VOX Magazine (UK)

Tim Buckley: Honeyman (Edsel EDCD 450)

By Fred Dellar

A live date that took place at Long Island's Ultrasonic Studios at the tail end of 1973, the Honeyman session finds Buckley at his most exuberant. He scats joyously through the salacious Get On Top, (Get on top of me, honey/Let me see what you learnt), and croons Fred Neil's ever-beautiful Dolphins with

the assurance of prime-time Sinatra, albeit one owing as much to Jack Kerouac as Jack Daniels.

Both Buckley's strength and the reason for his failure was his reluctance to fit into any scheme of things. Folkie, rock star, jazz man for a generation...he was all these things, often in the course of a single song.

Everything was up for grabs, no song remained sacred; Buckley reshaped and remixed whatever came his way. A version of the Jaynettes Sally Go Round The Roses - which has its neck wrung in a manner that'll cause Buckley buffs to take an extra sniff in celebration - is a case in point here.

VOX was a monthly UK music magazine from the NME newspaper organisation