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Lord Buckley LP cover designed by Jim Flora, 1955

Lord Richard Buckley (b. Richard Myrle Buckley, April 5, 1906 Tuolumne, California; d. November 12, 1960 New York City) was an American recording artist, a monologist, and Hip poet/ comic.

Life

Buckley's father William had emigrated from England. In the 1950s Buckley was cast as one of America's top hipsters, a "way-out swinger," enjoying cult status among those who were exposed to his work.

Buckley adopted his "hipsemantic" from his peers Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Redd Foxx, Pearl Mae Bailey, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra, as well as Hipsters and the British aristocracy. Occasionally performing to music, he frequently punctuated his monologues with scat singing. His most significant tracks are his retelling of historical or legendary events, mostly fictionalized, imbued with his style of humor. These include the stories "My Own Railroad" and "The Nazz". The latter, first recorded in 1952, describes Jesus' working profession as that of a "carpenter kitty." Other historical figures include Gandhi ("The Hip Gahn") and the Marquis de Sade ("The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade, the King of Bad Cats"). He also retold several classic documents such as the Gettysburg Address and a 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."

Buckley enjoyed smoking marijuana. 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. Ed Sullivan reflected "...he was impractical as many of his profession are, but the vivid Buckley will long be remembered by all of us."

On October 19, 1960, he was scheduled to play club dates and another appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York, but his cabaret card was seized, purportedly because of a 1941 arrest for marijuana possession. The card was necessary to appear in nightclubs and were often withheld for political reasons, and as a way to solicit payoffs. Without the card he was unable to perform. 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.

Death

Richard 'Lord' Buckley died November 12, 1960 at New York City's Columbus Hospital. A hearing held two days after his death turned into a raucous confrontation between Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy and Buckley's friends and supporters, including Quincy Jones, George Plimpton and Norman Mailer. The scandal of Buckley's death, attributed at least in part to his loss of the card, led to the removal of Kennedy in 1960 and the abolition of the cabaret card system by 1967, some 7 years later.

Lord Buckley's funeral was on November 16, 1960 at the Frank E. Campbell Chapel on 88th Street in New York City. Lord Buckley was cremated at the Ferndale Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York and eventually, according to Richard Buckley Jr, his ashes were scattered in Red Rock Canyon about 15 miles outside of Las Vegas by his mother Lady Buckley with the sword from a steel statue of Kierkegaard welded by John Muir.

Recording artist

Lord Buckley recorded over 15 long playing albums in a studio setting. Lord Buckley recordings can be found on bgmrecordings, RCA Records, VAYA, World Pacific, Capitol Records, Elektra Records, Frank Zappa's Straight Records label and United Artists, with titles such as "Blowing His Mind," "Euphoria," "A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat," "The Bad Rapping of The Marquis De Sade" and "The Best of Lord Buckley", "Wild Truth", "Professor of Hipology", "Drama King" and "Hip Classics".

Trivia

• "Crackerbox Palace"on the 33 1/3 album by George Harrison about Lord Buckley's home in Los Angles, Echo Park.
• "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.
• David Bowie references "The Nazz" in the lyrics to his song "Ziggy Stardust".
• Lord Buckley's "God's Own Drunk" was recorded on Living and Dying in 3/4 Time by Jimmy Buffett in 1974.
• The "Tales of Lord Buckley" are available on itunes Crown Prince Richard's Collection
• Lord Buckley is referenced several times throughout the Callahan Series by Spider Robinson. His style is imitated by Robinson in 2 items in a short story collection on the subject of Robert Heinlein.
• Lord Buckley was mentioned as an influence by Tom Waits in an interview in 1979.

External links

• LordBuckley.com includes biographical material, discography and an extensive archive of writings by and about Buckley.
• Wig Bubbles Wig Bubbles has some accurate transcribings of Lord Buckley's hipsemanticisms.

Bibliography

• Trager, Oliver. Dig Infinity: The Life and Art of Lord Buckley, Welcome Rain Publishers (2002), hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN-10: 1566491576 ISBN-13: 978-1566491570

From Wikiquote

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

Sourced

• It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis 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 cannot die before they are killed.
  • Lord Buckley, "H-Bomb" (comic monologue), 1960. Reported in Stephen Holden, It's Comedy! From Skit To Song To Satire (October 27, 1989) The New York Times.

External links

• LordBuckley.com includes biographical material, discography and an extensive archive of writings by and about Buckley.
• Transcriptions of monlogues by Lord Buckley
• Harvey Pekar Reflects on Lord Buckley and the roots of modern comedy