Born in December 1936, Isadore Fertel (pronounced Fur-Tell) was rapidly
approaching his forties when he struck up his on-off friendship with the man
who would become his mentor, champion and producer - Herbert Khaury, aka Tiny
Tim.
After Tim’s career hit the skids – and after he was dropped
by Reprise for failing to promote his own records and constantly criticising
the company in interviews - he tried to start his own company, issuing several
singles on Vic-Tim (acidly named after Tiny and his then-wife, Miss Vicki and
distributed by song-poem shysters Brite Star) before setting up a second
imprint which he named Toilet Records ‘because that’s where my career was
going’. Toilet Records had a slogan – ‘sit and listen’. For his new label, he
set out to find new talent, although Tiny ended up signing just one other
artist, the equally eccentric Mister Fertel.
Izzy Fertel was a short (and short sighted) Jewish man who
claimed to be the only male member of a local Women’s Lib organisation (the
Radical Feminists) and who performed a Yiddish version of Rock around the
Clock as part of his repertoire. Fertel,
whose greatest wish was to have a sex-change operation, had been married
although that was only consummated once, and even then under the supervision of
his sister-in-law. His wife’s family clearly indulged him: ‘On Father’s Day,’
he once revealed, ‘As a treat her Mother would get me a dress, do my nails and
make me up.’
Known within his family as Izzy, according to his cousin
Randy (in his book The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans
Family Memoir) he ‘swore to his dying day’
that he went to a women’s college. That wasn’t true: he went to Loyola
University, a mixed sex establishment in Chicago (he served on the university’s
Social Service committee for the year 1959-60), but who cares?
Izzy recorded two tracks for Tiny’s Toilet Records – A cover
of Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman and his own
composition Susan B, a tribute
to the social reformer and
feminist Susan B. Anthony, who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage
movement. ‘The most important thing I did as head of Toilet Records was
discover a new talent – Isadore Fertel,” Tiny once admitted. ‘I paid him $100
to cut two songs for me.’
It’s long been believed that the 45 (which was given the catalogue
number RB-102, and was produced by Tiny under the lurid nom de plume Ophelia Pratt) was never actually pressed, but it
was certainly offered up for sale: it was advertised as available via mail
order in five consecutive issues of Billboard magazine over
May/June 1973. The Joe Cappy mentioned in the ad (above) was Tiny’s erstwhile mobster
manager Joseph Cappelluzzo: Joe had been Tiny's best man when he married Miss Vicki on Johnny Carson's Tonight show. Quite what anyone who actually received a copy of
the record would have made of it is anyone’s guess: Izzy’s lispy, nasal and
atonal voice is accompanied by solo piano, and both tracks sound like they were
nailed in one solitary take.
According to Tiny’s biographer Justin Martell, Fertel ‘hoped
to make enough money in show business to get a sex change. Tiny Tim met Isadore
Fertel in the early 1970's and was “impressed with his songwriting.” Tiny
featured Fertel as his opening act at many shows and promoted Fertel with what
resources he was able to muster during that period’.
Izzy Fertel has been described by others as ‘Tiny Tim’s Tiny Tim’. So in awe of Tiny was he that Izzy attempted to follow in Tiny’s footsteps, getting a job as a messenger boy (Tiny had worked as a messenger boy for Loews/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 50s) and taking the occasional gig on the amateur circuit. As eccentric as his mentor, Izzy is reported to have been obsessed with winter weather, and would move around from state to state in search of snow. He also is said to have occasionally performed dressed as a woman, calling himself Isadora. As he once said: ‘If I were a woman – and how I wish I were – I’d probably be a lesbian’.
Izzy Fertel has been described by others as ‘Tiny Tim’s Tiny Tim’. So in awe of Tiny was he that Izzy attempted to follow in Tiny’s footsteps, getting a job as a messenger boy (Tiny had worked as a messenger boy for Loews/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 50s) and taking the occasional gig on the amateur circuit. As eccentric as his mentor, Izzy is reported to have been obsessed with winter weather, and would move around from state to state in search of snow. He also is said to have occasionally performed dressed as a woman, calling himself Isadora. As he once said: ‘If I were a woman – and how I wish I were – I’d probably be a lesbian’.
Tiny can be seen on YouTube, accompanying Izzy on the New
York cable TV chat show Coca Crystal on Susan B and on his later composition, The Reagan-Begin Song. Although the two were clearly close, as an avowed
feminist Izzy found it hard to accept Tiny’s 19th century views on
women, and after he encouraged Miss Vicky (along with their daughter, Tulip) to
leave Tiny the two men did not speak for a year.
Izzy made several appearances
on a show called ‘Oddville’, broadcast by MTV in the States in 1997: I’ve found
listings for appearances in July, August and September that year, and for the
first he is listed as ‘feminist Izzy Fertel’: on at least one of those episodes, which is available on YouTube, he appeared in a pink dress and earrings, singing a song about how he wanted to be talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael. It looks like one of Izzy's last TV appearances was on Jimmy Kimmel
Live, on 3 August 2004.
The colourful Isadore Fertel died on September 9, 2008 at a
retirement home in the Bronx, New York.
Enjoy!
Download Woman HERE Enjoy!
Download Susan HERE
Thanks. Here is the link to the YT video you mentionned :
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_55zJYo8V4o
At least it's better than prince
ReplyDeleteIsadore loves hitting those notes at the end!
ReplyDelete