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"Greetings from Tim Buckley" (movie)


ajzepp

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I know there are quite a few Jeff Buckley fans here on TBD, so thought this might be of interest...

 

Tonight I saw that the new film about Tim and Jeff Buckley, "Greetings From Tim Buckley", was available for rent so I decided to check it out. It touches upon the life and music of Tim, but focuses mainly on Jeff's struggle to process his thoughts and feelings about his dad. It's centered on a live tribute performance that was being given at a church in NYC to celebrate the music of Tim and Jeff's role in that. I thought that part of it was actually fiction, but apparently this performance really did happen in 1991.

 

Music affects all of us in different ways, but every now and again I'll hear a song for the first time and just become mesmerized by it. I had never heard the song "Once I Was" by Tim Buckley, so when it was performed by the actor playing Jeff during the movie I was quite moved by it. I happened to check on youtube after the movie and sure enough they had the original recording of Jeff performing this song at that very concert. To give you a time frame, this was in 1991, which was about three years prior to when Jeff recorded the album "Grace". This is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard....enjoy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy7qTC2Sno4

Edited by ajzepp
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Heard about this project a while ago among several JB ones that are in the works. Thought it was in very limited release, but there you go....

 

And yeah, this music isn't for everybody. What's not on CD is pretty raw stuff at a time when recording was seriously not where it is today, and yet it's all that's left. My nuclear family is very much "not a fan." And not just due to audio quality. Admittedly, there are a number of tracks that even I skip over. He experimented a lot with different styles and some it don't work for my ear. But what Jeff did well, he did REALLY well.

 

I don't recall offhand whether they've officially released "Forget Her" (Jeff was very adamant that he did not want to for personal reasons). I only recently came upon "She is Free" and have it in regular rotation in the iPod, and even those family members who dislike have asked, "Who is that? That's a good song!" Then there's "I Know It's Over" hits a chord for me at a current life station.... Sometimes it's hard for me to listen to his stuff because some of it is just... well... depressing. As he said himself, by the end of a concert his mind was literally chemically altered by where he had to go in some of the songs." And so I can't spend too much time on those myself. Nevertheless, he had such a great voice. If he had lived and matured past the angst and whatever other issues, no doubt he would be among the top artists. Yet scrounging YouTube for bootlegs is pretty much all that's left....

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Heard about this project a while ago among several JB ones that are in the works. Thought it was in very limited release, but there you go....

 

And yeah, this music isn't for everybody. What's not on CD is pretty raw stuff at a time when recording was seriously not where it is today, and yet it's all that's left. My nuclear family is very much "not a fan." And not just due to audio quality. Admittedly, there are a number of tracks that even I skip over. He experimented a lot with different styles and some it don't work for my ear. But what Jeff did well, he did REALLY well.

 

I don't recall offhand whether they've officially released "Forget Her" (Jeff was very adamant that he did not want to for personal reasons). I only recently came upon "She is Free" and have it in regular rotation in the iPod, and even those family members who dislike have asked, "Who is that? That's a good song!" Then there's "I Know It's Over" hits a chord for me at a current life station.... Sometimes it's hard for me to listen to his stuff because some of it is just... well... depressing. As he said himself, by the end of a concert his mind was literally chemically altered by where he had to go in some of the songs." And so I can't spend too much time on those myself. Nevertheless, he had such a great voice. If he had lived and matured past the angst and whatever other issues, no doubt he would be among the top artists. Yet scrounging YouTube for bootlegs is pretty much all that's left....

 

Interesting, thanks! My experience with Jeff has pretty much been limited to the tracks on his "Grace" album (which is one of my favorite albums), so I'm going to look up a few of those other performances I haven't seen. I sort of wish the film had a bit more meat on the bones, as it was a tad slow in the beginning, but it did a good job of taking things to a deeper, more interesting place in the second half. The recreation of the performance at the end was fantastic.

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