Tiny Tim (musician)
American singer and musician (1932–1996)

Herbert Butros Khaury (April 12, 1932 – November 30, 1996), also known as Herbert Buckingham Khaury, and known professionally as Tiny Tim, was an American musician, songwriter and musical archivist. He is especially known for his 1968 hit cover of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips", a song from the 1929 musical Gold Diggers of Broadway. "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight", which
was featured and popularized in the SpongeBob SquarePants pilot episode, "Help Wanted" in 1999, was rated as 2nd best song at "Top 10 Tiny Tim Songs". Tiny Tim was renowned for his wide vocal range, in particular his far-reaching falsetto.
Life and career
Early years
Tiny Tim was born Herbert Khaury in Manhattan, New York City, on April 12, 1932. His mother Tillie (née Staff), a Polish-Jewish garment worker, was the daughter of a rabbi. She had emigrated from Brest-Litovsk, present-day Belarus, as a teen in 1914. His father, Butros Khaury, was a textile worker from Beirut, present-day Lebanon, and the son of a Maronite Catholic priest. Tiny Tim himself was a Roman Catholic.
Khaury displayed an interest in music at a very young age.
The public source identifies “Tiny Tim (musician)” as american singer and musician (1932–1996). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tiny, musician and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q979347. VIAF identifies the subject as 46956507. The Library of Congress control number is n50047839. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1996, 1968 and 1929.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tiny Tim (musician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.