When Tiny Tim was in Des Moines

I am writing this on the Monday following Record Store Day weekend, and, with all honesty, I didn’t indulge this year. I’m already sitting on more than 2,000 LPs, which is enough wax to clog the arteries of a medium-sized city. Instead, I decided to spin some records Saturday morning by digging through my own shelves to find a few oddities I haven’t played recently, and one of those was “God Bless Tiny Tim” from 1968. I blasted that ukelele-shredding, mutant-falsetto voice as loud as I could without having my neighbors call the authorities. 

Yes, this story is about the brief period when Tiny Tim lived in Des Moines in the early 1990s, but first let me frame this up. I was late to the game to knowing all this, but it was brought to my attention around wintertime in 2011. I had written a letter to noise musician and artist Boyd Rice, who in turn wrote me back and included his phone number. Boyd is a legend in the counterculture crowd and was known for his love of 1960s girl bands like Little Peggy March and as a spokesperson for Anton Lavey’s Church of Satan. Why would I not call him?

Immediately into our conversation, he asked if I was in Denver (I have had a Denver phone number since 2004), and I said no and that I was in Des Moines. He immediately reacted with telling me about his late friend, Tiny Tim, who once lived here. That was my introduction to Tiny Tim’s time here in our city.

Born Herbert Buckingham Khaury, Tiny Tim broke into the music world in the early 1940s as a singer in rural New York. The performer became famous for his high-pitched spoofs of well-known songs, as well as a few of his originals. He moved here when his career had drastically slowed down and lived first at Hotel Savery and later Hotel Fort Des Moines. His manager at the time, Stephen Plym, lived in West Des Moines. Plym booked Tiny Tim to play in several spots in town including The Red Bull, Holiday Inn South, Doc and Eddy’s, and Gray’s Lake Inn, as well as clubs in Davenport and the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. In a Des Moines Register article by Tom Longden, Tiny Tim claimed he loved Des Moines because it was “peaceful” and “God-fearing.”

One of the most interesting video artifacts out there is the 1992 performance Tiny Tim gave at Ruby Van Meter Elementary. The students first performed a few of his songs in their gymnasium, and that followed with the man himself pulling out his ukelele from a worn-out paper Hy-Vee bag. (It was noted that he shopped for foot lotion and hair color there.) He sang his most famous tune, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” but he also belted out a few American folk tunes like “The Yankee Doodle Boy” and the Elvis Presley classic, “My Baby Left Me.”

During a 1992 KCCI interview, he performed Irving Kaufman’s World War I tune, “Way Down in Iowa, I’m Going to Hide Away.”

I’ll never leave; I’ll take an oath.

I’ll hide away way down in Ioway!

I’m gonna hide away on a little farm in Ioway!”

In 1995, Tiny Tim performed live on the Variety Club of Iowa Telethon. He performed the songs “Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear” and “Goodnight, Sweetheart” by Russ Columbo along with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Tiny Tim left Iowa in 1995 and moved to Minneapolis where he passed away the following year in 1996. He was laid to rest in Lakewood Cemetery. Before the Hotel Fort Des Moines was purchased by Hawkeye Hotels, some of Tiny Tim’s suits were stored there. They were eventually sold in July of 2015. ♦

Kristian Day is a filmmaker and writer based in Des Moines. He also hosts the syndicated Iowa Basement Tapes radio program on 98.9 FM KFMG. Instagram: @kristianday | Twitter: @kristianmday