TimandElektra

Here are the three pages of text devoted to Tim Buckley from Jac Holzman's book entitled "Follow The Music".

These comments are those of the author and all the employees at Elektra who had the opportunity to work with Tim.

DAVID ANDERLE: Tim was already signed when I came to Elektra.
JAC: Herbie Cohen had sent me Tim's demo.
HERB COHEN: One of the great voices of our time. He had a four-octave range, five if he wanted to stretch it. Just brilliant.
JAC: I listened to it over and over. If I was down I would play it and it would lift me. And as an artist to sign...he was so gifted, so original, the talent and the vision still unfolding.
DAVID ANDERLE: When I came, Tim had done his first album, and he was just finishing "Goodbye And Hello". I remember Jac and I listening to it together, both of us being so in love with that album.
JAC: The pain and purity of the song writing, the plaintiveness of his melodies, the nakedness of his vocals, the artistic risks. I had believed in Tim from the beginning, and the enchantment of "Goodbye And Hello" exceeded anything I could have hoped for.
DAVID ANDERLE: Tim and I became very close. We just had a feeling for each other. It was like an instant thing. Sometimes when things would get too weird at the office, I would sneak out and go to the beach at Venice with him and just sit in the sand for hours and talk and watch the sunset.
ELLEN VOGT: I adored Tim. I had a big crush on him. I use to look out the window to see if he was coming. I was shy, I didn't know what to say to him. He would sit quietly, looking straight ahead, waiting for David. I think he was high every time he came in.
PAT FARELLA: A slightly slouching and shy young man, beautiful, hair like a halo, befitting yet another angel. I was in love with this young voice, those words, that torment, that frustration, that poetry.
DANNY FIELDS: Brilliant, playful, prodding, alert, just wanted to swallow the world. He had no concept of age, race, sexuality, he was just free.
FRITZ RICHMOND: Tim had some very pretty groupies. He would pack the studio with groupies. He seemed to like to have them around as an audience, and they sometimes didn't even know each other. They'd be in there sitting around looking gorgeous and listening politely all day, and at the end of the day some would stay even after he left. They wanted to watch me clean up.
DAVID ANDERLE: There was a real push to get Tim popular. From our side, we just wanted everybody to know about Tim Buckley.
JAC: To have the world hear him.
DAVID ANDERLE: But I had the feeling that if Tim didn't have to perform for an audience, it would be fine with him.
STEVE HARRIS: At his high point, Tim did a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. It was sold out. When he looked out he said something that was unintelligible, but it was almost like, "Oh shit". He didn't want it. He didn't seem nervous, he just seemed pissed off, almost, you know, "OK, I've done this, now what do I have to do?" The concert was wonderful, it was fabulous. He had it all at his fingertips. And he had nowhere to go. After that, his whole musical outlook and his perception of what he was about and doing, changed. Almost the next day, changed.
HERB COHEN: Whatever success he had, he would try to avoid it.
JAC: On the Tonight Show he would insult the host, or he would refuse to lip-sync and walk out. At the Improv he would be on stage, snoring, and I heard about him once barking at an audience.
DAVID ANDERLE: He was poised all the time to become a major pop artist. Because he was so attractive and his voice was so beautiful, it was a natural tendancy to say, "Come on, man, you could do this in your sleep and have everything you want." He had pressure from Herbie to do it more commercially. He had pressure from the label to try and make singles. He had pressure from everybody to do it in a certain way. And he rejected it. He wanted so badly to do his own music. I went to every one of his gigs at the Troubadour. A lot of times he would have a good audience for the opening show, but at the midnight show there might only be 3 or 4 people. It never bothered him. He would get into his experimental mode. Sometimes he would do one number for the whole set. He didn't give a shit, as long as he got to play what he wanted to play.
PAT FARALLA: The time I remember best with Tim was going down to Venice one night, and we cruised the bars, jazz bars, whatever, having the night I always wanted to spend with Tim. Just reaching into his mind. A lot of talk about jazz.
DAVID ANDERLE: I think he had the jazz demon. Certain guys--Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk--they go after this unattainable thing. The music Tim was hearing was really different. And he had demons he could not control.
STEVE HARRIS: Tim was self destructive, changing what he did, going into drugs. The last time I saw him was at a club in San Francisco. He was playing jazz and it was interesting. But all that went through my mind was how important an artist he could have been. He was so eager to talk about old times at Elektra. Elektra was Camelot and people never realized it better than when, like Tim, they went elsewhere. I could see it in his eyes, talking about how well he was treated and respected.
CLIVE SELWOOD: The first time Tim came to England he was at our new house, and he went out in the backyard, which was still uncultivated, and played with our little daughter for an hour and came back in all covered with mud. The hippie child.
STEVE HARRIS: The day Tim died, I was at Madison Square Garden and Herbie was in town. He called up and he could hardly talk. I said, "Herbie, what's the matter? And he said, "Come right over. Tim died."
HERB COHEN: He OD'd. Twenty-seven.
Note from Jzero...Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Tim Buckley all died at approximately the same age.