...Inspired by the singing of avant-garde musician Cathy Berberian, he decided to integrate the ideas of composers such as Luciano Berio and Iannis Xenakis in an avant-garde rock genre. He started to fully use his vocal range... During 1969, Buckley began to write and record material for three different albums: Lorca, Blue Afternoon, and Starsailor. ...According to Underwood, Buckley knew that Lorca had little to no chance in the commercial market. Selecting eight songs that had yet to be recorded, these tracks evolved into the sessions for Blue Afternoon, an album that was quite similar to Happy Sad in style. ~via wiki For the record, I think Blue Afternoon is a terrific collection of wonderful songs, including Blue Melody, one of my all-time favorite Buckley compositions. I even named my book Blue Melody after that song. The reason this notion persists, I think, is because Blue Afternoon, with its conceptual extension of Tims Happy Sad middle-ground jazz orientation, was recorded after Lorca. By the time Tim had evolved into the beginnings of his avant-garde phase with Lorca, it was conceptually regressive to go back to Happy Sads aesthetic perspective for Blue Afternoon. I pointed that fact out in print. Certain people later misinterpreted that comment and said I didnt like Blue Afternoon. Pure balderdash, silliness, and horn-swaggled twaddle! Some of Tims all-time great songs are on that album, and I would love to see it re-issued. True, Blue Afternoon was a collection of old songs, but it was not a collection of unreleased out-takes from previous recording sessions. We recorded them new and fresh specifically for that album. And Blue Afternoon was not recorded just to keep Herb Cohen happy. Tim knew Lorca was unlikely to be a big hit in the marketplace. He loved Blue Afternoons old tunes, which had found no home elsewhere. He was shifting labels, moving from Elektra to Herbs new label, Straight, and he wanted to help give that label a commercial launch. For all of those reasons, Tim and the rest of us worked as hard as we could on Blue Afternoon, even though it was a conceptual step backwards; we had little time in which to record it; and it was somewhat difficult adjusting to those conditions. So it was a mixed atmosphere, a kind of aesthetic detour, but it was also an effort that Tim wanted and needed to make. Needless to say, it was not the commercial success Herb and Tim and others hoped it would be. A lot of critics totally trashed it. And yet today it is one of his most sought after albums! After recording Blue Afternoon, Tim got back on track. He immediately returned to the work he had already begun on Starsailor. Detour over. Return to the living present. Straight ahead — up and out into the stratosphere! ~via interview with Lee Underwood on Tim Buckley: leeunderwood.net/Interviews/06_prepubinterview.html Tim Buckley - I Must Have Been Blind youtube/watch?v=mQ_o7NonpPo (1969) Blue Afternoon
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 08:31:13 +0000
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