Lord Richard Myrle Buckley, 1906-1960

www.LordBuckley.com

If you were in New York City, the party would be at The Bowery Poetry Club.  In Manchester, England at the Studio Salford.

However, here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the party to commemorate the centennial of Lord Buckley's birth will be at the Tuolumne City Memorial Museum, 18663 Carter Street at Bay Avenue, Tuolumne, California.

All three venues have some claim to the Buckley legacy. Born in Tuolumne, April 5, 1906, this lumberjack turned humorist died in New York City in 1960. His father, William, was born in Manchester.

All three will include live Jazz and performances of Buckley's most famous routines. However, local revelers will also be present for the opening of the museum's Lord Buckley exhibit.

Lord Buckley

The celebration will begin at 7:00 PM Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at the Museum, hosted by David Simerley.  Rare footage of Buckley, as well as interviews with family members and friends, will also be shown. Refreshments will be served and admission is free. Buckley spent 30 years in show business, traveling throughout the country, creating his own brand of theater wherever he went - both on stage and off. His fans, and there are many, believe Buckley's boisterous antics and rants had an unmistakable, if sometimes hidden, influence on our popular culture.

The exhibit features the original album cover of Buckley's landmark 10" LP, Euphoria, released in 1954 on the Vaya label.

Vaya founder, Jim Dickson (who later became the manager of the folk rock band The Byrds) said, "retailers didn't know where to put it in the store because there were no comedy records back then."

Also on display will be a copy of the 1966 release Blowing His Mind - And Yours Too, a Lord Buckley poster designed by his son Richard Buckley Jr. and souvenirs from the Lord Buckley Memorial Celebrations, which were held along the central California coast.

The Wandering Bishops, a network of local performing artists who draw inspiration from Buckley’s work, donated the exhibit to the museum, along with related research materials. 

David Allen Simerley is an Environmental Storyteller. His staged environments are used as tools to transmit cultural practices and ideas or to modify behavior and change values. He studied at the Prometheus Psychodrama Theater in Palo Alto and is founder of The Wandering Bishops, a network of performing artists who try to "build community" using the Arts.

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