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From
Lillian Roxon's article in Eye:
Tim Buckley wrote the song "Good-bye and Hello"
there and almost half the album of the same name.
Most musicians, initially, are attracted by the prices:
$20 a week for a room without bath, $30 with, is what they
start at. Tim Buckley found himself paying $70 a week by
the time he was through - exactly what it cost him per month
in California. "Expensive," he said, "but
the best place I ever lived."
Tim Buckley says he watched the whirling of a snowflake
down an airshaft and thought that the movement could be
used in orchestration. Has he used it yet? No, but he will
one of these days. Has he ever written a song about the
Albert? No, but he has written a lot of songs with the Albert
about him, surrounding him.
From
Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered:
Tim and I piled our guitars into the rear of a Volkswagen
panel truck Herb had rented for us, and drove coast-to-coast
to New York with Johnny Sider. Johnny was a first-class
drummer. He was also an intelligent, happy go-lucky guy
with an extraordinary memory and marvelous sense of humour.
We stayed at the Albert Hotel, in Room 1268, as I recall,
but Johnny insisted years later that it was Room 1216. I
have a good memory, but because of Johnny's exceptional
memory, I'll go with him - 1216. The Albert was a famous
- or infamous - home away from home for some of the most
popular and influential rock musicians of the era - Frank
Zappa and his band, the Mamas & the Papas, the Lovin'
Spoonful, the Butterfield Blues Band, Spanky and Our Gang,
the Byrds, the Doors, and dozens of others. The graffiti
on the seventh floor corridor wall said, "Jim Morrison
is sex, but Ray Manzarek is love."
Photo
courtesy Cecily Watson |
One
night in New York, Tim and I dropped Owsley acid, zipped
back to the Albert Hotel (rushing on LSD as the elevator
ascended), and spent the night writing "Bussin' Fly,"
one of Tim's best-loved Happy Sad songs. He strummed and
sang. I played guitar. The walls and curtains breathed.
Glistening orange velvet lining in open guitar cases undulated
like red-orange seawaves. (Elsewhere, Beckett has said this
was an old song carried over from earlier days. Not so.
A line or two may have been carried over, but the total
song was born that night in the Albert.)
….Louise Dula, drummer and leader of an all-woman rock
band called the Bittersweet, remembered meeting Tim.
"I
didn't know who Tim Buckley was when I got to the Albert,"
she wrote to me, "although I had seen his picture on
the wall and thought, 'Cute guy.' One day I was waiting
for the elevator to come down. When I pushed the button
my purse strap got tangled up in my beaded necklace. The
necklace broke and the beads scattered all over the floor.
I was down on my hands and knees like a fool, trying to
catch them.
The
elevator door opened, and I looked up - to see this beautiful
face looking down at me and smiling. From the angle I saw
him at, being down on the floor looking up, the elevator
light seemed to form a halo around his curly hair. I remember
thinking to myself, 'My God, it's an angel!' He bent down
and started helping me gather up all my beads, saying funny
things about how cute I looked crawling around on the floor.
"The
next day at the front desk there was an envelope for me.
Inside was a really pretty necklace with a note from Tim
that said,
'To replace what was broken,
I thought you'd like this small token'
I couldn't believe he would do something that nice for a
stranger. He won my heart for life....
©
Roxon/Underwood/thealberthotel.com
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