HAPPY SAD

Tim Buckley

Prog Folk

3.88 | 62 ratings

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jamesbaldwin
Prog Reviewer

"Happy Sad" is the first of four consecutive masterpieces produced in 2 years. It's unbelievable but Tim Buckley, between 1969 and 1970 recorded four Lp, one better than the other.

Happy Sad is free-folk (ore free-jazz?): vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, acoustic bass, vibes and percussions (not drums). The songs are similar, in fact the arrangements are always the same. What makes the difference is the melody, the singing, the mood, the atmosphere, the emotions that they arouse. The first song, "Strange Feelin'" (vote 8, almost eight minutes) is romantic; the second, "Buzzin' Fly" (vote 8+, six minutes) starts with the folk orchestra and then become powerful with the vocals, it gives you strength; "Love From Room 109 At The Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway)", almost 11 minutes (vote 7+) is nice but boring, too much monotonous.

Side B opens with "Dream Letter" (vote 8+, five minutes), a romantic and poignant song, with the sound of the double bass and that underlines the melancholy while the vibraphone and the voice improvise on the high notes; then there is "Gypsy Woman", a tour de force of twelve minutes (vote 8,5) where the percussions have a dominant role, and the rhythm become a tribal delirium. In the end, there is the short "Sing A Song For You" (two minutes and half, vote), calm and maybe sad. suffered.

With "Happy Sad" the folk orchestra of Tim Buckley arrives to a complete and homogeneous form: vocals to trace the melody, bass and acoustic guitar and percussion to give the appearance of a rhythm in the background (where the drum snare is totally missing), vibes and electric guitar to improvise variations compared to the melody. This scheme will also be maintained in "Blue Afternoon" and "Lorca", reaching its peak with this last album

Medium (without the last song): 8,05. Vote: 9; Five stars.

jamesbaldwin | 5/5 | 2015-9-28

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