GOODBYE AND HELLO

After an esteemed critical success and little commercial one, Elektra got Tim back in the studio and definitely decided to break his name into the wide open and put the means where their mouths were. And the album did get very successful, causing G&H to become some kind of template for the ideal singer/songwriter blueprint to follow-up. Trouble is that Tilm didn't want much of it, as he had already his own idea of the direction he wanted to head in for; but he clamped down and did what was told for this album, as he needed to get himself some notoriety for him to find the space to be able to record his own music. Tim had jokingly suggested calling this album Timbuck Two, but they went ahead with the dual front and back cover and the title spreading on the two .

By now, Tim is working as a dual partnership in songwriting with longtime buddy Lary Beckett taking care of the lyrics. This is a bit of an amazement when you'll know how much of the next year's text will ring so much like Buckley's personal experiences being sung. Most likely they were and Beckett was probably finding the words that Tim couldn't find but was eagerly awaiting someone to put in his mouth. However the superb I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, Tim unleashes his thoughts towards his wife, whom he'd been coerced into marrying, something that obviously only Tim could feel. Not only poignant lyric-wise, the music (a bedding of 12 strings and congas) is equally impressive.

Elsewhere in the album, there is the 8-mins+ stunning piece, the title track that splices into two parts, the first sung by their parent's generation and the other voice being the counter-culture's generation's answer abut these old decaying values, Beckett's lyrics attacking marriage (remember Tim's semi- forced wedding)war, TV (then controlled by the establishment) etc. Although I wouldn't really call this a rock opera, we're not far away from it, either, as the two melodies evolved into a single piece and a string section was called upon for the rich arrangements. It might not please everyone but the title track is one of the album's highlight. And besides Tim's second best-known track Morning Glory (after Song To The Siren), you'll find poignant anti-war song like No Man Can Find War, starting with a nuclear blast.

Two of my favourites are Pleasant Streets, a superb positive song with Tim's superb higher tone of voice over a fantastic bed of keyboard layers and a wild fuzz guitar to answer him, and the aptly-titled Hallucinations, which starts out psychedelic-wise with a sitar, but Tim's absolute delicate melody give a troubadour twist to the song, with the middle section overflowing from great instruments but maybe a bit too wisely over-produced. Both tracks are grandiose and really give the album a special touch, one that should get you inside Buckley's interior world.

By now Tim had a prototype of his ultimate back up band and his concerts started sounding rather different than he sounded in the studio, and he meant it that way. This trend would sort close with the few albums to come such as Happy Sad and Lorca. So general concerts by the time of release of G&H consisted of five songs from the featured album, none from the debut and the rest from the jazz- infested folk that filled HS and lorca?, much to the furry of the Elektra label that resented Tim sabotaging what they thought was a top 20 album. Indeed, this wouldn't be the last of this fight. While G&H is a vast improvement on the debut album, and there are a few stunning tracks, G&H will not be able to compete with what was to come. Definitely worth a listen and might just be worth a space on your shelves.

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