Tim Buckley The Dream Belongs To Me - Rare And Unreleased Recordings (2-LP, Gold Vinyl, Ltd.)

(Real Gone) 14 tracks, crystal-clear pressing

Tim Buckley’s fiery voice took him on a journey—in just nine years as a musician—from a fragile folk-rocker to a boldly experimental avant-garde icon. Here we experience him at the beginning of his career with his sparkling 1966 debut album, which featured the “A-Team” from the Elektra label—the same team that had produced The Doors: label head and producer Jac Holzman, producer Paul Rothchild, and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. Not to mention West Coast legends like arranger Jack Nitzsche, keyboardist Van Dyke Parks, and drummer Billy Mundi, who accompanied Buckley’s longtime collaborators Lee Underwood on guitar and Jim Fielder on bass. To dismiss Tim Buckley’s debut as merely a promising first effort would be to do it an injustice; the only aspect that perhaps prevents this record from being an absolute masterpiece is the still-hesitant timbre of Buckley’s voice—though this is only true in comparison to his vocal acrobatics in his later career. And in a way, his “shyness” lends the astonishingly sophisticated lyrical and melodic flights of fancy of this 19-year-old artist a fleeting, vulnerable quality.