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Son
of my father Could
it be a generational thing? By
Dave DiMartino Jeff
Buckley Mystery
White Boy Posthumous
collection of live tracks culled from the singer's '95-'96 Mystery White Boy
tour. Released in tandem with 1995 concert video filmed in Chicago. MYSTERY
WHITE Boy is by no means too
little, but it is very much too late. A live package bearing the air of intent -
to capture a young artist just beginning his too-brief flight, to cement a late
singer's reputation as one of the lost decade's potential artistic giants, maybe
both - it too often displays what is simply not there. And that, sad to say,
would be a talent as large and far-reaching as his father’s. It's
embarrassing to admit, but my sole encounter with the son of Tim Buckley did not
showcase me at my most critically acute: midway through his set, in a small
theatre in Hollywood, I sat watching him sing most of the songs from Grace and -
well, there's no other way to put it - I fell asleep. As one whose profession
has involuntarily placed him in auditoriums watching full sets from the likes of
Hootie & The Blowfish, Krokus and Michael Bolton and never shutting a weary eye,
I can only shrug and attempt to rationalise why. And I blame my lack of fervour
regarding Jeff Buckley on a) my age and b) his genetics. Genetics
first, please. Though precious few escape it - Rufus Wainwright alone comes to
mind at the moment there is an infamous tradition of which Frank Sinatra Jr,
Julian Lennon and a growing army of newcomers like Chris Stills are painfully
aware: singing sons sound like singing fathers.
And while there are indeed patches on Mystery White Boy where Buckley's
aggressive yelping sounds less like his father's and more like a cross between
Robert Plant's and (God help him) Perry Farrell's, these sections come less
often than they would have to to signify any sort of unique vocal talent. Midway
through album opener Dream Brother one can hear such a yelp, and it momentarily
startles - until one thinks a) he would've ruined his voice if he kept singing
like that, and b) his father did this sort of thing so much less
self-consciously on Starsailor. Even more troublesome for one apparently
intent on not following his father's footsteps: the song itself must of course
be related to Dream Letter, Tim Buckley's extremely moving Happy/Sad
track - addressed to a former lover regarding the son they conceived that he
would rarely see. What
I remember most from that night in my plush chair in Hollywood was watching a
young man conspicuously caught between the cliched rock and a hard place. When
he song in his natural, high voice, he could not help but sound like the
fresh-faced father-to-be who recorded the likes of I Can't See You and Aren't
You The Girl in 1966. And when he attempted the vocalese at which his father
excelled, perhaps more than any other pop singer of his generation, he was too
nasal, lacking the deep bass that would make such songs as Lorca so eerie,
sounding forced and not quite there when trying for the chimplike vocal
acrobatics that seared throughout Starsailor. Much
of what I saw then is what I hear now on Mystery White Boy, though it
must be said that the band sounds better than I recall - guitarist/producer
Michael Tighe burns throughout, thankfully (for Buckley's sake, if not ours) not
sounding like Tim Buckley's long-time cohort Lee Underwood, while the rhythm
section of bassist Mick Grondahl and drummer Matt Johnson provides thump-solid
bottom on nearly every song. Still, rather than displaying a young singer at the
height of his powers, most of this album focuses your attention elsewhere - via
the cover versions, on better writers like Leonard Cohen, Big Star or
Morrissey/Marr. Not to mention The Man That Got Away, once sung by Judy Garland
- whose singing daughter, need I add, is not irrelevant here either. And were it
possible to forget that Jeff Buckley's father ever existed, such songs as the
newly unveiled What Will You Say bear lyrics that make forgetting exceedingly
difficult: 'Father, do you hear me? Do you know me? Do you even care?' In
the end, fully enjoying the art of Jeff Buckley may simply be a matter of age.
Those who have never enjoyed the legacy of his father - never watched his career
soar, crash and bum, in real time
and not via a stack of CD reissues - can hear the younger singer in ways in
which I will never be able. Which is not a bad thing. Because, frankly, a long
time ago, if someone had pulled out a copy of Fred Neil's Sessions and
played it for me, maybe I wouldn't have spent the better part of my adolescence
raving about the unadulterated genius and uniqueness of Tim Buckley. And maybe,
once again, I would have missed something. Track
Listing: Dream
Brother (Hamburg, 3/95) I
Woke Up In A Strange Place (Melbourne, 2/96) Mojo
Pin (Lyon, 7/95) Lilac
Wine (Melbourne, 2/96) What
Will You Say (Lyon, 7/95) Lost
Goodbye (Paris, 7/95) Eternal
Life (Melbourne, 2/96) Grace
(Melbourne, 2/96) Mood
Swing Whiskey (Melbourne, 2/96) The
Man That Got Away (San Francisco, 5/95) Kanga
Roo (Sydney, 9/95) Hallelujah/I
Know It's Over (Seattle, 5/95) |