MOVE WITH ME / NIGHTHAWKIN'

TIM BUCKLEY (1947 - 1975) had such a winding career. After the fairly accessible folk troubadour approach in a couple of his earliest albums, he gradually increased avantish ingredients into his music and most of all into his vocal expression. I remember a line from some review for Lorca (1970) saying something like "sounds as if his lever was being torn out... slowly". Becoming more difficult to listen to meant that he lost the most of his audience and eventually went bankcrupt. That was a big enough motif to let managers steer him back to the more listener-friendly mainstream music. The soul-flavoured album Greetings from L.A. (1972) was even recorded with new collaborators. So, those Buckley admirers who especially enjoy the esoteric and mesmerizing soundsapes featuring vibes and marimba on albums such as my favourite Happy Sad (1969) or the then-latest one Starsailor (1970), will most likely face a major disappointment. This single represents the album's most commercial material.

'Move With Me' is the album's catchy opening track, and, according to some reviewers here, also its weakest song. It's an outgoing southern rock number finished with female backing singers and saxophones. In that particular style it's an OK song I suppose. I'm not fond of this kind of music, and before the three and a half minutes have passed I'm frankly very fed up.

Sad to say, 'Nighthawkin'' isn't much better from my point of view. This is an equally outgoing, soul and blues oriented song in a lively tempo. The background ladies do nice work again, and it cannot be denied that the musicians do pretty well what they're doing. It's just not what listeners like us would prefer hearing from Tim Buckley.