DARYL — What was Tim Buckley's personality like?

LEE — He was one of the most interesting, exciting, and complex people I've ever encountered. He was very bright, had tremendous insight, and his talent knew virtually no bounds. He was a funny guy as well — a terrific sense of humor. He was physically attractive, his voice was
incredible, and he knew how to use it not only as a vehicle for lyrics, but as a profoundly moving musical instrument as well. His music flowed like rivers. I found him to be an exciting, inspiring guy.

There was another side to him that unfolded over time. Along the way I realized he was lacking in self-confidence and self-esteem, and was very angry deep down, even to the point of self-destruction.

DARYL — What did he think of other musicians?

LEE — Tim revealed a lot about himself when he talked about musicians. He rarely spoke of "spiritual" matters, but the essence of spirituality is love, spontaneity and creativity, all of which Tim had in abundance. In this sense, he was a profoundly spiritual guy. Once when speaking of a certain jazz musicians, for example, he said all kinds of things that expressed his own ways of being with music —

"Roland Kirk has forever been my idol," he said. "Some people create a total thing by using the audience as a base of communication, not just playing for themselves or for a certain market — which is the same thing. That's what he did, and that's what I do. Others play the same music live that they played on record which is fine, but it's like who are they doing it for and why? I mean, they've already done it. Why do they go backwards?

"Why don't they move into new territory and explore new concepts like Roland Kirk does, or Miles Davis? Music should be alive, in-the-now. It should come out of the moment you're sharing with the audience. Roland has been my idol for years, his rhythmic time, his conception, all of his chops, but his expression is the thing I'm really moved by. He doesn't hold anything back. He gives it all and it's awake and vital, in the moment, not some retread of an album he did ten years ago or even yesterday. Everything great is rooted in spontaneity and Roland Kirk is the epitome of spontaneity."

DARYL — Somewhere you said something about he thought he might die young.

LEE. — Yes. Tim's mother programmed him with that viewpoint, because she thought of him as a beautiful poet, and in her mind poets always die young. It's sort of their job, you know? She meant well, but I don't think it helped create a healthy outlook in Tim's mind.

DARYL — Kind of the James Dean thing, kind of livin' fast —

LEE — Yes, she put that in his mind, and he believed it whole-heartedly. As a result he had a strong sense of mortality. That's why time became a pressing matter for him. He had to get as much done as quickly as possible because he really did not believe he'd live past thirty. And he didn't. He died June 29, 1975. He was 28 years old.

DARYL — How did Tim feel about the fact that his audience couldn't keep up with the musical changes he went through after his second album, Goodbye and Hello, and about the unfavorable reviews that some critics launched at him? How did he feel about that?

LEE — Well, it hurt! It hurt a lot. He wanted people to like him, just as we all want to be liked. You're giving everything you have, and then somebody puts you down, often viciously, because on this album you don't sound like you did on the earlier albums that they all loved. You're trying to put something beautiful and positive out there, and some scurrilous sniper ambushes you, not because you're a bad guy, but because you're asking him to reach a little higher and dig a little deeper. Instead of doing that, instead of stretching themselves, these toxic bastards assault you and try to bring you down to their level. The superior man makes the mediocre mind painfully aware of its own inferiority. People like that hate an artist who asks them to live up to the best in themselves.

People can be truly blockheaded that way, you know? Inertia and narcissism constitute the essence of many peoples' lives. It's not that they're stupid, although some are, of course. It's just that they live in fear — they dread change, growth, moving into the unknown. They can make life hell for a progressive, innovative, courageous artist.

But that doesn't mean you should stop growing and changing, does it? You have to have faith in yourself, and courage and strength. It also helps if you can feel compassion for the dark-valley ignorance a lot of people live in, and know that the music itself may touch them eventually. It might take some time, but those who have ears to hear will eventually come to it. In any case, creativity means change, and since Tim was constantly changing, he was constantly losing old audiences. At the same time, he was gaining new ones, albeit smaller and smaller.

It's a slow process to build an audience. So, when he was on everybody's wavelength quite naturally, just being himself with Goodbye And Hello, people said: "Oh Tim, you're great, you're wonderful, we love you," They responded that way because the music he felt and wrote at that time fit their minds.

But when he moved away from mainstream pop into jazz and avant-garde music, many listeners who loved the "Beatles" and other kinds of radio music said: "What are you doing with all this jazz stuff and this weird Lorca and Starsailor stuff? I mean this is crazy." The music didn't fit their egos or their preconceived tastes or their radio-programmed needs, so they wrote him off, which is interesting, because a lot of the people who heaped the most abuse on him considered themselves to be stalwart individualists and loyal fans. But here was a guy actually being an individual, and they hated him for it. They threw him away and went back to their old Neil Young and Jim Morrison albums.

Only the most adventurous listeners could go for Lorca and Starsailor. That music was just too dissonant, too far out, too innovative, too unfamiliar and challenging to be comfortable for ordinary listeners. It wasn't sentimental and personal. It was art music. It asked people to rise to a considerably more sophisticated level of listening, feeling and responding than they were willing to. They wanted herd-music, not the brilliance of an ascending genius. Some of the critics got it, much to their credit. Those who did, raved about Lorca and Starsailor and hailed Tim and one of the great geniuses of his time, in my opinion rightfully so. I mean, it's been 20 years since he died and almost 30 years since he recorded his first album, and here we are still talking about him.

In any case, Tim told me he regarded Starsailor as his masterpiece, and that failure hurt him a lot. That's when he started turning to alcohol a little too much, drugs a little too much, and things got pretty kinky for two or three years. So yeah, he was depressed by the rejection and the hostility he received, not only from his previous fans and a number of critics, but even from some of his so-called "friends."

DARYL — Improvisation played a major role during this difficult period, didn't it?

LEE — Absolutely. Jazz people such as yourself appreciate what that word "improvisation" means. Classical people used to improvise too, in concertos, the section called a cadenza where the featured soloist improvised at length. Only in modern times has that aspect of classical music been abandoned. The genre has gone strictly mental.

But jazz musicians pride themselves on improvisation, and so did Tim — and he was good at it. He sang the songs as they had been written, yes, but then took off from there, using them as springboards into freeflight singing. He closed his eyes, connected with music's living pulse and let the music flow through him. In other words, he gave himself up to music's incredible power and let the music play him, not vice-versa. He became the instrument, using his voice and mind and emotions and his very soul to serve music's impulse. That's creativity in its purest form. It transcends the controlling mind, the safety nets, the familiar and understandable. Sometimes it lifts you into the realm of the brilliantly incomprehensible. In other words, into the new — which is exactly where living music happens.

It was beautiful to see and hear in live performances, and sometimes awesome. I felt honored to be there in the presence of such courage, daring, freedom and creative imagination. I'd be standing on stage beside him, watching and hearing him reach up into the Unknown, surrendering completely to the musicstream, allowing the music to heave and swirl him wherever its riverrush took him, bringing back down to the stage some of the most intense, beautiful and original music I had ever heard. Scary. Overwhelming. Extraordinary. Worth it all. He was an exceptional guy, unforgettable. I'm glad I was there.

Happily, I've since gone on to a new writing and new music of my own, but that's another story. The work may take a while to flower, but it will — and I'll keep you posted.



Daryl Patrick, a long-time supporter of Tim Buckley's music, is a vibraphonist and percussionist who lives in California and leads his own dynamic group, The Daryl Patrick Jazz ensemble. Website: The Daryl Patrick Jazz Ensemble at http://www.gregking.ca/beanz/dpjazz.html E-mail: dpjazz@aol.com