Nico

1967 saw Tim Buckley returning to New York for while. He was one of a steady stream of guitarists who backed Nico at the Dom immediately after she left the Velvet Underground -- Jackson Browne was another.

During the early summer, Elektra scheduled a new single for release, Lady Give Me Your Heart/Once Upon A Time, which was allocated the American catalogue number 45618, immediately following the Doors Light My Fire. No such single ever seems to have been issued, and tracks by that title -- or anything similar -- did not appear either, but if anyone can shed some more light on this mystery, we'd love to hear from them.

The next work to appear was Buckley's second album, Goodbye And Hello, release at the tail end of 1967. Produced this time by Jerry Yester of the Lovin' Spoonful, this was the natural culmination of Buckley's baroque, quasi-medieval period.

The ambitious scoring and arrangements emphasized its poetic atmosphere, but as with the debut album, these aspects have suffered in the passage of time. Nonetheless, there were some marvellous individual tracks, particularly the beautiful Morning Glory, the simpler Once I Was, the soaring Pleasant Street and the driving I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain.

During the Sixties, Goodbye And Hello was issued under two catalogue numbers. It was first paced on Elektra's 7300 series, a brief subsidiary which ran concurrently with the new 74000 set, to which it was later transferred. The American and British copies also differed, the U.S. version coming in a fold-out sleeve, while the U.K. one had a standard single sleeve.

Early copies, however, did feature an inner bag which carried a photograph, credits and lyrics. Goodbye and Hello was Tim's only commercially successful album in the U.S.

Three singles were taken from the album, Morning Glory/Knight Errant, Once I Was/Phantasmagoria In Two and Pleasant Street/Carnival Song, the latter being issued in the U.K. to coincide with a British tour. He played to a sell-out audience at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on October 7 1968 during a week of work which included an appearance on BBC 2's Late Night Line Up, BBC 1's How It Is and the Julie Felix Show.

Buckley also recorded six songs for Radio 1's Top Gear, only one of which, Morning Glory, had been previously released. The others were Happy Time, Love From Room 109 At The Islander, Sing A Song For You, The Train and The Troubadour, all of which indicate a new, somewhat looser direction.

Backed by Lee Underwood and Carter C.C. Collins, Buckley's voice was much more mature, he used the lower register more often and these new songs were altogether deeper and more absorbing. The Top Gear sessions, along with a Danish radio broadcast consisting of Buzzin' Fly and Gypsy Woman, have been collected onto an Italian bootleg Happy Mad.

It was also around this time that Tim Buckley made an appearance on The Monkees' T.V. show. He closed the last but one episode, singing solo, having been introduced by Michael Nesmith (if I remember correctly). Frank Zappa appeared on both another show and in Head, the Monkees' feature film, and thus Buckley's appearance was probably due to sharing Herb Cohen as manager.

Tim's third LP, Happy/Sad, appeared in 1969 and fully confirmed the promise of those European sessions. Brilliantly innovative, his melodies were allowed to drift out through fluid, loose arrangements underscored by acoustic guitars, vibes and bass. Essentially a jazz-based album, on Happy/Sad, Buckley's voice was free to soar, swoop and fall wherever the mood took him, in much the same way that Van Morrison had done on Astral Weeks.

The sympathetic production of Jerry Yester and Zalman Yanovsky was perfect. They merely set the context for the songs, which stretched from a concise two and a half minutes - Sing A Song For You - to the twelve-minute epic, Gypsy Woman.

There was only one disappointment; no room was found for The Troubadour, a wonderful song doubtlessly deemed too folky for the new sound and thus left unrecorded.

Having only cut three albums as many years, Tim Buckley now became suddenly prolific. Blue Afternoon followed later that same year, and was his first album on Straight, a new outlet formed by Zappa and Cohen. It featured the same line-up as on Happy/Sad -- Lee Underwood, Carter C.C. Collins, David Freeman (vibes), John Miller (acoustic and electric bass), while adding Jimmy Madison on drums.

If anything, Blue Afternoon surpassed its predecessor, its eight tracks are either variously tense, exciting, raging, melodious or poignant, or any combination thereof. Favourites are impossible to pick, Blue Afternoon is simply one of the best five albums made, ever.