Tune Tag #27 with Nic Briscoe, Pt. 2: Jeff Buckley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie, 10cc, Wax + One Historic 150-Year-Old Piano
Nic takes us inside an historic UK recording studio to reveal secrets (like, he used to play that piano!), and little-known factoids emerge!
Hey, Nic!
Tune Tag welcomes backfor his second go-’round!
Enjoy and subscribe to both here: The Song’s the Thing! and Unleashed & Unlimited. Plus, click here for Nic’s audio/video recording of his “Let Go” on YouTube!
Nic’s Tune Tag #1:
Nic’s song #1 sent to Brad: Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye,” 1994
Nic’s rationale: This song fits into several important categories for me:
1. Songs I wish I could sing in the same key/register as the original artist.
2. Songs I wish I’d written (not for the money, but because it’s beyond awesome, otherworldly).
3. Favourite songs… it’s one of my favourite songs EVER, in many ways…
Best bittersweet “breakup” love song ever.
Brilliantly mixed, co-engineered and co-produced by Andy Wallace; album co-engineered by Bryant Jackson, Chris Laidlaw, Reggie Griffith, Steve Sisco, and Clif Norrell, and co-produced by Buckley; Steve Berkowitz, Executive Producer
Brilliant musical performances by the most amazing band (Gary Lucas, guitar; Mick Grondahl, bass; Matt Johnson, drums), with fantastic lyrics, Buckley’s brilliant vocal delivery and amazingly crafted chord structure and arranging.
Fantastic memories: In about 1995, a good friend recommended “Last Goodbye” and its Grace album whilst visiting him in Sydney, Australia.
And then there’s Jeff Buckley and his father, Tim Buckley — what a pedigree and karma they both had, both very talented musicians/singer/songwriters, both dead by misadventure/bad luck by age thirty.
Brad’s song #1 sent to Nic: Tim Buckley, “Move With Me,” 1972
Nic’s response: Well, looks like Brad is straight in there with the son and father link. So where do I take this now? Maybe Cat Stevens’ song, “Father and Son”? Or any adult male experiential advice to younger male song: “Hey, Jude” perhaps?
Or, any song from a famous parent or their famous child, I was thinking Miley Cyrus’s cover of “Jolene" — that’d fox Brad (for a minute or two). Or perhaps “Cabaret” by Liza Minelli (too obvious)? At a push, I could probably squeeze Tim Buckley into the “27 Club” (he died a very rock’n’roll death, aged twenty eight), so any song from any member of that unfortunate gang… “Riders On The Storm” could work?
Then there’s the “track 1, side 1” status: “Move With Me” is the opening track of Tim Buckley’s 1972 album, Greetings from L.A. But, I’m going to go with that Greetings from L.A. connection. My first thought was Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” (my favourite is John Mayer’s live acoustic version).
Brad’s rationale: I wanted to make a more “impressively obscure” jump to Nic’s Jeff Buckley song, although in retrospect, pulling “the daddy card” seems a short hop! I refreshed my memory on Jeff’s tragic early passing (at age 30 in 1997), which led me to father, Tim’s equally tragic and early passing in 1975 at 28. Is there a more heart-breaking family demise extant (at least in the record biz)?
I was drawn to Tim’s Greetings From L.A. 1972 album simply because I used to have it at the time—in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. Dad had brought it home (from the radio station where he worked) as part of another promo largesse of new Warner Bros. Records releases (the album was on Frank Zappa and his manager, Herb Cohen’s Straight Records, distributed by WB).
I had the original pressing, which featured a die-cut front cover, with a large, removable postcard. Of course I removed it (thoughts of an eBay and a secondary vinyl market hadn’t occurred to me in 1972)!
I can’t imagine I mailed the postcard, so I’m sure I just slipped it into the jacket like I did with ripped-from-magazines record reviews, interviews, and articles. That was my filing system for all my LPs! That meant that for the decades that followed, the edges of the perforated “hole” where the postcard used to be were getting hopelessly bent and folded in between my shelved Lord Buckley and Buckinghams albums!
Tim’s “Move With Me,” I’m just noticing, was co-written by Buckley and Jerry Goldstein. Goldstein, who’ll turn 84 in February, wrote two of my favorite ‘60s pure-pop teen ditties: 1963’s “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels (co-written with Richard Gottehrer and Bob Feldman; all three produced) and 1967’s “Come on Down to My Boat” by Every Mother’s Son (co-written with eventual Partridge Family music director, Wes Farrell, who produced). Read more about the Partridges, including my 1975 interview with co-star, David Cassidy, here:
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