Tim Buckley - Dream Letter [Happy Sad] | jt1674

 

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Birthdays | Tim Buckley 14th February 1947

 Tim Buckley was born in Washington D.C. on Valentine's Day in 1947. 

Sometimes he wonders, do you ever think of him.

Songs for a Sunday : TIM BUCKLEY : Song To The Siren

 love this and someone was playing on my tumblr group on Flickkenaboock!

Born this day TIM BUCKLEY :: Dolphins (Fred Neil) May 74

 Fellow Aquarian Tim Buckley was born this day St Valentine's . . . . . . . here in the OGWT test studio doing the favourite Fred Neil song Dolphins . . . . . . turn it up and enjoy

from The Monkees TV Show . . . . . . . . (and people wonder at my passion for the Monkees TV programme and why I ran home from my paper round to catch it . . . . . this is why)

(Monkees TV Show 1968)

SONG TO THE SIREN 

Long afloat on shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

'Til your singing eyes and fingers

Drew me loving to your isle

And you sang

Sail to me, sail to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am, here I am

Waiting to hold you

Did I dream you dreamed about me ?

Were you hare when I was fox ?

Now my foolish boat is leaning

Broken lovelorn on your rocks

For you sing

'Touch me not, touch me not

Come back tomorrow

Oh my heart, oh my heart

Shies from the sorrow'

I am puzzled as the oyster

I am troubled as the tide

Should I stand amid your breakers ?

Or should I lie with death my bride ?

Hear me sing

'Swim to me, swim to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am, here I am

Waiting to hold you'

Highlights from TWILIGHTZONE's Forever Changing - Golden Age of ELEKTRA

So not much around this morning but the fifth disc in the excellent Golden Age Of Elektra Records from the TWILIGHTZONE

All 5 volumes available here

Download them all right NOW! 

Track listing and links to all five volumes posted here on the blog

I have said they feature an extraordinary range of music from the commonly well known Love, Eric Clapton (early thankfully) Judy Collins, Lovin' Spoonful, Tom Paxton, Paul Butterfield Blues Band to name but a few but also really obscure folks I had never heard of one of which I feature here because they cover a great Grandpa Jones classic 'Bald Headed End of The Broom' by the Dry City Scat Band (say what now?) which I first heard from the wonderful Waterson Carthy Band and, any excuse I know, but I play that here too! (Norma we miss you!)

But we start the day (week?) with an absolute storming classic from Tim Buckley and his version of Wayfaring Stranger and if you listen to one thing this week make it this . . . . . . . . .

Tim Buckley - Wayfaring Stranger

if that was too sad a start to the week how about this?!

The Dry City Scat Band (yes them!) - Bald headed End of The Broom

Waterson Carthy Band - Royal Forrester/Bald Headed End of The Broom

VINCE MARTIN - If the Jasmine Don't Get You ... The Bay Breeze Will - Plain & Fancy

 

      Well here's a delight . . . . . . . you know how someone used to burst into your house with an album under their arm and say "Hey, listen you really gotta hear this!" and you put another disc on the record player and sat back and got lost in reverie . . . . . it happened for me with John Sebastian, Tim Buckley (and his son Jeff) and Fred Neil and many more . . . . . people we hadn't necessarily heard of and another vinyl album hit the deck and we were gone . . . . . . so Plain and Fancy has done us proud with this latest posting with this from Vince Martin who I confess I had never heard of! But downloaded anyway and what it pleasure it has proved  . . . my song of the day must be his Snow Shadows and the Rockasteria provides his usual interesting notes to boot:

"Vince Martin first emerged in the late 1950s as a folk-blues singer around Greenwich Village...of the tendency which kind of avoided the academic approach. A friend of commercial folk-pop group The Tarriers, he was the lead singer on their 'Cindy Oh, Cindy' 45, a monster hit and one of the first real big successes to emerge from the Folk Boom. Vince, lending not only a gritty edge of authenticity, but a note of wistful yearning no amount of study can bring, in the early 1960s, gravitated toward the intense club nights presented by black activist and broadside editor, Len Chandler. Starting a celebrated partnership with fellow maverick Fred Neil which stretched over live appearances which influenced a generation, David Crosby, Mama Cass, Richie Havens, you name them... and cutting an acclaimed and now-classic album for Elektra.

It was Vince who started the to-ing and fro-ing of the folk scene players between Greenwich Village and Florida's Coconut Grove (*see below), a place he discovered by chance in 1961, later immortalized in a song by Fred Neil covered by everyone. All of this is perfectly captured on Vince Martin's 1969 album, If the Jasmine Don't Get You ... The Bay Breeze Will, one of that decade's overlooked gems, and a record whose title truly says it all, and whose time has come. From the opening cut, 'Snow Shadows,' the sound is an airy blend of folk spirit and rock dynamics. Softly brushed drums push forward behind propulsive flat-picked twin acoustic guitars; Martin's high tenor sings of romantic loss, quivering over the lines 'Stumbling through the snow..../Nothing waitin' for me like I'm leaving behind..../Cities are meant for leaving before I get too black and blue.' 

As the song builds, the drummer dramatically downshifts, cracking his snare with a full stick. Martin's voice in turns seems to lift off with a thrilling effect, soaring, as he croons, 'Heading south without you like a wild bird flying blind/Someone should have told me I'd never go home.' Produced by infamous A&R man/producer Nickolas Venet at Capitol's studio in Nashville, Tennessee, this record came in out on Capitol releases which included Euphoria, Gandalf, and Karen Dalton's self titled album... strange company indeed"

Musicians:

*Vince Martin - Vovcals, Guitar

**Charles R. McCoy - Harmonica

*Fred F. Carter, Jr. - Guitar

*Henry P. Strzelecki - Bass

*John Buck Wilkin - Guitar

**Kenneth Buttrey - Drums

*Lloyd Green - Dobro, Steel Guitar

*Murrey M. Harman, Jr. - Drums

Snow Shadows

* Fred Neil, John Sebastian, Vince Martin (and others) - 'Dolphins' at The Coconut Grove

From The Rolling Coconut Revue, August 2nd, 1976, Coconut Grove, Florida. The only known footage of Fred Neil in existence... Fred Neil- Vocals, Guitar Vince Martin- Backing Vocals, Guitar John Sebastian- Harmonica Bobby Ingram- Guitar Pete Childs- Slide Guitar Pete Seiler- Bass

Musician Vince Martin talks about his first job, how he got his stage name and his 1956 hit song with The Tarriers (Alan Arkin, Eric Darling, Bob Cary), Cindy Oh Cindy. Interview recorded in Brooklyn, September 14th & 15th, 2009. 

Coming soon : "Tear Down The Walls: An Album by Martin & Neil", where Vince and old friend Bob Ingram will talk about the seminal 1964 Elektra recording that inspired the Folk-Rock movement.

** noting that it was Charlie McCoy and Kenney Buttrey who featured on Bob Dylan's 'John Wesley

Harding' album

 Thanks, Marios

 JEFF BUCKLEY

Joan Wasser aka Joan as Police Woman: 

“Jeff was born today 54 years ago and this is what selfies looked like 25 years ago. No cell phones. An actual camera. 2nd Avenue. I needed to get us both in the frame without knowing if I had or not until the film was developed. I miss him every single day and am grateful every one of those days that I got to spend the time with him I did. Live now. It’s so much more fun than living in the past or the future. I’ve tried both and neither work. I’m going to keep living now until I’m no longer living. It’s how I witnessed Jeff live. It’s worth it. 💚 Sending love out to this beautiful and delicate world.” 17th November 1966

Did I know? Had I forgotten that Joan was 'Joan as Police Woman' and had a relationship with Jeff Buckley? That he was involved with her and seemed to have asked her to marry him at the time of his death at 30. I like both and Jeff's death knocked us all sideways and transformed us in some kind of collective shock as we had been excited by such a debut in 'Grace' . . . . .that he had produced quite difficult work just post that astonishing first album is a given to me and that then he should have perished by drowning in the Mississippi River that sounds so dark and foreboding, exotic and on the banks of the home of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain and people drifting on the gambling riverboats which is what sucked Jeff to his death. It all seemed so alien to us here in a continent of European eccentricity, British oddness and less so somehow, than such a mythic place. That he should slip away by the currents of a river of such power and mystique seemed somehow so cruelly unfair and so distressing to those who were so expectant of his early promise. Joan I think comes into that somehow American oddness, its peculiarity  . . . its otherness. I first registered her as 'Joan as Police Woman' of course and thought at the time now THAT is the strangest title for a singer, are they a band? What IS going on? . . . . . I know something of what is going on now and admire the plain fact that she can sing and write and reinvent herself  . . . if she chooses

Jeff here . . . .

Joan As Police Woman

'Grace' . . . . . live on The BBC 'The Late Show' - N.B. if you listen to just one thing today, make it this live performance of Jeff at his very zenith . . . . .  

Joan's Holy City . . . . 

Intriguingly enough (well for me) Floppy Boot Stomp have posted a set from Jeff's dad, the legendary Tim Buckley, the other day and I found both of those things at the same time . . . 

Tim Buckley - Happy Mad [plus Peel Session bonus] - Floppy Boot Stomp

Though it seemed Jeff had conflicting ambivalent feelings about his dad and understandably so (he was brought up Scott 'Scottie' Moorhead and self described his upbringing as 'rootless trailer trash' he only met his father once at the age of eight and only later discovered his true name when faced with his birth certificate and changed his name back while his family continued to call him 'Scottie') it seemed apposite here to make the connection . . . .both lost to us for very differing reasons both are terrifying losses of the truest of creative forces in both father and son

SONG TO THE SIREN

the author . . . . . 


the Cocteau Twins


Sinead O'Connor



This Mortal Coil

featuring the guitar of Robin Guthrie and impeccable peerless voice of Elizabeth Fraser


The version by This Mortal Coil was used in the David Lynch film Lost Highway [1997] although not included on the soundtrack album for contractual reasons. Peter Jackson also used in the Lovely Bones in 2009. In October 2018 the This Mortal Coil version of the song appeared in the BBC drama Wanderlust (S1: E6)

Lyrics
Song To The Siren

Long afloat on shipless oceans 

I did all my best to smile 

'Til your singing eyes and fingers 

Drew me loving to your isle 

And you sang

Sail to me Sail to me 

Let me enfold you 

Here I am Here I am 

Waiting to hold you 

Did I dream you dreamed about me? 

Were you hare when I was fox? 

Now my foolish boat is leaning  

Broken lovelorn on your rocks,  

For you sing,  

"Touch me not, touch me not,  

come back tomorrow: 

O my heart, O my heart shies from the sorrow" 

I am puzzled as the newborn child

I am as troubled as the tide. 

Should I stand amid the breakers? 

Or should I lie with  

Death my bride? 

Hear me sing, 

"Swim to me, Swim to me,  

Let me enfold you: 

Here I am, Here I am,  

Waiting to hold you

Lyrics by Larry Beckett (1967) Original Music by Tim Buckley (1970)

Larry Beckett wrote the lyrics to Song to the Siren as part of his ongoing collaboration and friendship with Tim Buckley throughout their high school years

Song to the Siren lyrics © BMG Rights Management

Oh thanks to Jeff Harris' wonderful blog Behind The Grooves (if with a slightly US bias ahem . . . ) for the heads up on this reminder of a truly tragic story

Bought this when it came out and can't recall who turned me on to Jeff Buckley (Tim's son for those who don't know- who's THAT?! ED) but his tragic death so young by swimming in the Mississippi river robbed us of a true star and incredible creative force. His first album here blew almost everyone away with any ears to hear and sensibilities to boot! I loved this album and still do . . . . . 

On this day in music history: August 23, 1994 - “Grace”, the debut album by Jeff Buckley is released. Produced by Jeff Buckley and Andy Wallace, it is recorded at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY from Late 1993 - Early 1994. Singer, songwriter and musician Jeff Buckley was the son of folk music legend Tim Buckley (though he grows up being unaware of his true lineage until he meets his biological father for the first and only time when he is eight years old), and is raised his mother (a classically trained musician) and stepfather in Southern California. Two years after moving to New York to heighten his profile as a musician, he is signed by Columbia Records. Upon its release, the album initially receives mixed reviews and sells poorly until Buckley’s emotional and ethereal live performances of the material win critics and fans over. It eventually comes to be regarded as one of the finest singer/songwriter albums of the 90’s. Though Buckley does not live to see much of this belated acclaim and appreciation for his artistry. Ironically and tragically, he dies young like his father years before him (his father died of an accidental drug overdose in 1975 at the age of 28). Jeff accidentally drowns while swimming in the Mississippi River in Memphis, TN, during a break in working on material for his second studio album in 1997. Buckley is only thirty years old at the time of his death. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the albums’ release in 2004, “Grace” is remastered and reissued as a double CD + DVD deluxe edition. Disc one includes the original ten song album, with the second disc featuring various outtakes, alternate takes and other previously unreleased material. The DVD contains a documentary on the making of the album, along with behind the scenes footage of the making of the four music videos shot for the singles. Originally released on vinyl only in Europe in 1994, the album receives its first US release on vinyl, packaged with a bonus 7" of “Forget Her” b/w “Strawberry Street”, pressed on blue vinyl. The LP is reissued as a 180 gram LP by Music On Vinyl in 2009, and again by Columbia/Legacy in 2010. “Grace” peaks at number one hundred forty nine on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Gold in the US by the RIAA.

Buy the deluxe edition here . . . .