CoronaVinyl Day 419 (B): Greetings From L.A. by Tim Buckley

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "B," and I listened to singer-songwriter Tim Buckley's seventh studio album, Greetings From L.A.

Buckley got his start in the L.A. folk music scene in the mid '60s, and then in Greenwich Village, and he made enough of an impression to get a record deal with Elektra before he was 20.  He started off as a folk rocker, and then his sound shifted to more psychedelic and jazz fusion, and then more avant-garde and experimental, and then, with Greetings From L.A., to more of a soul and funk-inspired sound.  The album cover has a giant perforated postcard of L.A.'s infamous smog, and the back of the postcard talks about how L.A. has the perfect recipe for smog, both climatic-wise and driving-population-wise.  

I knew very little about Buckley's music, other than he was a folk rock singer.  My mom had one of his earlier albums, though I don't recall her ever listening to it.  Then again, we didn't have a working record player after about 1987.  Given my mom's taste in music, I assumed this was going to be pretty mellow or some acoustic singer-songwriter stuff.  I was certainly pleasantly surprised when I heard the album.  I'd describe it as a mix of R&B, glam rock, psychedelic folk rock, blues rock, and acid soul.

Buckley would die in 1975 of a heroin/morphine/alcohol overdose.  He was only 28.  Buckley is probably best known to Gen Xers as the father of Jeff Buckley, who had a brief but critically acclaimed music career in the mid '90s before drowning at the age of 30 in 1997.  I had always assumed there was some connection between father and son being musicians, but it turns out Tim and his first wife (Jeff's mom) got divorced about a month before Jeff was born, and though he was eight years old when Tim died, Jeff had only met his father once.  Until then, he had used his stepdad's surname (Moorhead) and went by Scott, but then started using his birth first and last name after Tim died.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Move With Me"
The album starts off with a bluesy little rocker, complete with piano and a sax solo.  I'd venture to put this in the glam rock genre.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Devil Eyes"
This is one of the funkier tunes on the album, and it reminds me of early '70s Santana, which is certainly a compliment.