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Biff Rose
Biography
An odd and goofy singer/songwriter who didn't fit in any comfortable niche when he emerged in the late 1960s, New Orleans pianist Biff Rose was like a vaudeville entertainer reincarnated as a spacy hippie. It isn't quite accurate to call him a rock artist, but he fits in rock about as well as anywhere else. If he's remembered by rock audiences at all, it's because David Bowie covered a Rose song -- "Fill Your Heart" (co-written by Rose and Paul Williams), from Rose's 1968 debut album -- on his Hunky Dory. Bowie also covered another song from that album, "Buzz the Fuzz," in live performances (it can be heard on a 1970 bootleg), and Tiny Tim did "Fill Your Heart" on the B-side of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips."

Musically, Rose was firmly in the pre-World War II camp, sounding like a Broadway songwriter with his jaunty piano and bouncy singalong melodies. These were delivered in a whiny voice that made it easy to envision scenes of cigar-chomping Tin Pan Alley publishers telling him, "We like your songs, kid. But stick to writing, we'll get someone else to sing them." Lyrically, he was a different story, with an arch and whimsical tone that both reflected and mocked the counterculture.
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