ARTS
AT ST. ANN'S
Susan
Feldman, Artistic Director
Janine Nichols, Program Director
presents
GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY
Co-Produced with Hal Willner
Featuring:
Eric Andersen
Jeff Scott Buckley
Greg Cohen
Anthony Coleman
Chris Cunningham
Sharon Freeman
Yuval Gabay
Cheryl Hardwick
Richard Hell
Julia Heyward
Shelley Hirsch
Suzanne Langille
Gary Lucas
Loren Mazzacane
Wilbur Pauley
Bob Quine
Barry Reynolds
Hank Roberts
The Shams
Elliott Sharp
G.E. Smith
Syd Straw
Friday, April 26, 1991
PROGRAM (Subject to change)
Strange
Feelin’ (arr. Coleman)
Sharp, Coleman, Freeman, Cohen, Roberts, Gabay
Cafe
(arr. Freeman)
Hirsch (vocal), Freeman, Sharp, Cohen, Roberts
Come
Here Woman (arr. Sharp)
Hirsch (vocal), Sharp, Coleman, Cohen, Roberts
Song
for Janie (arr. Andersen)
Andersen (guitar/vocal), Reynolds, Lucas, Straw/Hirsch (backing
vocals)
The
Earth is Broken (arr. Reynolds)
Straw (vocal), Reynolds, Cunningham, Smith, Hardwick, Cohen,
Roberts
Moulin
Rouge (arr. Quine)
Hell (vocal), Quine, Cohen, Roberts, Gabay, Coleman
Jungle
Fire
Hell (vocal), same band, Sharp
The
Healing Festival (arr. Sharp)
Sharp (vocal), same band, Freeman
Aren't
You the Girl?
Pauley (vocal), Hardwick
Sweet
Surrender (arr. Sharp)
Sharp, Gabay, The Shams, Coleman
Tijuana
Moon (arr. The Shams)
The Shams
Interlude
(Coleman)
I
Never Asked to Be Your Mountain (arr. Buckley)
Buckley (vocal), Smith, Lucas, Hardwick, Roberts
The
River (arr. Lucas)
Heyward (vocal), Lucas
Sefronia
(The King’s Chain) (arr. Lucas)
Buckley (vocal), Lucas
Interlude
(tape)
Plunderphonics: Anon/Tim Buckley (plunderphonized by John
Oswald)
So
Lonely (arr. Mazzacane/Langille)
Mazzacane, Langille, Cohen, Roberts
Pleasant
Street (arr. Sharp/Smith)
Smith (guitar), Straw (vocal), Sharp, Cohen, Hardwick, Coleman,
Gabay
Morning
Glory (arr. Hardwick)
Hardwick, Coleman, Roberts, Smith
Love
from Room 109 at The Islander (on the Pacific Coast Highway)
(arr. Reynolds)
Reynolds (vocal), Hirsch (vocal), Lucas, Cunningham, Cohen,
Roberts, Gabay, Freeman
Phantasmagoria
in Two (arr. Reynolds)
Buckley (vocal), Reynolds, Cunningham, Lucas, Cohen, Hirsch/Heyward
(backing vocals)
Once
I Was (arr. Buckley)
Buckley (vocal/guitar)
TIM
BUCKLEY was born on Valentine's Day Washington, D.C. in
1947. He spent the first ten years of his life in Amsterdam,
NY, before moving to southern California, first to Bell
Gardens, then to Anaheim. “I was only about 12 years old,
and I had about five or six notes to my voice. I heard a
recording of a trumpet player playing things way up there.
So I tried to reach those notes - Little Richard got them.
It was like a falsetto scream. I’d ride my bicycle around
the neighborhood screaming at the buses until I couldn't
go any higher. Then one day I heard the opposite end, a
baritone sax ... I said, there's got to be a way to do that.
So I practiced and screamed until I finally ended up with
a five-and-a-half octave range.”
As
a boy, he loved Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Hank Thompson,
along with the occasional Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis or
Miles Davis albums his mother used to play. By the time
he graduated from high school, he and his poet friend Larry
Beckett had written some 20 songs together, which they took
to Herb Cohen, who signed Tim to Elektra. Tim was 18.
Buckley regarded his first
release as naive, stiff, and innocent. Because he played
a guitar and sang, he was dubbed a “folkie”, a misnomer
from which he never freed himself. He began playing his
12-string in solo concerts at small clubs and colleges on
the East Coast. By the time he cut his second record, GOODBYE
AND HELLO, his musical style and point of view perfectly
matched the searing energy of the times. He had begun writing
his own lyrics with a personal commitment and vulnerability
he had never shown before. “I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain",
in which he first incorporated asymmetrical rhythms, awed
his listeners not only with the round, seductive tonal qualities
of his voice, but the technical dexterity with which he
was able to use it.
Buckley was an uneducated,
lower-middle-class, street kid. He knew nothing about the
formal and academic aspects of music, nor could he even
make a barre chord on the guitar due to broken fingers warned
during his stint as an unlikely high school quarterback.
But he inhaled knowledge, inhaled personalities. His voracious
creative and intellectual appetites made tremendous demands
on the people around him.
After GOODBYE AND HELLO, he
began to move away from the "literary” world of Beckett
and into the personal world he was developing on his own.
He began to shun politics and social movements, and resented
being cast as a rock 'n' roll savior. He had come to regard
the blues-oriented rock of the day as white thievery and
emotional sham. He also began his war with the business
world, when he walked out on a Buffalo, New York, TV show
after they asked him to lip-sync the words to “Pleasant
Street”, a darkly powerful song about the illusory and destructive
nature of drugs. “I live in a hundred-dollar-a-month house
in Venice, California, and I don't need anything. You could
take all the money away, and I could make it anyway. I did
it before and I could do it again,” he said in an interview
for Changes.
He
turned his ears to jazz, listening to Miles Davis, Bill
Evans, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Mingus, Roland Kirk, Ornette
Coleman. He was learning how to select words not only for
their meaning, but for their sound. HAPPY/SAD was the result
and included the beautiful ballad “Dream Letter”, written
for his son, Jeffrey Scott.
In
performance, Tim began to improvise at exhausting length.
The band no longer rehearsed, just tried to keep up with
him as he introduced new material onstage. He wanted his
musicians to stay close to their instincts. But even as
he worked at staying fresh and original, problem arose.
“You're supposed to move on artistically, but the way the
business is ... you're supposed to repeat what you did before
... It's very hard to progress.”
Having done his “folk”, “rock”
and “jazz” things, he now wanted to delve into areas virtually
uncharted. He began to listen to Luciano Berio, Xenakis,
John Cage, Stockhausen, Ihlan Mimaroglu. His long-time guitarist,
Lee Underwood, introduced him to Cathy Berberian, “the musical
friend [he’d] been looking for.” After hearing Berberian,
he no longer doubted himself. He regarded the title cut
of LORCA, recorded in 1969, to be his debut as a unique
singer, an original force. He held notes longer and stronger
than anyone in pop music ever had. He explored a wide range
of vocal sounds, which in pop contexts were revolutionary.
He began his odyssey into odd-time signatures, which at
that time were unheard of. In the ballad, “Anonymous Proposition”,
he composed one of the most voluptuous and demanding personal
ballads any singer had ever recorded.
The
record bombed. Most of the critics regarded the music as
being morbid, “weird”, and decidedly uncommercial. After
the first three records, still embraced by the majority
of Buckley fans to this day, his sales dropped, and dwindling
audiences demanded the old material and resented the new.
At the insistence of his advisors, Tim grudgingly dipped
back into his past and pulled out eight previously unissued
songs, including “Blue Melody” and “Café” (which he loved
and continued to perform) and released the album, BLUE AFTERNOON.
But
the performances were perfunctory; his heart wasn't in them.
With the imperfect beginnings of LORCA, and the interruption
of BLUE AFTERNOON behind him, Tim threw himself with a passion
into his magnum opus, STARSAILOR.
STARSAILOR was a pop monster
of odd-time signatures, bizarrely dissonant criss-crossing
shrieks, moans and wails, and virtually unparalleled exoticism
and sensuality in the lyrics. “I even started singing in
foreign languages - Swahili, for instance - just because
it sounded better. An instrumentalist can be understood
doing just about anything, but people are really geared
for hearing only words come out of the mouth. If
I had my way, words wouldn't mean a thing.”
When
STARSAILOR came out and proved to be a terrifying failure,
Tim became furious, then profoundly depressed. He could
not produce his own records anymore; eventually, he couldn't
get any bookings. When he ran out of money, he took out
his anger on himself, descending into the depths of drug
and alcohol abuse. After two years, he was strapped in every
way. He desperately needed the adulatory recognition of
his vanished public. For that reason, he came back with
three rock albums - GREETINGS FROM L.A., SEFRONIA, LOOK
AT THE FOOL.
He
did it “their” way, but it didn't work, primarily because
he despised the conventional r&b formats, the thin,
canned arrangements and the necessity of having to record
other people's songs - with the exception of Fred Seaman's
“Dolphins”, which he dearly loved and remained a staple
of his live performances. He felt forced to endure the pitifully
pedestrian, inadequate and unfulfilling r&b context
(though he was a fan of r&b), especially on those few
excellent songs that were for him achingly impassioned –
“Sweet Surrender”, “Because of You”, and “Who Could Deny
You”. Ironically, his voice never sounded better, more technically
controlled or emotionally capable.
His
sense of isolation became excruciating. Although in his
effort to regain an audience, he had made effective and
constructive strides in controlling his substance abuse,
he was still liable to binges. Following a gig in Dallas
on the weekend of June 28, 1975, he began one at a friend's
house. With his system relatively clean, the combination
proved to be too much for him. On many occasions, Buckley
had ingested considerably more, and his friend, thinking
he was only drunk, took him home. As his friend discussed
the situation with Tim's wife, Judy, Tim lay on the floor
with his head on a pillow. When the friend knelt beside
him to ask how he was feeling, Tim whispered quietly, “Bye-bye
baby,” and was gone. At the time, all he owned was his guitar
and amplifier.
Tim
Buckley held hands with the world for awhile. He gave in
fire and fury and perverse humor the totality of his life's
experience, which was far beyond his mere 28 years. He stood
courageously on the stages of arenas, barrooms, and auditoriums,
singing from within his own flames like a demon possessed.
He had a beauty of spirit that etched the face of the lives
of all who ever truly heard him sing.
-
excerpted from Lee Underwood's remembrances of Tim Buckley,
downbeat, June 16,1977
This
was initially an idea for the show, “Night Music” -- one
hour of different interpretations of Tim Buckley's music
on network television; just the type of thinking that kept
that show alive. Anyway, it didn't happen. Janine Nichols
heard about it and wanted to do the Buckley show here.
For
some reason, I thought that Buckley's music (in this type
of multi-artist situation) would work better live than on
lp. I agreed to do it thinking it would never happen. It
happened.
Without going into stories
about why the current personnel only slightly resembles
the cast from two weeks ago, and the fun of putting on one
of these things live, I must say that this show may be alright!
You'll probably go through a lot of emotions, including
wanting to confess, but stay through the whole show if you
can. You’ll leave a better person and we’ll have you out
of here by Chanukah.
I’ll
be seeing you.
Willner
GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY
was Hal’s idea. It seemed like a good subject for an attempt
to bring one of his records to life in concert. All of Buckley's
music had been recently re-released by Enigma and Elektra,
with the exception of TIM BUCKLEY and LORCA, which was as
obscure then as it is out-of-print now. We spent months
listening to the music on our own; then got together for
several marathon sessions to finalize a list for performance.
A tape was made of the selected songs in alphabetical order,
and the skeleton of a running order was born from some of
the transitions revealed on the tape. We included music
from every aspect of Buckley’s career, including the experimental
and more emotionally exposed music, which we really like,
that cost him most of his audience.
Artists were approached by
our thinking they could do something interesting with the
music. In some cases, the artist was already a fan of Buckley’s.
This was the case with Shelley Hirsch, the Horse Flies (who
had to drop out because of their touring schedule), G.E.
Smith. Loren Mazzacane and Suzanne Langille, known then
as Guitar Robert got wind of the project and got in touch
with us. Other times, the music was new to the artist but
the affinity was instant -- Mary Margaret O’Hara (who also
had to withdraw in order to finish a film soundtrack) and
Richard Hell fell into this category. Herb Cohen, Buckley's
manager, revealed that Buckley had a son, now a young man
and a remarkable musician in his own right. Jeff Scott Buckley
told me that he had never performed his father’s music in
public, and this seemed like a good time to finally do so.
Listen and be amazed.
Our
intention was to reveal Buckley's courage and imagination
as a composer, and enormous continuing influence as singer.
I hope we did him justice.
Janine Nichols
JEFF SCOTT BUCKLEY (guitar/voice) When I was six, I found my
grandmother’s old 6-string guitar in a closet. I loved the
thing. My mother, who was a classically trained pianist/cellist,
was married (at the time of the guitar-find) to an auto
mechanic, Ron, with amazingly right-on taste in music. Our
house was always jumping with sound: Bach, Chopin, Gershwin,
Beatles, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Nat King Cole. The auto-mechanic
eventually found the woman he loved, and he and my Mom divorced.
My Mom began to tell me more about my father, Tim, and when
I was 8, she decided we should meet each other. The only
other time I saw him was when I was 2 years old. I got to
see him play at The Golden Bear and met him face-to-face
backstage. I spent Easter vacation with him, his wife and
their adopted son. They had an apartment in Santa Monica
and I stayed for a week, a really good time. Somehow, in
between my visit and Tim’s death, we lost touch with him
and Judy and I never saw Judy again until '88.
I
got my first electric guitar at 13. Left home for L.A. at
17, spent some time in a so-called music school, went on
the road with some reggae acts. Escaped to NYC in '90 for
about 7 months; got into hardcore and Robert Johnson. Went
back to L.A., did a demo of some of my songs. I got a call
from Carole King after she heard my stuff through a mutual
friend, very cool. We wrote a track together. More to come.
Right now my band is almost complete. I'm showing up at
club jams around town trying out new songs. My life is now
complete and utter chaos.
GREG COHEN (bass)
grew up on Beachwood Drive (Los Angeles) during the 50's
and 60's. There he received his musical training playing
chord organ for "Charleston Grotto”. Being the youngest,
eventually he was forced to play bass guitar. He has also
worked with Tom Waits, Marty Grosz, David Sanborn, Alan
Watts, Crystal Gayle, Harry Shearer, Teddy Edwards, Robert
Wilson, Keith Richards, Woody Allen, Freddie Moore, Odetta,
and the Burbank Symphony.
ANTHONY COLEMAN (keyboards)
was born and raised in Brooklyn Heights. He is a pianist
and general keyboardist and composer whose works have been
performed by his own and other ensembles throughout the
US, Canada and Europe. He has also performed and recorded
with John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Elliott Sharp and Marc Ribot's
Rootless Cosmopolitans, among others.
CHRIS CUNNINGHAM (guitar)
Chris likes to play things with strings and has done so
since he was young and carefree. He has written music for
films, theatre and dance, and is always playing with some
band or seven. A native New Yorker, his frequent escape
attempts have often left him scrounging for adequate rations
of cruelty and wit. From the past to the present, his co-dependents
have included James White and the Blacks/The Contortions,
The Lounge Lizards, Saqqara Dogs, Radiante, Gavin Friday
and the Man Seezer, Hubert Felix-Thiefane, Marianne Faithfull,
Annabouboula, and his current group, The Sirens. Mr. Cunningham
plays primarily for God, country and those who art down
by law, but contributions are appreciated.
SHARON FREEMAN (piano, French
horn)
Miss Freeman has worked and recorded with many jazz greats:
Gil Evans, Frank Foster, Charles Mingus, Don Cherry, Carla
Bley, Richard Muhal Abrams, David Murray, Lionel Hampton,
Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra, of which
she is the current Musical Director. She has also been musical
director for Don Pullen and Beaver Harris’ 360 Musical Experience.
Her name was submitted for a Grammy nomination for her arrangement
of “Monk's Mood” for five French horns and rhythm section
for Hal Willner’s A&M release, “That’s the Way I Feel
Now: A Tribute to Thelonius Monk”. She has been commissioned
by the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic,
and the Harlem Piano Trio. She has been cited by Jazz
Times as the top-rated established jazz French horn
player. She is currently music director of both Nanette
Bearden Contemporary Dance Theater and the Jazzmobile Workshop.
YUVAL GABAY (drums)
is a founder of the band, Bosho. In the last five years,
he has been composing music for choreographer Kumiko Kimoto;
he will be performing his music for Kimoto at LaMama from
May 21-24. Other recent collaborations have been with Paul
Langland, David Zambrano and Sara Skaggs. Gabay is a member
of David Linton's “Owthaus” and the Fast Forward Ensemble.
CHERYL HARDWICK (piano)
is, with G.E. Smith, Musical Director of “Saturday Night
Live”. She is also a founding member of the “Saturday
Night Live” Band. She is the recipient of an Emmy for her
work as a composer for “Sesame Street”, where her specialty
is rhythm & blues.
RICHARD HELL (guitar/vocals) has recently published a new
book, Artifact, on Hanuman Books, and
is Editor of the literary magazine, Cuz. He has a
new single with Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley and Don Fleming
(The Dimstars) due out in May on Ecstatic Peace. An expanded
CD of his album, “Blank Generation” is just out on Sire/Warners,
and a new CD of “Destiny Street” is scheduled for May release
on the same label.
JULIA HEYWARD (vocals)
Julia Heyward’s work centers around the orchestration of
music, words and images in the forms of performance art
and music videos. In Heyward's early career, she toured
Europe and America as a solo performance artist. For the
past decade, Heyward has worked with music/performance ensembles,
winning a Bessie Award in 1984 for “No Local Stops”, written
in collaboration with musician Pat Irwin. Other notable
full-length productions include “Mood Music”, a cartoon
opera written in collaboration with musician Robert FitzSimmons,
presented at The Kitchen in 1988. These projects were partially
financed by Heyward's commercial work as a music video director
and producer. Heyward created “The Visit”, an Art Break
for MTV in 1989, and in 1990 she designed and directed the
Host segments for the TV series “Buzz” and for MTV.
She has just recently signed a contract with guitarist/composer
Gary Lucas on CBS/Sony Entertainment.
SHELLEY HIRSCH (vocals)
is a vocalist, composer, and performer whose work has been
seen worldwide from CBGB’s to the State Opera of Stuttgart.
Her musical passions originate from a childhood fascination
with The Reader's Digest Collection of Music of The World.
Last year her multi-media storytelling piece, "O Little
Town of East New York”, was produced by Dance Theater Workshop.
She has worked extensively in the downtown music community
with musicians such as Fred Frith, Christian Marclay, Ikue
Mori, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Mark Dresser,
Zeena Parkins and many others. Her main collaborator is
electronic keyboardist David Weinstein, with whom she released
the CD “Haiku Lingo" on No Man's land. She is widely known
as the woman yodelling on a swing in an MTV clip.
GARY LUCAS (guitar)
Dubbed “Guitarist of 1000 Ideas" by The New York Times
and "Guitarist Extraordinaire” by Ear Magazine,
Gary Lucas first cut his teeth as featured guitar soloist
with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band in the early 80's.
After producing albums for The Woodentops and Adrian Sherwood,
Lucas began performing solo concerts at the Knitting Factory
in NYC, and now tours frequently in Europe as a solo artist.
His debut solo album, “Skeleton at the Feast”, which includes
his music for the 1921 German silent film, The Golem
(performed at the 1989 New Music America/Next Wave Festival)
will be released shortly on Enemy Records. He is currently
working, on an album with singer/video artist Julia Heyward
for Columbia Records.
LOREN MAZZACANE & SUZANNE
LANGILLE (guitar/voice) In 1978, improvisational guitarist
Loren Mazzacane released a series of albums which sparked
continuing controversial discussion about the relationship
between blues and “new” music. London's WIRE magazine has
called him “the Eric Satie of blues guitar”; Guitar World
named him the “Best Blues Guitarist” of 1990. Canadian critic
Jurgen Gothe describes Suzanne Langille as “a blending of
Josephine Baker and Claudine Longet.” Sound Choice
observes that her vocals “merge uncannily with the guitar
in a way that is seamless in execution and deeply emotional.”
A new CD entitled NEVER THE BLUES will be produced on the
Aerial label. They perform at the Knitting Factory on May
11.
WILBUR PAULEY (vocal)
Mr. Pauley's credits include Broadway, television, film,
music/theater, opera/oratorio, and 12th century
liturgical drama, to composers like Schickele, Schoenberg,
Penderecki and Elliott Carter. Mr. Pauley returned yesterday
from France, where he toured as Sarastro in The Magic
Flute with the Bulgarian Radio orchestra. Upcoming engagements
include works by Harry Partch (directed by Tom O'Horgan)
and Michael Gordon at the Bang-on-a-Can Festival, Meredith
Monk's Atlas at the American Musical Theater Festival
and at least six roles with the New York City Opera, the
Utah Opera and the San Antonio Festival.
ROBERT QUINE (guitar)
was born in 1942 in Akron, Ohio. He first became known in
the late 70's with his appearance on Richard Hell &
the Voidoids' “Blank Generation”. Between 1981 and'85 he
played and recorded with Lou Reed (“The Blue Mask”, “Legendary
Hearts”). He has also played and recorded with John Zorn,
Marianne Faithfull, Tom Waits, Lloyd Cole, and others.
BARRY REYNOLDS (guitar/vocals) Born in Kearsley, Manchester,
he was a member of Island Record's in-house band
(Compass Point), backing Black Uhuru, Grace Jones, Joe Cocker,
Robert Palmer, Sly & Robbie. He has been Marianne Faithfull's
co-writer since the "Broken English” record. He just finished
a world tour with Marianne, joined by Chris Cunningham.
HANK ROBERTS (cello)
is an improvising cellist and composer who plays and records
extensively with the groups Arcado, Miniature and the Bill
Frisell Band, and his own group, Birds of Prey.
ELLIOTT SHARP (guitar)
Composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp leads the groups
Carbon and Terraplane, as well as performing with the cooperative
groups, The Sync and Semantics. He has been performing improvised
music since 1969. Large ensemble pieces include “Crowds
and Power”, “Re/Iterations” (commissioned by American Composers
Orchestra), ”Sili/contemp/tations”, “Self-Squared Dragon”
and “Larynx” (for a 13-member version of Carbon, commissioned
for the 1987 Next Wave Festival). His string quartets have
been performed by the Soldier String Quartet, Kronos, and
Finland's Avanti String Quartet. Other recent activities
include an appearance on the NBC-TV show “Night-Music”,
and over 30 performances with Carbon throughout Europe.
In addition, he has on-going collaborations with Korean
komungo-player Jin Hi Kim and Rachir Attar, a leader of
the Master Musicians of Jahjouka from Morocco. He performed
in NY and Chicago with Czechoslovakia's Plastic People of
the Universe/Pulnoc. Recent recordings include Datacide
(with Carbon) on Germany's Enemy label, and K!L!A!V! (for
keyboards) on Newport Classics.
G.E. SMITH (guitar/bass) is, with Cheryl Hardwick,
Musical Director of "Saturday Night Live”. He first became
widely known for his recordings and live appearances with
Hall & Oates. More recently, he toured the world as
lead guitarist for Bob Dylan. He is currently working on
a record of his own music.
HAL WILLNER (Co-Producer) was Music Producer of NBC’s
“Night Music” for 2 shows in the first year and the entire
second season. He most recently released “Dead City Radio”
with William Burroughs, and “The Carl Stalling Project”,
music written for the classic Warner Brother cartoons. His
reputation was made with three “tribute” albums celebrating
the music of some of his favorite composers – Nino Rota
(“Amarcord”), Thelonius Monk (“That’s the Way I Feel Now”),
and Kurt Weill (“Lost in the Stars”) featuring some of his
favorite musicians. He has also produced two records for
Marianne Faithfull, “Strange Weather” and “Blazing Away”,
the latter recorded live at St. Ann's in November, 1989;
“Stay Awake”, music of the classic Disney films; Gavin Friday
and the Man Seezer, and Alan Ginsberg's “The Lion for Real”.
His new record of Charles Mingus’ music is soon to be released
on CBS/Sony.
