Fronted by the nervous guitar and earnest vocals of Richard Barone, the Bongos grabbed the torch from the Talking Heads to light the way into the 1980s for a second generation of eye-opening New York bands that sounded nothing like their predecessors. Dedicated to the proposition that the tired and huddled masses could still find comfort at CBGB (or at Maxwell’s across the Hudson River), the Bongos ruled the greater-NYC roost. A stimulating succession of solo releases, topped by this year’s Glow (Bar/None), leaves no doubt that Barone is still hitting on all cylinders, a vital and imaginative force in today’s music scene when most of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. Barone will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Barone: With the recent resurgent mania surrounding the ukulele still in full swing, I’ve been asked to appear on radio talk shows to discuss one of the instrument’s major proponents, the late, great Mr. Tiny Tim, who I recorded when I was 16 (I’ve Never Seen A Straight Banana). While admittedly no virtuoso, Tiny seemed to be the lone champion of the instrument as rock got heavier—even while labelmate Jimi Hendrix was lighting his Stratocaster on fire—just as he had done since 1950 when he began creating his character and honing his craft. A true musicologist, seeking songs from all eras (especially that golden age of popular music from 1878 through the 1930s), his repertoire was a history lesson as well as a hoot. Wielding his trademark four-sting wonder, he zoomed up the charts with the 1929 ditty ‘Tip Toe Thru The Tulips’ in 1968, while others were laying down the heavy blues. An outsider artist then and now, “Tiny Tim” and “ukulele” became synonymous. He brought down the “house” of 600,000 hippies at the legendary Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, against such heavy competition as the Doors, Hendrix, Miles Davis and countless others. Ahh, the power of the mighty uke!
