TIM BUCKLEY: "Blue Afternoon"

Original released on LP Straight STS 1060

(US 1969, November 24)

"Blue Afternoon" was Tim Buckley's first self-produced record and his debut for Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa's Straight label. Buckley's first two albums were very much of their time and place, with their psychedelically tinged folk-rock compositions; naïve, romantic lyrical content; and moments of earnest protest. The introduction of acoustic bass and vibes into the arrangements on "Happy Sad" signaled a change in direction, however, and this "Blue Afternoon" displayed similar jazz tendencies, using the same group of musicians plus drummer Jimmy Madison. Several tracks on "Blue Afternoon" are songs Buckley had intended to record on earlier albums but had not completed. The brooding "Chase the Blues Away" and the lighter, more upbeat "Happy Time," for instance, are numbers he had worked on in the summer of 1968 for possible inclusion on "Happy Sad". Here, as he did on "Happy Sad", Buckley takes the folk song as his starting point and expands it, drawing on jazz influences to create new dynamics and to emphasize atmosphere and mood. This approach can be best appreciated on the mournful "The River," as simple acoustic guitar, cymbals, and vibes build a fluid, ebbing, and flowing arrangement around Buckley's beautiful, melancholy vocals. The period between 1968 and 1970 was an intensely creative one for Tim Buckley. Remarkably, during the same four weeks in which he recorded "Blue Afternoon", he also recorded its follow-up, "Lorca", and material for "Starsailor". It's not surprising, then, that "Blue Afternoon" hints at Buckley's subsequent musical direction. While not in the experimental, avant-garde vein of the more challenging material on those next two albums, "The Train" foregrounds Lee Underwood's quietly intense, jazzy guitar and Buckley's vocal prowess, prefiguring the feeling of tracks like Lorca's "Nobody Walkin'" and Starsailor's "Monterey." (Wilson Neate in AllMusic)

TIM BUCKLEY: "Happy Sad"

Original released on LP Elektra EKS 74045)

(US, April 1969)

Easily Tim Buckley's most underrated album, "Happy Sad" was another departure for the eclectic Southern California-based singer/songwriter. After the success of the widely acclaimed "Goodbye and Hello", Buckley mellowed enough to explore his jazz roots. Sounding like Fred Neil's Capitol-era albums, Buckley and his small, acoustic-based ensemble weave elegant, minimalist tapestries around the six Buckley originals. The effect is completely mesmerizing. On "Buzzin' Fly" and "Strange Feelin'," you are slowly drawn into Buckley's intoxicating vision. The extended opus in the middle of the record, "Love From Room 109," is an intense, complex composition. Lovingly under-produced by Jerry Yester and Zal Yanovsky, this is one of the finest records of the late '60s. (Matthew Greenwald in AllMusic)

TIM BUCKLEY: The 2nd Classic Album

Original released on LP Elektra EKS 74028

(US, August 1967)

This album documents how Tim Buckley undisputedly distanced himself from the insecure singer/strummer debiting his love songs backed by an electric rhythm section image, which his debut Tim Buckley transmitted. Curiously, and as on the latter, his songwriting partnership with high school mate Larry Beckett - and drummer in their early Beat inspired trio (with Jim Fielder) -, still dominates the majority of the track-list credits. Not only did TB dropped his dependence on the 6-strings acoustic, enlarging his arsenal with the 12-strings and experimenting with bottleneck, kalimba and vibes, as a new collaboration with  far-sighted producer Jerry Yester seems to be determinant in the creation of a sound which from now on will not resemble anything previously heard, and will establish our man (young man), as one of the truly original voices of the period (of any period), to the point of making him an exciting personality to work with, to the likes of such iconoclasts as Frank Zappa, his compositions earning the enviable stature of top-jewelry many would succumb to the desire of reworking on, as Al Kooper did with “Morning Glory” for the 1st Blood, Sweat & Tears release. That he perfected his writing skills  is astonishingly evidenced in the 8:30 mini-epic title track, a complex, multiparted affair of shifting moods and rich arrangements of strings, horns and woodwinds (the sole orchestra inclusion in the album), and the band members contributing with harpsichords, harmonium and kalimbas; A shifting towards social-conscious themes makes part of that evolution as the striking “No Man Can Find the War” or the waltz-y experiment of “Carnival Song” attest, both of which integrate not previously used sound effects. 

“Knight-Errant” in spite of being a retour to dubious taste, formal love theme, has a complex succession of time-signatures changes and accents that further confirm the care put into the songwriting, where as “Once I Was”, albeit the perfect single release, is enveloped in exquisite taste and rare sensibility, and the Beat feel of “Phantasmagoria in Two” («If You Tell Me of All the Pain You've Had, I'll Never Smile Again») is enriched by permanent guitar embroideries, a template often copied in the future. The Impressionistic tranquility of “Hallucinations” is a newly explored facet of TB’s personality, who uses the bottleneck tastefully amidst sprinkling percussions, Oud impersonations and his vocal Arabic scales bathed  in heavy reverberation effects enhancing the overall ethereal mood; But it’s his heart-felt, dilacerating vocal performances that do set him specially apart, either coupled with the frenetic barrage of strummed acoustics and wild percussions a top a haunting organ drone in “I Never Asked to be Your Mountain”, or on the whirling sensation provoked by the organ, the percussions and the piercing/slashing electric guitar in the circular pattern of “Pleasant Street”. The door was wide opened for a stunning, if tragically too soon cut short, incomparable career. (in RateYourMusic)

TIM BUCKLEY Debut Album

Original released on LP Elektra EKS 74004

(US, October 1966)

Buckley's 1966 debut was the most straightforward and folk-rock-oriented of his albums. The material has a lyrical and melodic sophistication that was astounding for a 19-year-old. The pretty, almost precious songs are complemented by appropriately baroque, psychedelic-tinged production. If there was a record that exemplified the '60s Elektra folk-rock sound, this may have been it, featuring production by Elektra owner Jac Holzman and Doors producer Paul Rothchild, Love and Doors engineer Bruce Botnick, and string arrangements by Jack Nitzsche. That's not to diminish the contributions of the band, which included his longtime lead guitarist Lee Underwood and Van Dyke Parks on keyboards. Buckley was still firmly in the singer-songwriter camp on this album, showing only brief flashes of the experimental vocal flights, angst-ridden lyrics, and soul influences that would characterize much of his later work. It's not his most adventurous outing, but it's one of his most accessible, and retains a fragile beauty. (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)