RCA VICTOR 45 EP  EPB-3246

Lord Buckley

"A most immaculately hip aristocrat," Lord Buckley was the epitome of comedy cool; a onetime vaudeville performer and a hulking ex-lumberjack, he was a comic philosopher, a bop monologuist whose vocalese fused the rhythms and patois of the street with the arch sophistication of the British upper-crust to create verbal symphonies unparalleled in their intricacy and dexterity. A comedian who didn't tell jokes and a word-jazz virtuoso riffing madly on the English language, Buckley combined the frenetic intensity of Beat poetry with the lessons and moral heft of Biblical tales and historical discourse; holding court over the "hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies" of the postwar era, he was a true visionary, the original rapper.

"A most immaculately hip aristocrat," Lord Buckley was the epitome of comedy cool; a onetime vaudeville performer and a hulking ex-lumberjack, he was a comic philosopher, a bop monologuist whose vocalese fused the rhythms and patois of the street with the arch sophistication of the British upper-crust to create verbal symphonies unparalleled in their intricacy and dexterity. A comedian who didn't tell jokes and a word-jazz virtuoso riffing madly on the English language, Buckley combined the frenetic intensity of Beat poetry with the lessons and moral heft of Biblical tales and historical discourse; holding court over the "hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies" of the postwar era, he was a true visionary, the original rapper.

His Lordship was born Richard Myrle Buckley on April 5, 1906 in Tuolumne, California, a mining town located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. After spending his formative years as a lumberjack, in the mid-1920s Buckley set... Read More

In 1951 Buckley made his first recordings for the Vaya label, Euphoria and Euphoria, Volume II. The first album contained his most legendary routine, "The Nazz," a "hipsemantic" retelling of the life of Christ ("the sweetest, gonest, wailinest cat that ever stomped on this sweet, swingin' sphere"); the latter featured a number of riffs on Aesop's Fables as well as "Jonah and the Whale," complete with a pothead Jonah. Despite a series of well-received appearances on The Tonight Show, The Milton Berle Show and You Bet Your Life, Buckley did not re-enter the studio until 1955, when he cut Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes, which spotlighted his adaptations of scenes from the Shakespearean dramas Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth.

This Ultra-Rare 45 EP is in VG/VG condition (very conservatively graded- you will be pleased)

The front cover has minor wear, the back cover has minor ring wear- both 45s are

SIDE 1    Friends, Romans, Countrymen * Hiawatha

SIDE 2    To Swing Or Not To Swing

SIDE 3    Boston Tea Party

SIDE 4  Is This The Sticker

LINER NOTES BY Lord Buckley