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Thoughts
and Words On Music and More
At
Long Last:
Tim
Buckley: Live at the Folklore Center, NYC - March 6, 1967
By
Andy Schwartz - June 2, 2009
On
a visit to my former Sony Music office circa 1999 from his
adopted city of Stockholm, the one and only Izzy Young entrusted
me with a reel of analog tape containing his one and only
recording of Tim Buckley’s first New York concert.
Appearing
March 6, 1967 at Izzy’s Folklore Center in Greenwich
Village. Tim performed a lengthy set for an estimated 35 listeners
accompanied only by his own twelve-string acoustic guitar.
For
the next eight or nine years, I made sporadic unsuccessful
efforts to get this tape released by a legitimate record
company. Finally, in 2008, my good friend Josh Rosenthal
of Tompkins Square stepped up to the plate with a reasonable
financial offer; the determination to navigate a minefield
of clearances and permissions, and — most importantly
— an innate understanding of the power, beauty, and
significance of this remarkable performance.
In
contrast to all previous posthumous releases (Live in
London from ‘68, Honeyman from ‘73,
etc.) Folklore Center is the only solo live Tim Buckley
recording that has emerged to date. “He plays sixteen
songs,” Josh Rosenthal marvels, “and never hits
a wrong note.”
Josh
and the staff of The Magic Shop have worked small wonders
of engineering to improve the sound of Izzy’s one-microphone
recording, and the result is not only a must-buy for any
fan of Tim Buckley but perhaps the most important non-box
set archival release of 2009.
This
article is the first
shot in what will surely be a fusillade of media acclaim
(deserved, for once) for Tim Buckley - Live at the Folklore
Center, NYC - March 6, 1967.
©
Schwartz/New York
Rocker
Andy
began writing about pop music circa 1972 as an undergraduate
at the University of Minnesota and later wrote a weekly
column (”Blues, Rags, and Hollers”) for the alternative
weekly Metropolis. He also worked behind the counter of
the legendary Minneapolis record shop Oar Folkjokeopus.
Soon
after returning to New York in 1977, Andy became publisher
and editor of New York Rocker, the punk/new wave magazine
founded by the late Alan Betrock (1950-2000). Under Andy’s
direction, NYR published 44 issues (through December 1982)
and became the most widely-read and influential American
publication of its kind.
In
December 2007, Greenwood Press published a two-volume reference
work Icons Of Rock (available for purchase at this
Amazon link). This work was co-written with Scott Schinder
and features Andy’s essays on James Brown, Led Zeppelin,
and Ray Charles.
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