Tim Buckley

Depending on where you cut in, Tim Buckley's music may or may not even remotely resemble your expectations of it. Driven by his own artistic gadfly into ever more experimental and commercially remote terrain, Buckley debuted as a lotus-eating flower child nursed on psychedelic milk. His next three releases, however, showed him taking a turn toward long, West Coast Jazz-influenced song structures and shifting his tone from Aquarian dreaminess to a Chet Baker-like breezy sadness. As Buckley's interest in jazz came more to focus on Avant-Garde improvisers such as Ornette Coleman, he increasingly endeavored to use his own voice as a wind instrument. Lorca (1970) is filled with crane whoops, banshee wails and what might be mistaken for raunchy alien mating calls. Until his death, Buckley continued to tirelessly pursue new artistic outlets, even at the cost of leaving his fans far behind. From the Las Vegas-friendly, Blue-Eyed Soul of "Because of You" to the dry hump Funk of "Come Up Here Woman" Buckley continued pushing his incredible voice to new heights, earning him the posthumous respect of artists as far afield as Patti Smith and This Mortal Coil.