Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Tim Buckley
Happy Sad
(Elektra, 1969)
Cue marimba! A young folkie finds his inner jazz.
Tim's journey from sad-eyed '60s singer-songwriter to wayward jazz progressive started here in 1968. Three albums into his career and still only 21, his musical questing seemed unforgivable to a late '60s audience who'd fallen in love with him as the doomed romantic folkie with the soaring voice, and the record sounded perversely uncommercial in its day. Personally, I heard Happy Sad first of all - on a second-generation cassette on a boom box while a friend cooked curry. Even in that challenged audio setting it sounded extraordinary. With the windows steamed up and a joint next to the extractor fan it was like being underwater, enveloped by waves of vibes and congas. A southern Californian Selkie, Tim lures the listener in with Strange Feelin' and Buzzin' Fly's soothing, jazzy instrumentation, his wonderful voice swooping between tenderly romantic and sonorous boom. But he's just warming us up for Love From Room 109 At The Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway) where he sounds like Fred Neil at his most heartsore and weary. "Lost without a song" our singer finds love in his "hotel life" and, inevitably, loses it again in a little shy of eleven minutes. Music myth insists the sounds of the sea were later added by Elektra producers Jerry Yester and Zal Yanovsky to conceal tape distortion and I'm sure I can still hear someone cough on my copy.
An absent father's lament, Dream Letter is no less moving now we know how Tim's relationship with his son played out (perhaps more so?); Gypsy Woman is twelve-minutes-plus of whooping, yelping, lyrical obfuscation and acoustic bass-driven Latin jazz, and it's fantastic. Closing with Sing A Song For You, a little nugget of lost love so beautiful lesser singers could build a whole album around it, as a first taste of Tim Buckley these six songs smoothed my path to Lorca and Starsailor's freer extremes but like a lot of Buckley fans I'm more comfortable here, in the kitchen, under the sea.
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 07/09/2009
Further Listening
Tim Buckley – Goodbye And Hello (Elektra, 1967)
Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey (Polydor, 1971)
John Martyn – Solid Air (Island, 1973)
Previous Disc of the day
-
-
Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
-
Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
-
Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
-
-
Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
end of body content back to top
Footer
Join us on:
© Copyright Bauer - all
rights reserved.
Reproduction of this
website, in whole or in
part, in any form or
medium without express
written permission from
Bauer is prohibited. All
use is subject to our
Terms of Use
|
|
Comments
Comment on this post
"Buzzin' Fly" was as good as meditation for me.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica, California at 8:39 PM GMT 24/09/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post