World’s Worst Pop Albums? Easy answer, but each genre has its very own. However, I have a few examples to offer — at the very top of the list is one of my closest friends in 1966-69, Wildman Larry Fischer, who appears with Frank Zappa, his mentor and producer:

And then there was the inimitable and thoroughly “Star Quality” diva of the 1960s,

Mrs. Miller, who had great stage presence, daring and a sense of self-worth that made her an overnight success and multimillionaire:

I would be remiss in my duty to my old friend, Herb Khaury — his mom Tillie worked for my grandpa back in the day, and I knew Herb from the days when he ran a tiny flea circus on 42nd street just west of Times Square, long before he performed publicly, although he was a fanatical and brilliant music historian. His appearance on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (a variant on Love-Ins, Be-Ins and Sit-Ins) launched him to temporary success. He passed in 1996, during a concert.

http://youtu.be/c71RCAyLS1M

Now here’s evidence of what I’ve been saying for decades…Tiny Tim was a knowing and thoroughly playful Master of the Put-On. His normal baritone voice was just another voice in the wind, and he knew it, so he invented the Tiny Tim persona, with all its eccentricities:

http://youtu.be/TT8t0VxZXEM

You doubt me? Here’s Richard Perry’s arrangements for Tiny Tim:

And what about this baritone cover of another artist’s falsetto hit???

http://youtu.be/M6W5gXdHxhw

Basically, Herb did covers of the top ten ever since his 26 year run at Casino Nineveh some years back. We didn’t have flips and youtube in 4600 B.C. but on the flip side of that, we didn’t have hackers, spammers or jammers then, either. Here’s Highway to Hell, in typical “Mr. Tim” (his 1990s reinvented persona) fashion:

This gender-bender from the Psychedelic Sixties:

Rock Around the Clock, absolutely straight, except for one slight voyage into Tiny Timness:

http://youtu.be/Zyx8EFkXOEA

Tiny Tim had a Total Makeover on my friend Merv Griffin’s show:

http://youtu.be/tvnmbyxZB2g

Tiny Tim with Victoria Jackson on Conan O’Brien June 9, 1994:

http://youtu.be/lBaiTNdeAio

Bogart’s piano player never did it this well — Tiny Tim performing “As Time Goes By”, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, 1968:

Lest you think, even at this point, that Tiny Tim is dismissable as some idiotic accidental star of the sixties, check it out. Here he is with some schoolkids, acting out something that wasn’t even known at that time…the ice caps are melting. He gets the message across, and today, the US government still denies Global Warming is an issue.

http://youtu.be/8DEoOdcYKbc