Lord Buckley

Dubbed "A most immaculately hip aristocrat," Lord Buckley personified the height of comedic sophistication. Formerly a vaudeville entertainer and a towering one-time lumberjack, he operated as a philosophical humorist and bop monologuist, merging street rhythms and vernacular with the refined hauteur of British nobility to produce unmatched verbal compositions of elaborate design and nimble execution. Functioning as a joke-free comedian and linguistic jazz master who improvised wildly upon English itself, Buckley merged the urgent pulse of Beat poetry with the instructive weight of scriptural stories and historical analysis. Presiding among the "hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies" of the postwar period, he stood as a genuine seer and the primordial rapper.

Richard Myrle Buckley entered the world on April 5, 1906, in Tuolumne, California, a mining settlement nestled in the Sierra Nevadas' lower slopes. Spending his early period as a lumberjack, Buckley headed in the mid-'20s toward the Texas and Mexican oil fields yet never arrived; instead he partnered with a traveling guitarist to launch a musical comedy routine. During the 1930s he reached Chicago and served as MC inside speakeasies controlled by organized crime, becoming a protégé of Al Capone, who installed him at his own venue, the Chez Buckley, backed by jazz players. Persistent vice-squad harassment soon drove him from the city, so throughout the early '40s he traversed the vaudeville circuit, earning infamy for mocking square crowds and openly smoking dope during performances.

Following U.S.O. tours amid World War II, Buckley shifted to New York City and appeared in the Broadway production The Passing Show. After wedding dancer Elizabeth Hanson from that cast, the family relocated to Los Angeles at the start of the 1950s. When film ambitions faltered, he adopted the guise of "His Lordship," an aristocratic hipster lunatic dressed in tuxedo, pith helmet, and Salvador Dali-esque waxed mustache. He swiftly became an underground icon, joining LSD trials and hosting raucous gatherings at his leased Hollywood Hills estate called the Castle, where Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tony Curtis mingled with jazz musicians, junkies, and poets. At friend Bob DeWitt's Topanga Canyon art gallery he also established the earliest jazz religion, "the Church of the Living Swing."

Buckley cut his debut sides for the Vaya label in 1951, Euphoria and Euphoria, Vol. 2. The opening set featured his signature piece, "The Nazz," a "hipsemantic" recounting of Christ's life as "the sweetest, gonest, wailinest cat that ever stomped on this sweet, swingin' sphere"; the sequel delivered variations on Aesop's Fables plus "Jonah and the Whale" portraying a pothead prophet. Though well-received on The Tonight Show, The Milton Berle Show, and You Bet Your Life, he stayed out of the studio until 1955, when he recorded Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes, spotlighting Shakespearean scenes from Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth.

After three 1956 singles—"Flight of the Saucer, Pts. 1-2," an outer-space excursion over the 1946 Lyle Griffin track "Flight of the Vout Bug," "The Gettysburg Address," and "James Dean's Message to Teenagers"—plus the LP A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat, which remained unreleased until 1970, Buckley settled in Las Vegas and worked nightclubs and casinos. Returning to Hollywood in 1959, most of his February 12 Ivar Theatre set appeared as Way Out Humor, with the balance issued in 1966 as Blowing His Mind (And Yours, Too). Ever nomadic, he and his family reached San Francisco in 1960 and played the Hungry i and Purple Onion; a Gold Nugget performance in Oakland supplied the 1970 album The Bad Rapping of the Marquis de Sade.

In summer 1960 Buckley embarked alone on a red VW microbus national tour. Arriving ill in Chicago during August, he nonetheless pressed onward to New York for October Jazz Gallery dates. During one engagement the vice squad seized his cabaret card for misrepresenting a prior arrest record. On November 12 he telephoned novelist Harold Humes to report mounting anxiety over repeated refusals to restore the card, adding that he was hungry and broke. Hours after the call Lord Buckley succumbed to a stroke induced by "extreme hypertension" at age 54. Civic pressure soon prompted repeal of the cabaret card ordinance.

Though never a mainstream presence, Buckley's stature assumed mythic scale after his passing. Avowed admirer Lenny Bruce adopted much of his demeanor and cadence, while Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams likewise credited His Lordship's sway. Bob Dylan, likewise captivated, frequently performed Buckley's version of Joseph Newman's "Black Cross" early on. Jimmy Buffett later delivered the original "God's Own Drunk," and George Harrison's hit "Crackerbox Palace" drew both thematic spark from the comedian's existence and its title from his modest Hollywood residence. Remaining the focus of an ardent cult following and authentic underground hero, the self-proclaimed Messiah of Hip endures long after departing "this sweet, swingin' sphere."