Lord Buckley

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Lord Buckley LP cover designed by Jim Flora, 1955
Lord Buckley LP cover designed by Jim Flora, 1955

Lord Buckley (b. Richard Myrle Buckley, April 5, 1906 Tuolumne, California; d. November 12, 1960 New York City) was an eccentric, joyous American monologist.

Contents

[edit] Life and work

Buckley, an accomplished cultural assimilator, adopted for his hipsemantic persona the lingo of poor black Southerners, jazzy beatniks, and British aristocracy (His father William had emigrated from England to California, but was not a peer of the realm. His mother Annie Laurie Bone was the daughter of Cornwall immigrants and a born storyteller.). He dressed exuberantly and sported a mustache in the style of Salvador Dalí. None of this was an act, because by all accounts he stayed in character off stage, "holding court" at his home (frequently in the nude) and dubbing all his friends and family with noble titles. His personal philosophy was one of intense joy and wonder in living, and deep love and profound respect for his fellow man, as consistently reflected in his elaborate references to Christian brotherhood (e.g. his most famous piece "The Nazz", the story of Jesus of Nazareth in his own hyper-hip lingo) and his usual form of address to his audience as "all you cats and kitties," and "my lords and my ladies, beloveds." He exuded a gentleness and warmth, and his adoption of an aristocratic title, which might have seemed bizarrely arrogant, in fact curiously elevated his listeners as his attitude was always one of deference and humility before them, urging "their majesties" to appreciate their own nobility as human beings.

Buckley worked as a lumberjack as a youth, then as an entertainer in medicine shows, tent shows, and finally speakeasies in Chicago in the 1920s. He ran dance marathons in the 1930s and vaudeville shows in the 1940s, works jazz clubs and nightclubs and becomes friends with jazz greats like Gene Krupa. During World War II he toured with the USO and became very close friends with Ed Sullivan, who often helped Buckley with legal trouble (he was arrested on more than one occasion for drunkenness and marijuana possession). Finally during the 1950s Buckley was cast as a comedian, one of America's top hipsters, a "way-out" "swinger" enjoying cult status and respect from those who were exposed to his work.

Occasionally performing to music and singing, he frequently punctuated his monologues with non-linguistic vocal sounds. Most Buckley recordings are solo tours de force on themes of real gravity. His most enduring tracks are his retelling of historical or legendary events, most fictionalized to a certain degree, imbued with his scandalous and high-brow humor. Notable among these are the stories of Jesus ("The Nazz", first recorded in 1952, which describes Jesus' working profession as that of a "carpenter kitty"), Gandhi ("The Hip Gan"), the Marquis de Sade ("The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade, the King of Bad Cats"), among others. He also retold several classic documents such as a (relatively sober) Gettysburg Address and an (appropriately psychedelic) version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." In "Mark Antony's Funeral Oration", he recast Shakespeare's "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" as "Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies: knock me your lobes."

As a bon vivant of the jazz subculture, Buckley very much enjoyed smoking marijuana. He was a prodigious drinker, then would subsequently repent and abstain for a time. He wrote reports of his first experiences with LSD, under the supervision of Dr. Oscar Janiger, and of his trip in a United States Air Force jet. Throughout his life he maintained an almost unnerving dignity, even while receiving visitors in the nude, as he was wont to do. He was a notoriously bad manager of money, constantly in debt, and died owing $300,000 (approximately $2,200,000 in 2008 dollars) to Ed Sullivan (who reflected "…he was impractical as many of his profession are, but the vivid Buckley will long be remembered by all of us.").

In October of 1960 he was scheduled to play club dates in New York, but his New York City Cabaret Card was seized, purportedly because of a 1941 arrest for marijuana possession but probably because of a failure to pay an expected bribe to police officers. Such cards were necessary to appear in nightclubs and were often withheld for political reasons, for incidents of past drug use or as a way to solicit payoffs. Without the card he was unable to perform, and quickly fell into poor health. He attempted to get the card reinstated and more than three dozen major figures in the entertainment and arts world showed up for a hearing on the matter. Buckley died at Columbus Hospital, probably from a stroke aggravated by malnutrition and a kidney ailment before the case could be resolved. A second hearing held two days after his death turned into a raucous confrontation between Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy and Buckley's friends and supporters, including George Plimpton, Norman Mailer and Norman Podhoretz. The scandal of Buckley's death, attributed at least in part to his loss of the card, led to the removal of Kennedy and the abolition of the cabaret card system.

A play by Jake Broder, His Royal Hipness Lord Buckley in the Zam Zam Room, opened in New York in December 2005, and is currently playing in Los Angeles (as of May 2007).

A documentary film Too Hip For the Room: The Righteous Reign of Lord Buckley is currently in production. It is slated to be finished in 2009.

[edit] Lord Buckley and the Beatles

Among Buckley's fans were The Beatles who reputedly considered him their favorite comic.

In "The Nazz", Buckley asserts that it was Jude (instead of Peter) who walked on the water with Jesus: when the apostle asks if he can come out on the water, Buckley relates, "And The Nazz say, 'Make it, Jude!'" The extended ending to The Beatles' 1968 hit "Hey Jude" includes Paul shouting, "Na na na nananana I'll make it Jude."

When George Harrison visited MIDEM (the annual French music convocation) in the 1970s, he met one of Buckley's former managers George Greif at a dinner party. In a 2001 video interview with documentarians Michael Monteleone and Roger Mexico, Greif said, "And there was a dinner that Jerry Morts was throwing for Joe Meyers and George introducing his new label to A& M. And someone had told George that I had been Buckley's manager, so he left the dinner and never went back to it-came up to my room and just wanted to hear Buckley stories." Harrison and Greif spent the entire night talking about Buckley. When Greif mentioned the nickname of one of Buckley's ramshackle abodes, "Crackerbox Palace" Harrison was delighted and wrote the name on a cigarette pack for future reference. Harrison was inspired by the experience to write a song, "Crackerbox Palace" (which also became the nickname of his own home, Friar Park), which became a Top 20 hit in 1977. This story is corroborated by George Harrison in a radio interview (date unknown.)

[edit] Trivia

  • "The Train" and "The Nazz" by Lord Buckley appear on NME's The Supermassive Selection CD, the tracklist is a collection of favourite songs of the English band Muse.
  • "The Nazz" inspired the name of the group "Nazz", formed by Todd Rundgren in 1967.
  • Lord Buckley's "God's Own Drunk" was recorded on Living and Dying in 3/4 Time by Jimmy Buffett in 1974.

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography

Trager, Oliver. Dig Infinity: The Life and Art of Lord Buckley, Welcome Rain Publishers LLC, New York City, 2001.