckley, the performer.
The cast of the first show
returned for the finale, but
this time the discussion focused
on Buckley's acid trip.
All three shows featured tracks from
Buckley recordings as well as
readings of His Lordship's
material by John Hostedder.
Is there more Buckley material
out there? Given His Majesty's
prodigious propensity to perform,
most certainly amateur
recordings do exist. Buckley
is said to have made a recording
with his friend, Jonathan Winters.
On a Thanksgiving weekend
in the late 1950's at the Lake
Arrowhead cabin of Dr. Janiger,
His Lordship delivered a non-stop
discourse for upwards of
eighteen hours. Part of
this performance was recorded but the
tapes have since disappeared.
Not long ago the National Public
Radio station in Cleveland,
WCPN, produced a documentary on
Cleveland poet Joseph Newman
("Black Cross"). The program
included Buckley reading an
excerpt from a Newman poem called
"The Shah's Embroidered Pants,"
which was recorded, along with
several other numbers, when
he visited Cleveland in 1957.
Hopefully, this session will
someday be released commercially.
Finally, he is rumored to have
recorded a redition of the
childrens story Little Black
Sambo under the name Richard or
Dick Buckley; however, no copy
of the recording has ever
surfaced.
Enigma Retro's a most immaculatey
hip aristocrat (1989),
Shambala Lion Editions' Lord
Buckley Live (1991), and
Discovery's His Royal Hipness,
Lord Buckley (1992) are the
only Lord Buckley albums still
likely to be in print. The
World Pacific, Demon Verbals,
Straight, Crestview, and Elektra
releases are out there and can
be found with a little effort.
(There always seems to be a
Buckley LP in Goldmine). The
Parabolic REVELATIONS of the
Late Lord Buckley, the Vaya
recordings and the seven inch
EP's are very difficult to find.
How does one classify Lord Buckley's
work? In the liner notes
of Blowing His Mind (and yours,
too) producer Jim Dickson
offers this explanation: "When
his first album was made, there
was no category it could be
filed under. In a sense, he was a
jazz comic. Jazz in the
sense of improvisation on a theme -
comic in that he certainly made
people laugh. But his delight
was that of dramatic storyteller,
limited only by the audience's
ability to stay with him." Add
humorist and philosopher to jazz
comic and dramatic storyteller
and one begins to appreciate the
complex nature of this comic
genius's work.
Buckley was at times incorrectly
labeled as a satirical or even
"sick" comedian by those unhip
souls who thought his "hipsemantic"
renderings of the classics were
irreverent. As Dan James noted
in the liner notes to Way Out
Humor: "In an age worshipping the
negation with a humor that is
sick sick sick, Lord Buckley
insists on being triumphant,
joyous, positive, proclaiming himself
the poet of the well well well."
Studs Terkel mentioned there was
an element of compassion in
his work, and Buckley himself insisted,
"I am not a sick humorist."
Let us not forget, too, that
Buckley was a fabulous performer,
and this is a side of his brilliance
most fans will never get to
experience. Oliver Trager: "In
performance Lord Buckley was a most
immaculately hip aristocrat,
a mischievous twinkle in his eye,
twirling his waxed Daliesque
mustache and gracefully drawing on
his omnipresent cigarette, his
massive frame cloaked in a tuxedo,
a fresh carnation attached smartly
to the lapel."
Lord Buckley's influence was
perhaps best summed up by author
Ken Kesey in a conversation
with Oliver Trager: "Lord Buckley is
a secret thing that people pass
under the table. You ask writers
who they think is the best writer,
and they all mention someone
above them. Gradually you get
up at the top, and you get to Samuel
Beckett and not many people
have read him. But a lot of people
have been influenced by Beckett.
I think the same was true of
Lord Buckley. There were
a lot of people influenced by Lord
Buckley who never heard his
material." Amen.
| The good Prince
Walt can be
reached at his email address: hipcat@teleport.com The Royal Throne by Charles Pike
|
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