Tim Buckley - Works in Progress [1999]

In the spring and summer of 1968, Tim Buckley and band began a series of recording sessions for what-would then have been the follow-up to his 1967 album Goodbye And Hello. The direction for this particular album evolved midstream, and the initial session recordings were, for the most part, set aside. While two tracks from these various 1968 sessions did end up being used on his 1968 album Happy Sad, the remainder of the recordings ended up not being used on anything at all. The complete sessions themselves seem to have disappeared, but the best of them had been set aside on compilation reels which were filed away decades ago, forgotten until their discovery a few years back.

Tim Buckleys Works In Progress is a 16-track collection of the surviving recordings from these 1968 studio sessions along with one survivor from a 1967 session. All tracks, except those two which ended up more or less intact on Happy Sad, are previously unreleased. And, because each and every track on this compact disc was remixed from the original multitracks in August 1999, even those two later-released tracks have never before sounded so good. Works In Progress contains a 20-page booklet with insightful liner notes by longtime Buckley guitarist/friend/biographer Lee Underwood as well as lyrics for all of the performed songs Tim wrote or co-wrote.

While many of the song titles will be very familiar to fans, the versions on Works In Progress will certainly not be. In addition to showcasing two compositions which have never before been released, most every other track contains lyrics, or verses, which appear only in the versions from these 1968 sessions. There are studio recordings of songs which have only previously been released as live recordings, and versions of Buckley favorites which you can hear transform from session to session.

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