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MM
Thank you so much. I know you're a busy guy and it's really nice of you to do something like this ??? for this whole project.
EH
Never too busy to talk about Buckley.
MM
Well let's see, we wanted to save this for the actual tape, so maybe you could tell me about your first encounter with him, actually, it's probably singular.
EH
Well, this was in 1960 was my first visit to the States, and of course, I mean I spent a lot of the time going around listening to things. And I don't have to tell you in 1960, it was really a championship year-you know everything was going on, the old, the middle, the new ones ???. And I went around America very largely with the help of the people I knew as a jazz writer. That meant people like Ralph Gleason in San Francisco and he then put me onto Studs Turkle in Chicago. And that's how I got onto Buckley. I mean Studs, as you know, knew everything that was going on because it was his business as a man who has a daily radio program. And so he put me onto one or two other contacts, but it was Studs I think, who said I got to take in this man at the Gate of Horn, that's right. That's a quotation from some bit of American literature that always escapes me-the name. So then he said and he took me around and he said there was another guy there who also wants to come along, Michael Bill Randall, who was a DJ from Cleveland who was also in town at that time. Bill had made his reputation through introducing Elvis Presley to the northern U.S. audiences. And so they said you'd better go and listen to this guy, but he's on late, he's on about 2 o'clock in the morning. You know, the graveyard shift. And so we went to listen to him, and there he was. Live and of course, I can hardly tell you, he left a powerful impression.
MM
Describe the club if you remember it.
EH
I can't remember anything about the club except Buckley himself, you know, it's a club -there are lots of club. It was somewhere on the near north side, it seems to me. And by 2 o'clock in the morning only a relatively hip audience is left in these clubs, so they were all fairly ready for him. It's a funny business because it's -and I think Ralph Gleason in San Francisco who also knew what went on in that town, too-had introduced me to this extraordinary phenomenon of the really the beat period. There was these outlaw comedians, the outlaw club scene. Lenny Bruce, for instance, a very good example of that, huh? The extraordinary thing about Buckley is that he didn't actually act the rebel. I mean his line was completely different. You know, he didn't try and outrage deliberately in the way, either politically or in the other way that, for instance, Lenny Bruce did. And he kind of gradually inserted himself underneath you, and you ended up in saying this is this guy who's actually doing something much more subversive than he lets on he's doing. (chuckles)
MM
Now, tell me -I know in your article "Death of a Peer"-you said your first impression of him was kind of this faux Englishman.
EH
Well, that was what he was trying to do, he was-he really reminded me in some ways of a sort of de??? provincial actor, doing in the 19th century a sort of rhetorical stage manner. And he wasn't English, was he?
MM
No he was CA-from the gold country of CA.
EH
Yes, that's right-exactly, but clearly I mean he was trying to imitate or pretend to do this, sort of-you know in one or two of the Dickens things. I think it's "Nicholas Nickleby" where there's this beautiful thing as a provincial acting company going around, you see, Vincent Crummies and so on. And that was a style he was trying to. . . recreate. He was trying to emulate; he knew perfectly well , I mean he was sending it up naturally. You couldn't but send it up by that time, by the 1950s. And then of course a contrast between that and suddenly, bingo, you're right in the middle of hipster talk, black hipster talk at that. Huh? Black street talk. And there you are.
MM
It must have been an extraordinary -what's the right word-juxtaposition or something to have this sort of faux, like you say, provincial actor posture, and then someone speaking black.
EH
Oh yes, yes. Well, maybe he wasn't actually imitating the British 19th century actor, but you know the same sort of thing in Huck Finn, you know, the 19th century stage actors going around the sticks, reciting, huh?
MM
Declaiming?
EH
Declaiming. That's the one. You know. I think he probably wanted to be as English and traditional as-of course the Lord bit and the aristocratic thing meant that he had to try to-yes, it was extraordinarily strange, in some ways.
MM
It sounded like in your article that within a couple of minutes you were very caught up in it.?
EH
Oh, yes, there's no question about it. You see I ?? as pro, you could see, you know. There were always differences between-I mean he was an old fashioned show business pro. And that was another strange thing about him, ??? just the other outlaws, say Lenny Bruce, for instance, you see, were deliberately very keen with the old show business pro line. But he was undermining it from within. Ah, oh, he got you within a minute or two. You couldn't stop looking at him and listening.
MM
Within a couple of minutes you were just letting you lead you around, I guess, huh?
EH
Oh yes, absolutely. Yes, you didn't particularly want to resist him but you wanted to see what where he went next.
MM
You know one of the things that I've always -I'm not a big sports fan, but one of the things I've always thought that sports have that was a really great quality was that very few people in the entire stadium really know what's going to happen from moment to moment. I mean there are plans: people are going to kick the ball from this way to that way and get a goal, but nobody is ever sure if it's going to happen, and that creates a tremendous-it's a marvelous energy that happens sometimes in the theater as well. Did you have that kind of sense,that 'oh, what's going to happen next'?
EH
Well, certainly I had that sense, except that in sports, like in football, you don't' know what isn't going to happen, and what's going to happen next. But at the same time you know that half the time it's going to be rather boring. For awhile, until something happens. But with an old show biz pro you know it isn't going to be boring, because it can't afford to be boring. The one thing that, you know, people like that know is when you're going to loose them, and you can loose the audience. And that's what makes the difference between the men and the boys, you see. You can never afford to loose them, so to that extent, you've got to keep them, even though they don't know what's going to happen next.
MM
A number of people have said that even though his routines sounded very, very spontaneous, you knew right down to the - little things would change but there was a tremendous - he was a pro.
EH
Oh yes, he was absolute pro. It was an act. I don't think there was very much in the way of improvisation in it. Although, if he is any good, there is always a sort of margin of improvisation. You know, that's got to be there. But my feeling was -and you can see that from the albums too -you see, I mean, the big numbers, the Naz and all that stuff-were really heavily rehearsed and practiced. But they didn't sound it.
MM
Yes, it's a marvelous quality.
EH
Marvelous quality, yes. But it's a strangeness of this guy, really, you see. He was not like most of these other people, among the outlaw variety acts. Because, precisely, he was neither a rebel nor, somehow or other, officially challenging anything.
MM
But somehow or other you felt he was extremely subversive as well?
EH
Yes, I think one did.
MM
Subverting the orders, subverting the paradigm, the . . .
EH
That's an interesting question. I don't think he was subversive in the way in which say Groucho Marx used to be, who was absolutely an all-purpose subversive. 'Whatever it is I am against it.' Likely wasn't, but I think he was subversive of the United States as he found it. And not necessarily from -for instance, I mean I think he genuinely believed in Shakespeare, genuinely believed in Christianity, you know. And one of the reasons why he was against the world outside was that they didn't believe as much as he did in it. And at the same time, I mean, he also knew that he didn't take himself seriously. But he did take himself seriously but he wasn't heavy about it.
MM
What routines do you remember from that?
EH
It's very difficult to remember, to distinguish one's memories and I can't remember exactly what I actually wrote at the time. I haven't been able to.
MM
I'm not sure you've mentioned particular notes.
EH
I probably didn't mention it.
MM
How about what do you remember about his voice? What struck you about his voice?
EH
Well, it's the thing, it's the contrast between that deliberately plumy voice, you know, and then suddenly before you know where you are, you know you're down there on the street corner with black talk. I suppose it was some extent an invitation to conspiracy, to join him at that street corner in this peculiar posture. Which of course didn't fit anybody else in the audience in the club, you see. It fitted him. Just suppose you imagined you were here with me.
MM
Oh that's a good one, yea. You know in your article you talked about Lord Buckley "breathed jazz like a Spanish shepherd exhaled garlic." That's a tremendous line.
EH
Well, that isn't peculiar to him because everybody in that generation breaths jazz, I mean who was doing this, I mean that was the language in which people were brought up. Look at guys like Sinatra, you know, who was doing all sorts of other things. But there's no question about it, you know. Jazz is behind the phrasing, even if he's doing something quite different from jazz. So to that extent it was in fact the air they breathed, at least those people and anybody around music and show business and those places would.
MM
what is it-maybe you've already answered this-what is it that when you listen to his routines and you remember him, what is it that speaks to you? Was it the subversion, the fantasy, the message behind it all, if there is such a thing?
EH
It's an interesting question because it's not a question that one asks oneself when one actually heard him. The albums have to be grabbed by it. And I've tried to answer it, not very successfully really. The closest I come to it is what I've just try to formulate, saying that he was a guy who was actually trying to tempt you into imagining you were a person like himself. In some way, nowhere, in other ways very specifically in a place but a place quite unlike anything that you yourself or almost anyone in the audience. . . so I don't think he actually played very much for black audiences. The point would be lost, huh?
MM
One of my little crackpot theories is that in some ways he is like that old 12th century play "Everyman", that he choose the black voice because it was a voice that -emotion was more easily accessible in that voice, that the black language, black culture in America had more of a history of being humbled.
EH
Oh, I'm sure you're right about that, and in some ways, you see, it fits in with a religion. I mean I'm sure the oppressed, the humiliated is in fact the people with whom he identified. And to that extent he was subversive, because I mean the United States in 1950 was not a country which put the oppressed and humiliated high on their totem pole.
MM
Yes, I'm not quite sure they have done that yet, so . . .
EH
No, they haven't done that yet, but the point is that at a certain state, I mean it became ??? to do it among kids and other things like this. But even in the 1950's it hadn't got around much, even I mean except for very, very tiny groups. I mean I remember going in Oakland and listening to some soul thing and, you know, that was all black, except that in the corners there were ones and twos of white students listening to it. Nobody else, huh? But later on, I mean it was -yes I think he was, he was undoubtedly in his ray a preacher and a prophet. I think he saw himself as preacher and prophet. To whom I don't know. For whom? Who was he preaching to?
MM
In the late night cases, I think he was preaching to the choir, actually. He said it was a hip audience.
EH
Oh, definitely a hip audience.
MM
You know another phrase that I loved in your article was "he oozed bonhomie which was not wholly false and a cynicism that was not true."
EH
That's right, I mean that's what I'm saying: he was sending up what, you know, I mean he was pretending he was just a good old boy in his own way, and you knew that he knew he wasn't. And that was the interesting thing about him, he wasn't playing it straight at all, I mean there was always the shadow of something else behind. That's what made it interesting.
MM
I think it did and it's interesting psychologically, because I think he lived, he didn't become another person off stage from all accounts that I have, he was pretty much the same way.
EH
Yes, I wouldn't know because I never met him off stage. Yes.
MM
People say that the only time he was any different was right when he first woke up in the morning and after the drugs had worn off late at night. And he was a little more, a little more down to earth, if you want to call it that.
EH
What was he on? What were his drugs?
MM
Well, certainly he was what they called a 'viper', you know, somebody who smoked marijuana all the time. But he seemed to, unlike myself and many people, I couldn't smoke that kind of marijuana and function, you know. He seemed to -if nothing else, it seemed to tether him to the planet. There's a lot of talk of amphetamines. He certainly was an alcoholic, one of the first members of AA, actually, which would have been phenomenal. Could you imagine Lord Buckley walking up on the stage and saying, 'my name is Richard Buckley and I'm an alcoholic.' What kind of story would you have gotten? And then he, from all accounts, he was very - he didn't do things like heroine. No he was evidently very afraid of that kind of -maybe he understood what he couldn't handle.
EH
My feeling is he probably was in the pre-acid period, huh?
MM
but he did take LSD twice.
EH
Twice, yes, but that's what I mean. In those days when people really thought that this was a particularly big dangerous thing that you might experiment with, I mean later on in the '60s people were on acid in a completely different way, weren't they?
MM
There was a man named Oscar Janiger, a psychiatrist, who did a whole study of, I think he gave LSD to 3000 different subjects, and in a controlled environment. Sort of a living room-patio kind of arrangement. And he was the one that gave all the big Hollywood stars LSD: Gary Grant, ??? and people like that. And he said Buckley was the most phenomenal acid tripper he had seen.
EH
Really?
MM
Yea. So. Maybe this is probably my last question. Well, I just want to compliment you also. There was another-I'm sorry to keep throwing your article back in your face, but there was a wonderful like, you said "the mock simple baroque of the negro hip talk" which I just thought was a magnificent way of putting it. Because it is mock simple, it isn't as simple. . .
EH
No, not only isn't it simple, but he knows it isn't simple and he doesn't expect you to think it is simple. Yes. It wasn't a bad article, I'm bound to say and I wish I could still write articles like that.
MM
What do you think his significance was?
EH
I think he's a guy that needs rediscovering. I mean he was never a man that absolutely broke through. You see, not in the way in which one or two of the other people -Lenny Bruce, for instance-did break through. I mean I remember one extraordinary occasion when Lenny Bruce was playing over here in London toward the end, very broken down, and I remember taking the English novelist, E.M. Forster to see him, because he was a friend of mine. I thought that would be a piece of absurdity, taking Forster to see Lenny Bruce at this club in Greek Street, Establishment it then called, you see. He didn't like it much, as you might expect. But the point is, you see, Bruce broke through-- everybody's talking Bruce this, that and the other. Nobody ever got around to talking about Buckley. Had it lived, they might, or they might not because he wasn't sufficiently provocative, deliberately provocative, you see. And on the other than, among the hip people he was known. Otherwise, a guy coming from England and going around wouldn't have been steered towards him by people like, you know, Gleasonn or Turkel, people like that. You know? So in a way I think his tragedy was that he didn't just last long enough to break through. I mean 1960 was very early for that sort of thing. I don't know what the kids would have made of him for instance if he had lasted another five years, huh?
MM
There's some speculation that if he had lasted say till 1967 when, you now, flower power and all that happened then, that he might have had a real renaissance . . .
EH
Well that's the sort of thing, so really I think he was a man who waited for renaissance, and I hope you can provide it for him.
MM
Well thank you and thank you for the article and your participation in this.
EH
Not at all, it was a great experience. And I mean he did leave a very powerful impression. After all, it's over forty years now. And I saw him once.
MM
Do you see his influence in anyone today?
EH
I can't think of one, but I haven't kept pace with the comedy scene lately, and certainly not with American ones. I wouldn't-I don't think he would have had much influence over here.
MM
He had little bits and pieces of influence but nothing to shake the tree.
??
As somebody who, sort of going back to that night, I was thinking about when he presented this, sort of faux English Lord persona, and then took you down with him into this sort of black hip-speak, did he stay there for the whole time or did he come out again? Was it the flip-flopping. . .
EH
No, he flip-flopped. He flip-flopped. He was never, he never stayed exactly the same way.
MM
Was he in his tuxedo when you saw him?
EH
As I recall, he probably was. He certainly wasn't in his sort of royal outfit.
MM
Yea. Thank you Eric.
EH
Well, you're welcome.
MM
E.M Forster and Lenny Bruce! Did you ever do ;anything else like that? I mean that's pretty amazing.
EH
Well, I just thought that might be a thing to do (chuckling).
MM
What did he -I mean did he look at you in bewilderment? What did he?
EH
He was very polite.
MM
As you would expect from him, I think.
EH
Oh very polite and he said, . . . No, I took him back to his flat afterwards and we just didn't talk about it very much, we talked about other things. But I thought nevertheless, it's something to have done.
MM
Thanks very much. |
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