The “joke” artist Bob Dylan deemed “a national treasure”
When we use the phrase “national treasure”, we’re normally referring to someone who has captured the hearts and minds of people across an entire nation, and whose legacy is in absolutely zero doubt. Given how influential he has been to the history of music in his home country, Bob Dylan would be the perfect example of an American national treasure.
A notable songwriter since the 1960s, and instantly propelled into the spotlight and hailed as one of the greatest folk songwriters of a generation, he’s barely ceased to release music of a high calibre, and even now in his eighties, you get the feeling that he has no intention of stopping in the near future. For someone to remain as significant as he has for over 60 years is nothing short of a sign of an extraordinary career.
While there are plenty of others who can be mentioned in the same breath as him as world-changing musicians, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Presley being notable American artists who have had their legacies last for decades, you can’t really fault Dylan in any way for the work he’s put in to maintaining his status, and failing to see him as a national treasure would be ignorant of his hard work.
But for Dylan himself, there’s one artist whom he personally believed was deserving of being regarded as a national treasure, despite how many people perceived him in a completely different light, and as something of a novelty who should never be remembered in a good light in the same way that Dylan is revered. However, he firmly believed that Tiny Tim was one of the most important figures of the Greenwich Village scene that he emerged from in the 1960s, and despite his outsider status, he hailed him as an icon.
Perhaps best known for his hit, ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’, his high falsetto and ukulele accompaniment on songs was something that others found off-putting, but many high-profile artists recognised that Herbert Boutros Khaury, better known as Tiny Tim, was something of a musical savant. While this hit is seen as something of a laughing stock, his bizarre and off-the-wall covers of pop hits gained a cult following, and his ‘90s comeback album, Rock, is seen as something of an off-kilter masterpiece by those who understand the brilliance of his work.
“Tiny Tim was a character who played around Greenwich Village in the ’50s and ’60s,” Dylan once proclaimed. “A lot of people think that he was a joke. But no one knew more about old music than Tiny Tim did. He studied it and he lived it. He knew all the songs that only existed as sheet music. When he passed away, we lost a national treasure.”
A real original and a legend that many simply didn’t understand, Tiny Tim was a performer who was destined never to be a star, but for anyone who cared to listen to him and his artistry, they would have ultimately been enthralled by his weirdness, and would understand exactly what Dylan meant when he said he was a legend and a national treasure. He’s far from everyone’s idea of a treasure, but as far as Dylan was concerned, there was nobody else quite like Tiny Tim.
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