Lately I've been thinking about (and listening to) Tim Buckley's "Starsailor."After 39 years, it still seems as fresh and contemporary as the day I excitedly ripped off the shrink wrap and laid the vinyl LP on my turntable to ride the stellar sound waves.
It's a short album, barely 45 minutes, but its scope belies its brevity.
Released in 1970 on Frank Zappa and Herb Cohen's Straight Records label, this was the record where Buckley went for broke -- and pretty much ended up out of the record business for a couple of years.
Buckley had matinee-idol looks and a choir-boy tenor. Because he played an acoustic 12-string guitar, he was lumped into the folk-rock category. However, his music was never as simple musically as the term "folk-rock" -- with its three- and four-chord progressions -- implies. Exotic sounds, harmonically challenging accompaniments and Buckley's prodigious multi-octave range were there from the start, but for the record business what mattered was a singer-songwriter who looked good and had a sweet voice.
On "Starsailor," his sixth album, Buckley reached the outer limits of his evolving fusion of folk, rock, jazz, Latin, world, avant-garde and electronic music. The title track featured Buckley singing a string of impressionistic lyrics, but through recording-studio technology, his voice became its own accompaniment and created a soundscape that did indeed seem to sail the stars.
Needless to say, the sounds and time signatures that were exotic to Western ears in 1970 (today, the widespread availability of music from distant shores has shown how commonplace such "complicated" rhythms are in other parts of the globe) made "Starsailor" a commercial loser.
Buckley was the producer of this album, which meant that he had full control of the artistic presentation and choice of material. For that, according to Lee Underwood, who played guitar with Buckley for many years, the record label would not release another album till Buckley ceded artistic control.
That's all well and good, but copies of "Starsailor" are still sought out by a growing number of aficionados as we approach the album's 40th anniversary in 2010.
Its impact has outlasted the Straight label, which pretty much closed for business by 1973. The label did resurface in the late 1980s, when through a licensing deal with Enigma Records, many Straight releases were reissued on CD.
By then, Buckley was long dead (gone tragically in 1975 of a drug overdose), but the label that punished him for "Starsailor's" lack of commercial success did not leave "Starsailor" in the vault. Perhaps Herb Cohen (Zappa was no longer involved after they parted ways acrimoniously in 1976) thought CD sales would help recoup any lingering losses from the original project, but more than likely those losses had long been written off and proceeds from the reissue would be a little bit of gravy.
However, Buckley did get a measure of respect from Enigma in the CD reissue. Not only did it include printed lyrics and production notes that weren't part of the original vinyl release, the cardboard outer packaging (which was used in those days to prevent CD theft from stores) lavished praise on him:
"If you have a five-and-a-half octave vocal range, it's a shame to limit it to your average everyday pop. And this record is a living testament to the fact that Tim Buckley, at least, was smart enough to recognize that simple fact. But he wasn't able to act upon it without paying a price. ... Conundrum or no, Buckley bravely pushed on into the largely uncharted territories where he found himself more in the company of the likes of John Cage, Cathy Berberian and Rahsaan Roland Kirk than his pop contemporaries. The album that exhibited his stunning musical growth (and which Buckley regarded as his magnum opus) was 'Starsailor.' "
In short, no guts, no glory. Buckley risked a great deal to put out his magnum opus, but if he hadn't taken the risk, he never would have painted his masterpiece.
Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo
PS: Enigma was acquired by Capitol Records soon after the Straight reissues and disappeared as a separate label in the very early 1990s.
PPS: Buckley was the last performer seen on the original run of "The Monkees" in 1968. He sang "Song to the Siren," a slightly revamped version of which appeared on "Starsailor" two years later. Below is the one from 1968, with the voice of Micky Dolenz introducing him.
