Tim Buckley

The singer-songwriter Tim Buckley was born in Amsterdam, New York, but when he was ten his family migrated west to Anaheim, California. Obsessed with singing, he studied the greats from Nat King Cole to Johnny Cash, learning to breathe and deliver as they did, and then he went further, forcing his voice to be a musical instrument in its own right. He made his first album at 19, largely folk rock, and immediately drew attention to his range and brilliance. When Jack Robinson photographed him on November 7, 1968, the twenty-one year old Buckley had already released his second album, Goodbye and Hello, and was at work on his third, Happy Sad. In the January 1, 1969 issue of Vogue, Buckley is described as the “found poet of new folk.” “An instant waif with dimples, … frail and wistful with hair like a nest of thrusting magpies,” Buckley “cries love, hurt, war, and truth to the New Children.” Sadly, Buckley died in 1975 from an accidental drug overdose.