Buckley paid price for rare gem

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.

Pragmatism, who wins?

Like Bob Dylan's description of "John Wesley Harding," President Obama is never known to make a foolish move. Of course, if you're a critic of Obama, you'll be howling about that statement because you think every move he makes is foolish, but I don't want to talk about the differing views on his strategy, goals or results. Here I'm using "foolish" to mean "rash."

It seems to me that every move this president makes -- whether I agree or disagree with it -- has been "well thought out" or possibly even "carefully planned." But this careful consideration is damping down the boldness of hope that supporters saw in him during the campaign. (Governing is different from campaigning, but that's a truism I think the president probably can't afford to heed.)

Obama didn't start campaigning on "it's the economy, stupid," as Bill Clinton did in the 1992 campaign. Obama began making noises about running for president as an opponent of the war in Iraq -- which to some degree influenced the way the economy went, but that's a story for another time. However, he had to change his tune along the campaign trail because the spectacular collapse of the American economy ultimately was the only issue that mattered at the end of 2008.

From that point on, Obama has been greatly compromised. To counter accusations that he was simply "too green" (and I don't mean "environmentalist") to handle the presidency, he has courted -- particularly on his economic team -- people who have credentials. As the Washington Post pointed out in a September 2008 article, Timothy Geithner was a partner with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in engineering the Bush administration's response to the collapse of the financial industry. With Geithner now subbing for Paulson in the Obama administration, we still have two-thirds of that power trio playing the same tune, when it comes to bailing out the economy. (There's a conspiracy debate on whether Goldman Sachs, from whose loins Paulson sprung, is the puppeteer behind every bubble and bust of recent memory. See Matt Taibbi's article "The Great American Bubble Machine," from the July 9 issue of Rolling Stone and Matthew Malone's article in Conde Nast Portfolio.)

You could almost hear the president's pragmatic, political, community-organizing wheels turning. Let's see, the economic crisis opens doorways to revisiting a host of ills with price tags on them: the cost of defense, the cost of health care, the security costs of dependence on international oil markets to supply energy to fuel the economy, the costs of global warming, etc.

His argument? Now is the time to address these issues with new thinking instead of politics as usual, to clear away programs from the past that no longer work, and to make way for programs that create a more secure and prosperous future.

For instance, there's stimulus money to help alternative energy projects, which the administration hopes will create tons of jobs domestically in the near and long terms. It's a very pragmatic response that makes sense within the terms of its own argument, but the devil (and all the arguments) are with the details of what will be favored and funded.

Similarly pragmatic is the administration's global warming response. Rather than tax companies to limit carbon emissions -- because "tax" is such an unpalatable word -- the White House preferred to push "cap and trade." Cap and trade offers a "free market" solution, with all the potential for graft, corruption, market manipulation, influence peddling and economic roller-coaster rides fueled by speculative markets. A carbon tax's effect on the economy and on carbon emissions would be more clearly measurable and controllable, but it's pragmatically (politically) unpalatable. (Look at these analyses from very different POVs by Robert J. Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist, and Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist.) Will cap and trade with all its potential pitfalls produce the desired results? Maybe, but cap and trade looks more like the administration trying to have it both ways -- to look tough on the environment while giving opponents great power to shape the solution. The need for solutions is urgent, but all that they're able to push through because of the slow-grinding gears of politics is Band-Aids.

I think the health insurance debate is the biggest sign yet that the administration is eventually going to rue its pragmatism as it tries to get something, anything done. President Obama wants to create a "public option" of health insurance that would compete with the private sector. Some of the critics, economic conservatives who routinely argue that the government is fundamentally incapable of being well-run, suddenly argue that the private sector would be unable to compete with the badly run government when it comes to providing health insurance. What does that say about how well-run the current free-market health-insurance system is?

Those who argue that administrative costs that drive up the price of health insurance would be drastically reduced in a single payer system -- a system that conservatives and libertarians (they're not the same thing although their thinking may at times align) tend to decry as "socialist" -- are disappointed in Obama, seeing the public option as a timid attempt to mollify free market capitalists. (See what Obama's former doctor has to say about the public option in this article from Forbes.)

Blue Dog Democrats, fatigued with the rising costs of government that have their constituents rightly worried, have been notable opponents in forestalling action on health insurance.

So compromise and pragmatism are leading to inaction and inertia. Remember when the economic firestorm began in earnest in the fourth quarter of 2008? A vast array of free market capitalists (Bernanke and Paulson come to mind as two, Geithner has been a public-sector guy his whole career) suddenly became believers in Keynesian economics (I know the Libertarian Party didn't; they have a strong faith), which essentially says that when economic chaos erupts, the government needs to take action to restore order. (Actually, it would be a more correct summary -- but less "guy I'd like to have a beer with" talk -- to say that Keynesian economics suggest that the government needs to manage markets to keep free market entropy from becoming macroeconomic chaos. Free market capitalists tend to believe that the markets are self-correcting and that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet every now and then, so we're better off with the occasional chaos, no matter how deep the collapse, than with having the government regulate the economy.)

Every action, including maintaining the status quo, has its downside, but what's the upside of the status quo? Everybody complains about health insurance, but nobody does anything about it.

That may be the most foolish move of all.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo

Two kings

The Michael Jackson circus continues, and I'm jumping belatedly into the ring. It's sad to see a talented person die, especially when he peaked so early and suffered such a long decline.

Sure, Jackson was a pop star from an early age, and one of the few to become more popular in his adulthood than in his youth. He didn't suffer Frankie Lymon's fate.

However, there's no question that his best work was in the early 1980s with the mega-selling albums "Off the Wall" and "Thriller." They were his first two albums after becoming free of Motown, and most of the rest of his career was spent trying to figure out how to top (or even match) that opening salvo's creativity and excitement, but whether he recorded with producer Quincy Jones (who in addition to "Off the Wall" and "Thriller," also produced "Bad") or with producers like Teddy Riley in an effort to update his sound -- there was always a sense that the subsequent albums were retreads of "Thriller."

And what's the reward anyway for creating the best-selling album of all time ("Thriller"), being an eye-popping dancer, and elevating the music video from a clumsy promotional item to an opus in its own right?

Life in a bubble.

To be fair, Jackson had no real childhood, working from well before he became a star at age 11. Perhaps his family could say "no" to him, but once Jackson was on his own, he was surrounded by functionaries who had to say "yes." He never could visit a supermarket or a movie like you or I could. Fans would surround and demand.

Jackson's story is a lot like his former father-in-law's -- Elvis Presley. Presley got his privacy at "Graceland," surrounding himself with his "Memphis Mafia," while Jackson's bubble was "Neverland." Did he see himself ironically as Peter Pan or did he romanticize Peter Pan's never growing up? We'll never know because no one asked what he actually thought about anything. The questions were all about life as a celebrity.

Presley was known as "The King" -- short for "The King of Rock and Roll" much to the bemusement of folks like Chuck Berry -- but Jackson claimed even bigger ground, being crowned "The King of Pop," of which rock is only a subset.

The success of both depended on the complex history of race relations in America. Elvis' initial popularity was based on his being a white man who sang like a black man. Jackson proved that a black man singing like a black man could be even bigger than The King. It was a sign of how times had changed.

Both Presley and Jackson had hits with songs that dealt directly with race: Presley with "In the Ghetto" and Jackson with "Black or White."

"Black or White" is the more interesting of the two because of Jackson's changing complexion. He claimed his skin lightened because of vitiligo, a disease in which the skin's pigment slowly disappears. Generally speaking, vitiligo creates patches of pale skin. The Mayo Clinic says, "Medical treatments for vitiligo aim to even out skin tone, either by restoring color (pigment) or by destroying the remaining color." Jackson denied that he did the latter, but it's very unlikely that vitiligo would have left him with such an even skin tone over his whole face. So if he did whiten his skin, did he really believe "it doesn't matter if you're black or white"? It may be the most interesting and personal question posed by his songs, which lyrically are as impersonal as his performance and music was passionate.

He didn't have life experience outside the bubble, and it shows in the paranoia of "Billie Jean" and "Beat It." "We are the World," which he co-wrote with Lionel Richie, when you get down to it is little more than a commercial jingle. It's anthemic, yes, but doesn't say much. The single was a sensation because of all the performers who joined to sing on it, including icons Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, and because the cause of providing relief to famine victims in Ethiopia was so compelling. It also made charity another form of American instant gratification: Buy a record and end world hunger. (By the way, the USA for Africa Foundation still exists and is still fighting poverty and hunger.)

Although Presley had various co-songwriting credits through contracts that his manager, Col. Tom Parker, foisted on songwriters through the years, Presley admitted that he could not write a song. Depending on outside songwriters helped pierce the bubble and let Presley tackle songs about a variety of scenarios that were outside his experience, like "In the Ghetto."

Presley was 42 when he died in 1977, and Jackson was just 50, which some say is the new 40.

Allegations that doctor-assisted use of prescription drugs that may not have been necessary and may have helped cause their premature deaths are similar. In both cases, the stories suggest the doctors had a murky sense of ethics or were unable to say "no" to their famous patients. (Looking at medical ethics statements issued by the American Medical Association over the years actually hints that the relationship and service offered by a physician is much more complicated than most people believe and that a physician may ethically say "yes" depending on their judgment of the situation.)

It's unclear from the historical record whether Jackson dubbed himself the King of Pop or whether it was a name imposed on him. But when he married Lisa Marie Presley, it seemed clear that he understood the iconography of American pop and that he wanted to create a dynasty, lending legitimacy to his reign as the King of Pop by marrying the King's daughter.

Jackson also named one of his children Prince Michael. If that seems odd to you, think about this, it's a combination of George Foreman naming his children after himself (Jackson's daughter is Paris Michael) and taking the name of another pop star, Prince, into the dynasty. Prince is Prince's actual first name (he was born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958, so he had just turned 51 when Jackson died).

Prince was also the only serious challenger to Michael Jackson's rhythm and blues throne at the time when Jackson was at his peak. Prince's "1999" and "Purple Rain," released during "Thriller's" long run on the pop charts were outsold by Jackson, but nonetheless, "Purple Rain" was a 10 million seller, and only a few recording artists besides Jackson have hit such a sales milestone.

Who knows how the dynasty will continue? However, much like Elvis' posthumous career, Jackson's will feature a ton of repackagings of already released material, rehearsal material for the shows he was planning to put on in London (like Elvis' posthumously released final tour film) and who knows how many rarities and unreleased recordings landing in the marketplace over the coming months and years, making Jackson, like Elvis, one of the hardest-working dead men in show business, for sure.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo

Freedom's tweets

This week we witnessed a surprising intersection of pop culture and history, with social networking tools and sites such as Twitter and Facebook becoming the principal means of getting news about the protests in Iran.

Let's face it, for most of us Twitter and Facebook represent a way to waste time or a way to promote something, whether a company, product, service or ourselves.

Now, they've become news media staffed by citizen journalists after the government in Tehran cracked down on foreign media's ability to report from within Iran.

Social networking is a pop culture phenomenon like comic books and television as much as it is a means of interpersonal communication like the telephone or e-mail. So it's getting its day in the sun as a means to get around repression, a tool for freedom.

The unrest in Iran over the charge that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the government rigged his re-election calls to mind a similar set of circumstances that occurred 20 years ago this very month: The unprecedentedly bloody suppression at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The Communist Party government decided to shock and awe the protesters, using ammo and weapons suited to the battlefield rather than for crowd control of unarmed civilians. The army killed not just protesters, but also indiscriminately fired at ambulances and rescue personnel as well as buildings surrounding the protests.

The protests were silenced and Communist Party rule continues to this day, suppressing dissent not only by the threat of force, but also by controlling and censoring news and information outlets, including the Internet.

It's done with the complicity of Western companies - like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft - who otherwise act like champions of information access. In return for access to the huge Chinese market (1.3 billion souls and rising), they sign a pact with the devil. They abide by China's rules that filter access to content the party doesn't want in people's hands and that call for the companies to provide information on users when the government demands it.

Take a look at this 2006 episode of Frontline. If you don't want to watch the whole show, click on Chapter 6 and wait for the performance of American information technology executives before a Senate committee. It reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) quote from Lenin or Marx that goes something like "when we hang the last capitalist, he'll sell us the rope."

So social networking may have had its day as a news outlet, but don't expect repressive regimes to keep their hands off for very long. In their efforts to control their people, they will find a means to control the flow of information in whatever form it takes and in whatever medium it flows.

The only good news is that people are endlessly innovative, and for a brief moment, something like Twitter can catch repressive rulers napping.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo