Editing Tiny Tim (musician) (section)

===Early years===
Tiny Tim was born Herbert Khaury in Manhattan, New York City, on April 12, 1932.<ref name="auto"/> His mother Tillie ({{née|Staff}}), a Polish-Jewish garment worker, was the daughter of a [[rabbi]]. She had immigrated from [[Brest, Belarus|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  [[Maronites|Maronite Catholic]] priest.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tinytim.org/articles/parade.html |title=Tiny Tim on cover of Parade |publisher=Tinytim.org |access-date=September 27, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703044818/http://www.tinytim.org/articles/parade.html |archive-date=July 3, 2013 |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2874700305/tiny-tim-herbert-butros.html |title=Tiny Tim (Herbert Butros Khaury) – The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=September 27, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Tiny Tim: Tiptoe Through a Lifetime|author1=Tarling, Lowell|author2=Sharp, Martin|year=2013|page=15|isbn=978-1484138564}}</ref> Tiny Tim himself was a devout Catholic.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Devotional Life of Tiny Tim|url=https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/devotional-life-tiny-tim-ted-willi|access-date=2021-12-01|website=www.linkedin.com|language=en}}</ref>

Khaury displayed an interest in music at a very young age. At the age of five, his father gave him a vintage wind-up [[Phonograph|gramophone]] and a 78-RPM record of "[[Beautiful Ohio]]" by [[Henry Burr]]. Khaury has passionately praised Burr, telling [[Johnny Carson]] that "the wonderful Henry Burr's" circa-1915 records inspired his own singing style.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X3BBN7Hdp4 |title=Tiny Tim Makes a Very Odd First Appearance {{!}} Carson Tonight Show |date=2022-10-02 |last=Johnny Carson |access-date=2024-07-17 |via=YouTube}}</ref> He would sit for hours listening to the record. At the age of six, he began teaching himself guitar. By his pre-teen years, he developed a passion for records, specifically those from the 1900s through the 1930s. He began spending most of his free time at the [[New York Public Library]], reading about the history of the phonograph industry and its first recording artists. He researched sheet music, often making photographic copies to take home to learn, a hobby he continued for his entire life.<ref>{{cite book | last = Martell | first = Justin | title = Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim | publisher = Jawbone Press | year = 2016 | isbn = 9781908279873}}</ref> He grew up in the [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]] neighborhood in [[Manhattan]], where he attended [[George Washington Educational Campus|George Washington High School]].<ref name=NYTobit/>

In 1945, while recovering from appendix removal, he read the Bible and listened to music on the radio. After his recovery, he rarely left his room except to go to school, where he was described as a mediocre student. He dropped out of high school after continuously repeating his sophomore year, taking a series of menial jobs.<ref name=ehollywood>{{Cite episode |title=Tiny Tim |series=E! True Hollywood Story|series-link=E!_True_Hollywood_Story|network=E! |date=March 25, 2001 |season=5 |number=12}}</ref> Around this time, while listening to [[Rudy Vallée]], he discovered he could sing in a high register.  He taught himself to play [[ukulele]] using an [[Arthur Godfrey]] method book.<ref name="Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Age">{{cite book
| first= Ian
| last= Whitcomb
| year= 2012
| title= Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Age
| publisher= Hal Leonard Books
| location= Milwaukee, Wisconsin
| pages= 114–120
| isbn= 978-1-4584-1654-4}}</ref> He would later describe this period of his life as a "religious experience".<ref name=ehollywood />