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[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||0px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Fifty years since his tragic overdose, Tim Buckley<\/b><\/span> remains the patron saint of musicians who risk everything to unlock transcendence, a quest encapsulated in his audacious mid-career masterpiece, Starsailor<\/i>. Turning his back on fame and fortune, leaning into the unknown, was where he was lost but also found. \u201cIt was like he came into position of his muse,\u201d discovers Grayson Haver Currin<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Portrait: Ed Caraeff<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/ipopanvoknn.jpg” title_text=”ipopanvoknn” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]Reaching for the stars: Tim Buckley during the photoshoot for the cover of his third LP, Happy Sad<\/i>, California, December 20, 1968.[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1968, the Newport Folk Festival. Bob Dylan had started a revolution there three years earlier with his sunburst Fender. Tim Buckley, with his tidy curls and a 12-string acoustic, would suggest a subtler one.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll introduce a gentleman who, in the great Ogden Nash tradition of poetry, has been writing and singing his own songs in a fairly modern idiom,\u201d announced that afternoon\u2019s emcee, the songwriter Oscar Brand. \u201c[It] sits, however, very, very comfortably on a fine bed of old folk music.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley, however, did not play old folk music that day. Backed only by street-savvy conga player Carter C.C. Collins and Juilliard-trained vibraphonist David Friedman, he prowled through the serpentine, then-unreleased Buzzin\u2019 Fly, vibraphone tucked between chords like jewels. He strummed Wayfaring Stranger to pieces, then unfurled his voice in operatic arcs for The Dolphins, by his hero Fred Neil. It was aggressive, ecstatic, and urgent. The crowd exploded.<\/p>\n The set would have ended there had Brand not jumped in, suggesting an encore. Someone in the audience yelled for Morning Glory, the last track on 1967\u2019s Goodbye And Hello<\/i>. Buckley assented.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/2.jpg” title_text=”2″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Heart and soul: guitarist Lee Underwood and furry friend, October 1967<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]\u201cWell, I\u2019ll do a song we learned off our second album,\u201d Buckley said, he and the crowd laughing at the implication: he was moving so fast that last year\u2019s band no longer existed, the album a relic from a seemingly distant aeon.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was exciting, because it was new<\/i>,\u201d Collins tells MOJO from his home in Hawaii. \u201cNobody was using vibraphone in folk music, or whatever it is we were doing, these jazz players mixed with folk. It allowed us to take more adventures.\u201d[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Later that year, Collins, Friedman, and Buckley were the core of the band that recorded Happy Sad<\/i>, an impressionistic folk-jazz wonder about love lost and gained, rendered in Buckley\u2019s messianic range \u2013 maybe as wide as five and a half octaves. A month before its release in April 1969, Buckley was already over that, too, plus the heartthrob scene his previous two albums had created. When a tall blonde fan rushed the stage to throw a red carnation at his feet during a set at New York\u2019s Philharmonic Hall, the divorced father to a kid named Jeff whom he only met once scooped the flower, chewed the petals, and spat them out. \u201cThat really tastes terrible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI really wish people would try to live their own lives and stop trying to make musicians do it for them,\u201d he told The New York Times\u2019 Michaela Williams, who reported the flower-eating incident. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more to music than sex; I play heart music.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley went on to say that his fans had forsaken the country\u2019s prized jazz artists, raved about Milt Jackson and Miles Davis, and swore that he would soon step away from esteemed theatres altogether and into jazz clubs. \u201cMy new songs aren\u2019t dazzling<\/i>. It\u2019s not two minutes and 50 seconds of rock \u2019em, sock \u2019em,\u201d he said. \u201cI guess it\u2019s pretty demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/3-scaled.jpg” title_text=”3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Buckley and conga player Carter C.C. Collins performing at the Bitter End, Greenwich Village, November 14, 1967<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n WHEN TIM BUCKLEY GAVE CARTER Collins a compliment, the conga player saw not only an in but his way out, too.<\/p>\n Collins had been raised in the foster care system of Boston and dropped out of high school. Street musicians captivated him, and he eventually joined them on drums, strapping his instrument to his chest everywhere he went. By the winter of 1967, he\u2019d played with a few bands and singers, including Richie Havens, and was living rent-free at Bard College in upstate New York. When word came that Buckley, who had released his debut album months earlier, was coming to play, a few students asked Collins to join an ad hoc backing band.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter four tunes, Tim was tired of it,\u201d Collins remembers. The ensemble included Chevy Chase, Donald Fagen, and Walter Becker. \u201cHe waved the back of his hand toward me, put his guitar away, and said, \u2018I only want him<\/i> to play.\u201d<\/p>\n With Buckley\u2019s tight curls and serious visage, Collins assumed he was another Dylan knockoff. He was stunned by his vocal range and focus, plus the way his songs made people in Bard\u2019s packed house cry. Buckley told Collins he liked him. \u201cWhy the fuck,\u201d Collins responded, \u201cdon\u2019t you hire me, then?\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Two weeks later, Carter arrived in New York City to meet Herb Cohen, the impresario who had recently started managing Zappa and Buckley. Smitten with Buckley\u2019s songs and face, Cohen saw a potential star and landed him a deal with Elektra Records. Collins was swept up in the gathering whirlwind of Buckley\u2019s career \u2013 shows on both coasts, stints living together along the California shore in Venice, the June 1967 session for Goodbye And Hello<\/I>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen an artist hears their first record, they sometimes cringe. That\u2019s good, because then it means that the next one is going to be a lot better,\u201d Elektra founder Jac Holzman remembered on a Buckley fan site in 1999. \u201cThat was the case with Tim\u2026 The second album had magic.\u201d<\/p>\n Momentum was building. They played Carnegie Hall with Pete Seeger in the fall of 1967 and, six months later, played the chaotic first night at Bill Graham\u2019s Fillmore East, joining Albert King and Big Brother And The Holding Company. Buckley\u2019s band briefly became regulars, supporting The Byrds and then Jeff Beck. (\u201cBuckley has a tendency to meander,\u201d Billboard said of that one, \u201cbut his lyrics pervaded the theater with strong effect.\u201d) \u201cIt felt unprecedented to have a black man playing alongside a white guy in this folk world,\u201d remembers C.C. Collins. \u201cThe audience response was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n These few months were critical for Buckley\u2019s development. Since 1966, Lee Underwood had been his lead guitarist. When Underwood took a short break, though, the band needed something else. Collins had met Friedman, the vibist, through mutual friends, even crashing at his apartment. He encouraged him to see Buckley perform and, in turn, for Buckley to hire him. Half a century later, Friedman admitted he, too, thought Buckley was another Dylan stand-in.<\/p>\n Underwood returned in time to make Buckley\u2019s third album at the end of 1968. This band \u2013 now with John Miller, a bassist who had just graduated from the University of Michigan and seen Buckley perform at the famous Canterbury House there \u2013 thrilled him.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked about jazz, jazz artists, improvisation, the value of moving into improvisation to expand the total scope of the music,\u201d Underwood says. \u201cTimmy turned to me as a guru, giving him the confidence to see himself as a new composer. That album, Happy Sad<\/i>, was his first major opportunity to get into jazz, Tim\u2019s debut into serious improvisational work. We were moving in a new direction.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/4.jpg” title_text=”4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Heart and soul: on-stage with Collins and vibraphonist David Friedman at the 1968 Newport Folk Festival<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n BUCKLEY HAD ALWAYS BEEN CAVALIER about his recording contract, but as the \u201960s ended, he began to take the matter more seriously. For years, the company that would soon become Warner Bros flirted with buying Elektra from Holzman, who had launched it from his dorm room in 1950. Nearing 40, Holzman was looking to retire to a home he was building in Hawaii \u2013 and to secure global distribution for his company. He walked away with $10 million and a commitment to stay at the label for three more years.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew Jac Holzman was going to sell his company, which really upset me,\u201d Buckley recalled in a 1974 ZigZag interview. \u201cI figured, Well, I\u2019m going to do what I think is best and get a contract so that I can continue at the rate I was going.\u201d<\/p>\n The new contract was with Straight Records, Herb Cohen\u2019s novel partnership with Zappa to release records with some commercial appeal. Cohen wanted something from Buckley he could sell. There were two problems: Buckley owed Elektra one more record; and he had already assembled a band with something other than popularity in mind.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/5-scaled.jpg” title_text=”5″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n At home in Malibu, California, April 12, 1967.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Underwood had become friends with bassist John Balkin, an occasional Zappa associate who had recently formed a riotous and abrasive ensemble, Menage A Trois, alongside Buzz and Bunk Gardner, two brothers who played horns and winds in the Mothers Of Invention. When Buckley said he needed a bass player who would wade deeper into improvisational waters, Underwood had the guy. Balkin introduced Buckley to Cathy Berberian\u2019s twisted interpretations of the works of her husband, avant-garde composer Luciano Berio. He was willing to try pretty much anything.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never had any music to read from,\u201d Balkin told MOJO in 1995. \u201cWe just noodled through and went for it, just finding the right note or coming off a note and making it right.\u201d<\/p>\n Underwood understood that his role as \u201cguru\u201d had been subsumed. Balkin would offer a bass line and tell Buckley to whistle or sing over it, then to change his key or tone and see what worked best, or how the pieces might cohere. Underwood had long encouraged Buckley to use his voice as an improvisational instrument; now it was happening. \u201cTim was soaring beyond whatever I knew, into new zones that Balkin knew,\u201d Underwood says. \u201cBalkin was a tremendous teacher. He wouldn\u2019t teach notes to Timmy, but he would say<\/i>, \u2018Try this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/6.jpg” title_text=”6″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Recorded in bursts in the fall of 1969, the result \u2013 Lorca<\/i>, named for the revolutionary Spanish poet Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, who, like Buckley, integrated surrealism into romantic lines \u2013 remains one of the most esoteric and electrifying label exits ever. With Underwood and Balkin on keys and Buckley pinballing between operatic heights and guttural gospel howls, the title track suggests serialism and acid experiments. A lament for the way love inevitably crumbles, Anonymous Proposition finds Buckley, Balkin, and Underwood conversing in rhythmic and melodic variations, the instrumentalists engaged in an intimate pas de deux<\/i> with his improvisations.<\/p>\n It is tempting to see Lorca<\/i> as some internecine exercise, made to waste Elektra\u2019s money and prod Buckley\u2019s audience, like the carnation in the teeth. But it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided right then it was time to break open something new, because the voice with five-and-a-half octaves was certainly capable\u2026 We were getting real tired of writing songs that adhered to the verse, verse, chorus things,\u201d he remembered in April 1975, drawing a straight line between its animating ideas and those of In A Silent Way<\/i>, which Miles Davis released months before Lorca<\/i> was made. \u201cTo this day, you can\u2019t put it on at a party without stopping things; it doesn\u2019t fit it.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley made Blue Afternoon<\/i>, the straightest album of his career, for Cohen and Straight Records when Lorca<\/i> was finished. Miller tagged in for Balkin on bass, while Friedman returned on vibraphone. These were largely songs Buckley had pushed aside as he explored improvisation. For Underwood, it felt like ceding freshly gained ground. His frustration is audible in the solo of So Lonely, Underwood overplaying as if he\u2019s trying to cut the band free.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a retreat into familiarity, into trying to get some commercially viable tunes. Tim needed something to give a commercial whoop-de-doo,\u201d says Underwood. \u201cI was dismayed with the notion of playing rehearsed music, but I kept my mouth shut about my needs to move beyond folk music, beyond commercialism, and just get into improvisation.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/7-scaled.jpg” title_text=”7″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Taking it to the Max: (top, from left) film director Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin and Buckley at Max\u2019s Kansas City, New York, 1968.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n LARRY BECKETT\u2019S LAWYER HAD GOOD NEWS and bad news.<\/p>\n The positive was that, as best as Beckett remembers, he had earned $1,842 on songs he had written with Buckley, his high-school friend and bandmate. The negative, though, was that he had $1,842 in legal fees, due to the lawyer who had been working to get him out of the US Army. Beckett wasn\u2019t too worried, though. After battling the Army for more than a year, he was finally on his way to freedom. In June 1969, after charges of being absent without leave and desertion and time spent in a stockade, Beckett was done.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n When the poet settled in Portland, Oregon, with the artist he soon married, he and Buckley began catching up by phone. They talked about new songs while Buckley, still in California, sat in a recliner wearing thermal underwear and a black robe, cradling his guitar. Buckley finally decided to visit, hoping to write together for an upcoming album. Beckett\u2019s early lovesick poetry had formed the bulk of the lyrics on Buckley\u2019s debut, and he\u2019d subsequently helped usher in the political and surrealistic aspects of the singer\u2019s repertoire. Buckley, however, had written his last three albums alone, though he allegedly turned down a chance to write music for John Schlesinger\u2019s Midnight Cowboy since Beckett, in the Army, couldn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe collaborated on the lyrics to a song, as though he were hesitant to have me go full-bore without him steering it,\u201d Beckett tells MOJO from his home, still in Portland, where he has remained a poet and recently recorded an album featuring the songs of Jacques Brel. \u201cWe had no experience collaborating as writers, and it was a miserable experience. It was such a forced, sour engagement. He said, \u2018Just send me the lyrics you write.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Beckett wrote four new songs for the album, including the one they\u2019d tried to pen together \u2013 I Woke Up, an anxious and impressionistic aubade about the possibility and weight of the future. In the fall of 1970, a year after Lorca<\/i> was finished, Beckett returned to California to watch his words become the songs of Starsailor<\/i>. He was stunned. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen Tim made Goodbye And Hello<\/i>, he would just wander around the studio, bumping into things. He had no idea, so he was relying on the producer, Jerry Yester, to answer questions,\u201d remembers Beckett. But this time, Buckley would sing or play something, ask to hear it back, and then offer ideas in real time about what needed to change, how the pieces could fit together. \u201cHe was in complete control. Any question he was asked, he had the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/8.jpg” title_text=”8″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Tim kicking back in 1970.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Around the time of the session, Buckley was also penning a hilarious and acerbic editorial for The New York Times about Beethoven, full of barbs for rock musicians and fans alike. \u201cHardly anybody I know listens to him,\u201d he wrote, \u201cmaybe because they can\u2019t play him on the guitar.\u201d Beckett and Buckley were also engrossed in the atonality of Krzysztof Penderecki, Toshiro Mayuzumi, and Berio. Beckett could now hear that here.<\/p>\n The work stirred Beckett so much he suggested they resurrect Song To The Siren, a song they\u2019d struggled to get right in a plaintive folk form years earlier. Buckley harmonised with himself, his voice curling over gauzy harmonies that stretched out like galaxies. Underwood\u2019s spare electric guitar undergirded him, rising and falling around Buckley\u2019s swoops. Song To The Siren became Starsailor<\/i>\u2019s centrepiece and, in years to come, the calling card for Buckley\u2019s experimental legacy. \u201cIt was like he came into possession of his muse,\u201d Beckett says. \u201cHe was hesitant at first, and then he became stronger and stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley overdubbed 16 vocal tracks, even running some of them backwards, for the title cut, a poem turned into a tape experiment. The returning Balkin and Gardner brothers darted in and out of I Woke Up and blared with Albert Ayler gusto on The Healing Festival. It was astounding, and Underwood insists, Buckley knew it. \u201cHe said, \u2018That\u2019s my best album,\u2019\u201d Underwood remembers. \u201c\u2018That\u2019s my major work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley also understood it was a tough sell. True to his word, he took his Starsailor<\/i> band into jazz clubs, starting with an October 1970 date at the tiny Lion\u2019s Share, near San Francisco. The band was savage, hammering and howling through a 12-minute rendition of Lorca and flowing in and out of eerie renditions of Starsailor. Warped vocals blew like wind from a cave. The audacious music met reserved applause.<\/p>\n \u201cHe would address his crowd by saying, \u2018Good evening, lobos.\u2019 That was his entourage\u2019s slang for lobotomies,\u201d says Beckett. \u201cHe meant these people had no brains, and they were not going to like this music. He had only contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/9.jpg” title_text=”9″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Siren call: Buckley performing on Midnight Special with the Steve Miller Band, 1974.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n WHEN BUCKLEY FINISHED TOURING STARSAILOR<\/i>, he needed a break. He\u2019d made three albums in a year, and both Lorca<\/i> and Starsailor<\/i> turned him into something of a punching bag. \u201cThere is an annoying problem about the album: [it] is a collection of junked tapes,\u201d ran one former fan\u2019s review of Lorca<\/i> in a student newspaper. \u201cThe arrangement and selection of songs do not correspond with Buckley\u2019s usual habits.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, after swearing off the idea of a second marriage after a divorce in 1966, he had wed Judy Sutcliffe and become the stepfather to her son, Taylor, in April 1970. He wanted to try<\/i> being a family man, to watch the Los Angeles Lakers, play baseball with Zappa, and take road trips with Judy. The drugs had sometimes been hard, the road gruelling, the assorted tensions among his band members exhausting. \u201cI\u2019d been going strong since 1966, and I really needed a rest,\u201d he said in 1974. \u201cI hadn\u2019t caught up with any living.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley was always working, according to Judy, doodling lyrics on cocktail napkins or thinking about songs, even if he didn\u2019t have his guitar. But when he properly returned to work in 1972, it was clear he had, once again, broken with his past. He\u2019d played the role of Glen, an out-of-work drummer with family issues, in Why, a Victor Stoloff film about a fractious residential therapy session that ends with everyone caressing each other\u2019s faces. Starring a young OJ Simpson, it was an early experiment in shooting to video tape, but it was a flop. Buckley\u2019s character stung. \u201cI feel like everything that I\u2019ve done, made, or believed in has been a waste of time,\u201d said Buckley, an onscreen natural. \u201cI can\u2019t live like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Buckley re-emerged willing to try his hand at something like stardom. He jettisoned his old band almost entirely, with only Collins returning on conga. He added strings, background singers, horns, and a rhythm section of session players. \u201cAfter Lorca<\/i> and Starsailor<\/i>, I was pretty much irrelevant,\u201d admits Underwood. \u201cHe needed to find other means, because he was constantly changing. He was deeply into pop music, and I had no connection with pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/10-scaled.jpg” title_text=”10″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Siren call: relaxing at home with The Shangri-Las, April 12, 1967.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Greetings From L.A.<\/i>, Buckley\u2019s seventh LP, was a funky, hooky affair, its seven rambunctious songs inspired by listening, he said, to the radio. But many of its tunes neared the seven-minute mark, and Buckley\u2019s lyrics about foot fetishes and squeaking bed springs curbed its commercial appeal. \u201cBall and chain on the old brain!\u201d he said in 1972 of writing songs to turn into singles. \u201cI don\u2019t see it as a compromise, though. It\u2019s just part of my life having to do something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t stop, either: young producer Denny Randell scrubbed 1973\u2019s Sefronia<\/i> until it felt smooth, sounded saccharine. Look At The Fool<\/i> was a major improvement, with Beckett returning to write some lyrics. Jim Fielder, the high school friend who introduced the two before joining Blood, Sweat & Tears, was in on those sessions. Despite the title and his sullen face on both covers, engineer Stan Agol insisted Buckley was finding new momentum in 1974. \u201cHis career was looking up,\u201d Agol said in 2000. \u201cHe was leaving Herb Cohen and signing a big deal. He was not a junky!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/11.jpg” title_text=”11″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Onscreen natural Buckley with OJ Simpson in Victor Stoloff\u2019s 1973 movie Why.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n TIM BUCKLEY DIED ON JUNE 29, 1975, HOURS after returning to California from a short tour in Texas. He\u2019d been drunk, snorted some heroin offered by a close friend who was also his dealer, and soon died at home. That\u2019s when Buddy Helm stopped playing music.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Helm had met Buckley during a failed Zappa audition, not long after Greetings From L.A.<\/i> was finished. The drummer was smitten by Buckley\u2019s easygoing charm, stunned by his voice. They both adored Fred Neil, even talked about making an album with him. Their shows together were tight-rope walks, Helm remembers, dovetailing moments of terror and delight. \u201cWhen he\u2019d get going, it was like I was a jockey, like being on Secretariat,\u201d says Helm. \u201cAnd I could follow him where he wanted to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Helm had been with him until the end, playing that string of Texas dates, where Buckley had been uncharacteristically pleased with the reception and reviews. The singer had been in talks to play Woody Guthrie in Bound For Glory; the offer, The New York Times later reported, would have arrived days after he died. The drummer didn\u2019t want to deal with that kind of heartbreak again. So Buddy Helm became Russell Helm, working in the film industry and swapping his stage clothes for luxe threads. \u201cI had to get serious,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cMy wife said I had to have a life with benefits. What is that<\/i>?\u201d[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n In 1983, Judy Buckley tracked down Helm. Money wasn\u2019t showing up from Warner Bros, and she needed help from \u201ca suit\u201d, as she called him. He set up a meeting with lawyers at the label, arriving in a white silk suit from Barneys, hoping to play the part of the power broker. As he neared the appointed conference room, he recognised a famous face in a mixing room \u2013 Bruce Springsteen, in Los Angeles working on songs. \u201cWe looked at each other,\u201d Helm remembers, \u201cand a minute later, he said: \u2018Tim Buckley, Max\u2019s Kansas City.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Springsteen knew the former drummer was there to meet with attorneys, so he handed him his own suit \u2013 a cutoff denim jacket, slung across his chair. \u201cGo get \u2019em,\u201d Springsteen said.<\/p>\n Helm walked into the room of a half-dozen attorneys, Springsteen\u2019s denim slipped over his fancy duds. When he asked if they knew who had given him the accessory, they nodded. \u201cThey thought, \u2018Oh shit, he\u2019s crazy,\u2019\u201d says Helm, laughing. \u201cI told them that, without Tim, they wouldn\u2019t have a lot of artists. He was the one that was showing the way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n They cut a deal for Judy and Taylor to get paid. It wasn\u2019t a lot, because it rarely was with Buckley. \u201cHis life,\u201d as his other son, Jeff, once put it, \u201cwas hell.\u201d But 50 years after Buckley\u2019s death, Helm\u2019s point may be more salient than ever. Buckley epitomised the idea of the restless songwriter, or anyone for whom folk music or any tune with a seemingly simple structure is not an end point but instead an invitation to explore. This Mortal Coil reinforced that nearly a decade later, when their impressionistic and amorphous cover of Song To The Siren with Elizabeth Fraser became an indie hit.<\/p>\n Jeff, too, carried the lessons of Happy Sad<\/i> and Starsailor<\/i> into his own too-brief career. They have persevered with subsequent generations of songwriters who could be called fearless if they didn\u2019t have such a compelling precedent in Tim Buckley. His temperamental traces show up in Bon Iver and Destroyer, Mk.gee and Ryley Walker, or anywhere someone is looking to elide preconceptions of a song and figuring out how to do it themselves, particularly with a singular voice.<\/p>\n Tim Buckley once told a story about meeting Leontyne Price, the pioneering opera singer who could make even the high notes sound like thunder. She saw his Starsailor<\/i> band in New York and confided that she wished someone would write music like that for opera. But he hadn\u2019t waited for someone to write that music for a folk singer. He\u2019d just done it.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, do what I did,\u201d he quipped. \u201cGet your own band.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n IMAGES:<\/strong> Ed Caraeff\/Iconicimages; Nurit Wilde, Don Paulsen\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images, Elliott Landy\/Redferns\/Getty, Ed Caraeff\/Iconicimages; \u00a9 1978 Ed Thrasher mptvimages\/eyevine, Elliott Landy\/Magnum Photos; Ginny Winn\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images, Ron Tom\/NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via Getty Images, Ed Caraeff\/Iconicimages<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turning his back on fame and fortune, leaning into the unknown, was where he was lost but also found. \u201cIt was like he came into position of his muse,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2640"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2712,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640\/revisions\/2712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cShow business is fine, but I\u2019m pretty much involved in music alone \u2013 in playing it and performing it and in entertaining\u201d<\/h2>\n
Tim Buckley<\/h2>\n
“\u201cRock? I\u2019ve really never known a rock musician that I could talk to for longer than five minutes at one time. What is there to talk about?\u201d”<\/h2>\n
Tim Buckley<\/h3>\n
“Tim was always frustrated by any boundaries superimposed on his will. We were caught between the commercialisation and the improvisation of music.”<\/h2>\n
Lee Underwood<\/h3>\n
“Tim would address his crowd by saying, \u2018Good evening, lobos.\u2019 That was his entourage\u2019s slang for lobotomies.”<\/h2>\n
Larry Beckett<\/h3>\n