Tim Buckley

Description

The incandescent voice of Tim Buckley took him on a journey from fragile folk rocker to boldly experimental avant-garde icon in just nine short years of recordings. Here, we capture him at the beginning of his career with his sparkling debut album from 1966, which featured the "A" team from Elektra Records that produced the Doors: label owner and producer Jac Holzman, producer Paul Rothchild, and engineer Bruce Botnick. Not to mention West Coast legends like arranger Jack Nitzsche, keyboardist Van Dyke Parks, and drummer Billy Mundi accompanying Buckley's long-time collaborators, Lee Underwood on guitar and Jim Fielder on bass. To label Tim Buckley as a promising first attempt is to do him a bit of a disservice; the only aspect that likely prevents this album from becoming a complete masterpiece is the hesitant timbre of Buckley's voice, but that is only in comparison to his later vocal acrobatics in the latter part of his career. And, in a way, his "shyness" lends an ephemeral and vulnerable quality to the surprisingly sophisticated lyrical and melodic flights of this 19-year-old artist.