Tim Buckley brought in 20 musicians for the recording of Greetings From LA, his seventh studio album, and none were more important to its overall funky, honky-tonk sound than guitarist Joe Falsia, whose searing electric playing is the perfect foil to Buckley’s 12-string guitar.
Listen to ‘Greetings From LA’ here.
“I brought in the technique of taking in tongues”
The album, cut during a 48-hour period in June 1972 at Far Out Studios, in Hollywood, was released that August via Warner Bros subsidiary Straight Records, and promoted with a six-night engagement at The Boarding House in San Francisco.
Co-written by Buckley and arranger/producer Jerry Goldstein, Move With Me is the first of seven powerful songs on Greetings From LA. A steamy sex track (“I went down to the meat rack tavern/And I found myself a big ol’ healthy girl”), it features sensuous backing vocals from Venetta Fields, Clyde King and Lorna Maxine Willard, along with some rollicking piano from Kevin Kelly and pulsating drum work from Ed Greene.
Elsewhere, the six-and-a-half minute Get On Top is one of Buckley’s more unusual songs, featuring some experimental singing from the man with the deep bass voice. “With Greetings From LA, I brought in the technique of talking in tongues, which is very religious, out of the Holly Roller thing and very much American, a part of the country,” said Buckley of his singing on the composition. “Words lose their meanings after a while and, in a lot of ways, words are just preliminaries to the real thing in music.”
