Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered [Paperback]

Lee Underwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Celebrating the personal and musical legacy of Tim Buckley, Blue Melody tells the untold story of an exceptionally gifted and charismatic singer-songwriter rebel of the 1960s. Written by Buckley's lead guitarist and close friend, this combination of fond memoir and incisive biography is a remembrance of concerts, tours, recording sessions, friends, family and fellow musicians - and the tumultuous times in which they lived. It is also an informed appraisal of Buckley's dramatic creative odyssey, offering in-depth insight into his complex and sometimes self-destructive personality. The vivid narrative depicts Buckley's panoramic evolution across folk, folk-rock, jazz, avant-garde, and funk-rock, highlighting his refusal to be defined by critical or commercial success. Revealing Buckley's poetic intelligence and captivating humor, Blue Melody recounts dozens of behind-the-scenes stories, plus new information on the circumstances surrounding his alcohol and heroin overdose in 1975 at age 28.

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879307188
• ISBN-13: 978-0879307189
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,249,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review in Goldmine music magazine, August 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered (Paperback)

Writer Tierney Smith gave Blue Melody an insightful review in Goldmine magazine, July 25, 2003--

When Lee Underwood met an aspiring singer/songwriter named Tim Buckley in Greenwich Village in 1966, the latter had already secured a contract with Elektra Records and seemed well on his way to a promising musical career. In the end, commercial success proved elusive, though Buckley did achieve an impressive cult-level status.

Underwood was Buckley's lead guitarist for seven years, and together they formed a bond so close that Buckley once said of their friendship, "We didn't have sex, but we were married." Still, the author, who interviewed Buckley's family members, bandmates and friends for this project, insists that he's not "blinded by friendship" and can maintain his objectivity toward the man he calls "one of the most interesting, complex and stimulating persons I ever met."

Given Underwood's flair for insightful analysis (of both Buckley himself and the music in question) and his wonderfully descriptive prose - he brings the fast-paced world of New York and the colorful kaleidoscope of Venice, Calif., to life with a vividness that feels almost cinematic in scope - Buckley could hardly have asked for a more eloquent writer to tell his story.

Underwood paints a portrait of a "brilliantly funny" man who disdained the banal conversation of more conventional minds, an intellectual who seemed to find a kindred spirit in the author, who introduced Buckley to the poetry of Western mystics such as William Blake and Rainer Maria Rilke and discussed with him the poetry of Dylan Thomas and Delmore Schwartz.

Buckley, who channeled his musical and literary influences into his art, possessed a musical intelligence that found him rejecting the notion of, in the author's words, "concocting commercially formulated decorations to flatter audience preconceptions." Instead, through his songs, writes Underwood, Buckley gave us "the core of his life, the soul of his being, a cry of love from the heart."

Life was carefree in those early days, recalls Underwood, "full of hope and possibilities wide open for the taking," yet Buckley's inner conflicts were never far below the surface and, in the author's view, had their roots in an unsupportive father, a World War II veteran and ex-paratrooper whose growing mental instability made him "a volatile presence who left a huge emotional emptiness in Tim's life." The late senior Buckley, a self-described "loner" who viewed society as hostile to artists in general, derided his son's artistic ambitions even as he harbored similar unrealized dreams of his own. He counts among the fascinating cast of supporting characters found in these pages.

In a book that strongly focuses on Buckley's music, there is effusive praise for a man whose desire for exploring new musical directions took him further from the more mainstream work of his early folk-rock leanings to the realm of the avant-garde with 1970's Starsailor. Buckley's choices alienated both his fans and his critics, but, as Underwood writes, Buckley courageously stuck to his guns. "When he had to walk in dark isolation because of his choices, he went ahead and walked in dark isolation, sometimes for years on end."

The author also takes to task Buckley's critics who "think [Buckley] should have catered to their tastes instead of aspiring to realize his own visionary explorations in new musical domains." One can sense Underwood's frustration all these years later toward an audience who, rather than rejecting Buckley's work, "could have felt respected, challenged and astonished" by his increasingly more adventurous output. "Buckley gave them diamonds," sums up the author, "the crowd wanted pebbles."

Buckley's growing unhappiness and self-doubt in the wake of the failure of his more ambitious work lends Buckley's story a certain poignancy. His return to a more conventional song structure in 1972's Greetings From L.A. seemed almost an admission of defeat. As Buckley's wife Judy saw it, he was "happy doing it, but there was so much more he had to offer that nobody wanted." In Underwood's view, Buckley's more commercially acceptable fare was motivated by a desire to continue recording and even then he brought as much "grace, style, passion and creative imagination" to the process as he could.

Underwood's exploration of Buckley's death on June 19, 1975, at the age of 28 of a lethal combination of heroin and alcohol (in which he is careful to point out that Buckley was not a regular heroin user) is presented in the same insightful, clear-eye manner that he brings to the whole of Buckley'' creative efforts in this deeply penetrating book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Flawed Book, January 27, 2009

By 

G. Griffin "The Know-It-All" (Alexandria, Va.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered (Paperback)

The title should have been Tim Buckley Remembered; Or I Got a Lot Of Pussy in The 60's and You Didn't.....Mr. Underwood's tale of Tim Buckley's rise and fall is pretty good; however, his cheap shots at Larry Beckett take away from his tome. There is a whiff of "I was a genius and helped create Tim Buckley" sprinkled throughout the book. Frankly, Mr. Underwood was a very hit-or-miss guitarist. Sometimes good, sometimes great(mostly in a live setting) and sometimes horrible. As to his "inventing" certain guitar techniques, I think his ego may have got the best of him. I will give him this though; Tim Buckley is one of music's most fascinating "shoulda-beens". Some of the music that he wrote stands up with any of his 60's contemporaries and a large chunk of it is better. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to investigate Buckley's music/story; however, a grain of salt should be taken when reading it.....

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LIFE'S SHINING MYSTERY, January 30, 2004

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered (Paperback)

Lee Underwood's memoir of his years with the amazing Tim Buckley is one of the most heartfelt paeans to friendship and creativity I've ever read - and one of the most honest. Underwood tackles his subject with eyes - and heart - wide open, and the result not only clears up a lot of the mystery that still surrounds Tim's life, but also celebrates the wonderful legacy that remains. As Underwood states in the final chapter, Tim's life can teach us some valuable lessons. `Our span is but a fleeting moment. Death is arbitrary and absolutely democratic. Young or old, the QUANTITY of time doesn't matter...Only quality matters...Let us transform the shining mystery of our lives into art...He did. So can we.'

Buckley was an astonishingly gifted artist - his music always challenged his listeners, dared them to follow him in his dance, celebrating life itself - with all of its joys and sorrows, highs and lows, darkness and light. Those who took that challenge have been rewarded with the shining light that was Tim Buckley - those who abandoned him whenever he took a direction that was too demanding or too painful for them to follow turned their attentions to `easier' music. What a shame.

Underwood was Buckley's lead guitar player on most of his recordings - and above all, he was Tim's friend. He was along for the ride - he was the eyewitness to so many of the singer's peaks and valleys. He opened Tim's eyes and mind to new, stimulating influences - and he watched Tim take them into his mind, heart and hand and run like the wind with them, transforming things he learned and assimilated into new ideas, new tools for his own artistic vision. Along the way, various painful elements from Tim's life reared their heads - as they do for all of us - and Lee was there to witness that as well, trying his best to help his friend through them. Those pains are laid bare in this book - and it's not an easy read, but it's comforting in its truthfulness. Lee has had his share of pains as well - and the hard road he walked working through them is detailed here as well.

As dark as some parts of Buckley's life were, in the end I think they were overwhelmed by the brilliance that shone from him. Anyone who has ever been blessed to hear him - either in person or on his recordings - knows what I mean. It's a brilliance that can be heard and felt - and it can illuminate the life of anyone who will simply let it in.

One of the most fascinating aspects - for me - of this document is the psychological path. The author relates events from time to time that literally jumped off the page at me. I just read Arthur Janov's THE NEW PRIMAL SCREAM for the first time a few months ago - and several things in Lee's account resonated within me. Sure enough, he mentions Janov in more than one place - and refers to psychotherapy on multiple occasions as one of the practices that helped him through some tough times, dealing with issues that won't simply `go away'. I can't help but wonder how Tim's story would have turned out differently if he had been able to avail himself of some of the same assistance - Underwood recommended it to him, but it sometimes takes an individual a while to make the decision to take a trip down that street.

Tim Buckley had the courage and vision to live his life, his art to the fullest - and Lee Underwood has shown the courage to write about Tim's life in a way that shines with the same honesty with which Tim pursued his music (or perhaps surrendered to it). This book is an amazing experience - any fan of Tim Buckley's music should be grateful to Lee Underwood for sharing it with us.