By Jack Brolly

It sounds to me like it didn't take much time for you to learn how to play the electric guitar. Were you a child prodigy?

Initially, played acoustic guitar, then electric. Already knew basic theory and had learned relative pitch from earlier years, both of which helped enormously in learning guitar and in improvising.

I've recently turned someone on to Tim's music and I began by giving him a compilation tape of Tim's work. My friend - this newcomer to the world of Tim Buckley - upon first listening, made an interesting observation. He said that he thought the guitar playing and the sound on a few of the songs themselves were reminiscent of Big Brother & The Holding Company (the house band at the Avalon Ballroom). He saw similarities with the Airplane and the Buffalo Springfield.

I had never noticed that before - I always considered Tim's music to be unique at every stage - and I was wondering if you, Lee (having played in San Francisco at that time) picked up a guitar vibe from the music being played by Sam Andrew of Big Brother or any of the other bands playing in town?

Listeners quite often approach new music with old ears, listening for what they already know and have already experienced. Thus, they miss the originality and/or uniqueness of what they are listening to in the present. They project what they know onto the new, and thereby miss the new and see only whatever they have perceived or projected onto it from the past. It makes them feel comfortable (and often egoistically superior), but it also makes it difficult for the artist to reach them.

Artists are constantly confronted with this problem, although the good ones don't let it stop them from evolving. Listeners think they mean well when they hear influences, but until they can hear and relate to whatever the artist is bringing to the work that is unique, special, new, magical, they miss. I don't think Tim had any of the influences your friend thinks he heard. I traveled to San Francisco as a folk musician, just as folk music died and Sixties rock had begun to emerge, particularly with the Jefferson Airplane (whom I heard rehearse before their initial RCA contract).

As a dedicated folkie and acoustic player (albeit late to the folk scene and outdated), I didn't tune into electric rock with any enthusiasm. I knew Sam Andrew (we both taught guitar at Stu Goldberg's Marina Music shop), but he was already into electric music and far ahead of me technically. I did not know of Big Brother or Buffalo Springfield until later. None of these groups were influences for me, and I think I can speak for Tim here, too.

Tim came out of the folk scene. His primary reference points early on were Pete Seeger, Odetta, Fred Neil and, in a literary way (primarily by way of Beckett), Bob Dylan. Neither one of us was particularly interested in the rock scene at the time. Most of the rock bands were rooted in the blues form, endlessly recycling the same chords and licks mined from the same tradition, while we were doing what we could to flower as original conceptualists.

Who were some of your favorite rock bands of the late sixties?

I liked Buffalo Springfield when I finally heard them. Dr. John got to me (and to Tim, too). Aretha Franklin was not considered rock, but she sure knew how to cook. Cream (with Eric Clapton on guitar) knocked me out when I heard them in New York, as did Mike Bloomfield (with Paul Butterfield).

I thought Crosby, Stills and Nash were great, loved their harmonies and mellow modes. The ultimate favorite of mine to come out of that period was Pink Floyd. My main preferences and influences, however, preceded rock, and did not enter the picture with Tim until after Goodbye and Hello - another story.

How did the song Hi Lily enter Tim's repertoire?

It was just one of those great tunes he loved from early on, one of those poignant songs learned in childhood, carried over to the concert stage.

© Elliott Landy/Landyvision.com Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin and Tim at Max's Kansas City in 1968

Did you ever play Max's Kansas City on Park Ave South in lower Manhattan?

I didn't, but Tim did, later on, with his funk-rock group in the later years.

Were you ever in there at all, and if so, what did you think of all that craziness?

Indeed, Tim and I got smashed in Max's Kansas City with Janis Joplin and Sam Andrew. Loved the crazies, not only in Max's, but of that whole period. What kind of an influence did Larry Beckett have on Tim (musically and personally)?

That's a huge question, Jack, and for purposes of this interview might best be left in Larry's hands. He and Tim were very close friends and collaborators during their high school days together, and during the first two albums. After that, they parted ways, until Tim brought him back for a few tunes on Starsailor and the following albums.

There is no question but that Larry's input with lyrics played a vital role in Tim's work, especially through the Goodbye and Hello period. After that, Tim developed himself and his music independently, exploring conceptual zones well removed from the early folk orientation he and Beckett shared in the early days.

No question about it, Larry was and is a talented writer, a first-class word-slinger with a top-flight literary mind. He brought a dimension of intelligence and sensitivity to Tim's music that played a profound role in Tim's early development. They had one of the great friendships and working relationships of that era, and together wrote some of the most well-loved songs of Tim's entire career, including Song to the Siren.

Can we revisit the Fred Neil question? Do you agree or disagree with the notion that Fred Neil was one of Tim's mentors? {Mary Guibert said that she and Tim use to sit and listen to Fred play and sing at Herb Cohen's house while the pictures on the wall would quiver and shake.

She also said that Fred taught Tim how to strum the guitar in the manner in which he played. Are you aware that Tim said on the Starwood tape that Fred Neil was one of the only real friends he had? He really seemed to like Fred. As you well know, Tim played The Dolphins at a lot of his live performances.

It seems to me that the Buckley/Neil relationship has been exaggerated. Yes, Fred was at Herb's house when Tim and Mary stayed there in the early days, and Tim loved Fred's voice and songs. Later, at Big Pink in Venice, we often listened to Fred's albums, and Fred's music could be considered an influence during those early folk and folk-rock days. Also, Tim dearly loved the Dolphins song, and sang it throughout his career.

As for guitar stylings, Tim learned from many musicians, but developed his own unique style, becoming a superb twelve-string player along the way, something that should be pointed out and celebrated much more than it usually is. As far as I know, Tim did not hang out with Fred in the Village, as has been rumored, and again as far as I know, they didn't spend time together in the later days.

I suspect--but cannot say for sure - that Tim's comment on the Starwood tape was not meant literally, but figuratively, in terms of the deep emotions expressed in Dolphins and other songs - a musical friend, a soul brother, as it were.

On a much lighter subject, someone said that Tim told her that if he could choose another profession it would be professional baseball. Did he ever mention that to you?

He never said anything like that seriously to me. That comment sounds like one of Tim's semi-meaningful jokes, rather like Einstein's saying he wanted to come back as a plumber. However, I think Tim did play baseball in junior high or high school, and I know he played with the DiscReet record company team--shortstop--and was good at it!

What did you guys think of Blood Sweat and Tears' cover of Morning Glory and Linda Ronstadt's covers of Wings, Aren't You The Girl, and Morning Glory?

Not much.

Did Tim write 'The Father Song' for the movie 'Changes' or was it a personal glimpse at his inner soul?

He wrote it for Changes, and it was a personal glimpse of his inner soul. I've done some extensive writing on Tim of late, much of which has to do with the relationship between him and his father. To be continued.

Would you mind telling us the real meaning behind the lyrics of Pleasant Street?

Inside the mystery, the beauty remains, yes?

One of our forum members asked me why you and Tim split up. I couldn't help him, so now I'm asking you...why did you guys part ways?

Tim and I didn't split up, as some people put it. You may recall that Tim explored five different musical zones during the course of nine years, changing personnel and bands as needed for new musical concepts. Most of his musicians along the way lasted through one period. I was useful to Tim through four of his five periods over the course of seven years.

When it came to the final Greetings period, I gave it a go, but it didn't work well. Rock 'n' roll was not my musical forte, and I still had work to do in cleaning up my personal stuff, getting straight and sober and stable. Tim needed funk-rockers for his band, which I understood perfectly well.

After a six-week mid-1973 Greetings tour, he and I parted ways professionally. We remained the best of friends until his demise in 1975. He continued on the funk-rock path. I taught myself how to write, and became a well-known music journalist.

In conclusion

I know there is a great deal I have not talked about, Jack - my personal life before Tim, my personal life after Tim, various ways in which I helped Tim learn about music, literature and his own extraordinary capabilities, various on-the-road anecdotes, highlights, lowlights, etc.

But the story is about him, not me, with my story in his context being secondary. To the degree that my personal qualities and actions played an occasionally significant role in his development, they would certainly fit well in a book, where I can stretch out a bit more and plumb the depths and heights more thoroughly.

Of course, others have jumped into that marketplace niche, and so my voice may remain unheard. That makes me feel sad, of course, rather profoundly so. Nevertheless, I persist in doing what I can to celebrate Tim and his music. If a publisher were there for a book of mine about Tim.

Tim was an extraordinarily bright young man, intellectually and creatively brilliant. He had a profound affect on me, and on so many others as well - drummer Buddy Helm's recent interview, for example, rings with love of Tim in every word, doesn't it?.

I have listened to great artists in music's every genre, from all over the world. Not only art and entertainment musics, but ancient tribal, cultural and contemporary sacred musics as well. Of all of the singers I know of, not one has covered as wide a range of vocal exploration and achievement as Tim.

He still moves me more than others do, and probably always will. His son Jeff is not to be overlooked either. Of all of the singers, he was the only one I know of who had the particular temperament, the voice, the quality of intelligence and the abilities to be influenced by Tim to the degree that he was.

Jeff in his own right was a great singer, the very best of his day. He and Tim are twin blue stars in the heavens now, and I love them both. They graced our world with their beauty and made it forever a better place than it was when they found it.

In closing, let me extend to all of your readers my heartfelt appreciation for the love and respect they have shown Tim. Over thirty years since Tim began, and nearly 25 years since his death, listeners are still resonating to the passion, tenderness, creativity, intensity and beauty that Tim Buckley brought to music and to our ears.

His music holds such enormous truth in it-the truth of human love, longing, yearning, heartache and humor-that it remains in our lives even to this day. It will keep on keeping’' on, too. That which is true remains forever. Tim Buckley is gone, but his Blue Melody sings on.