Starsailor (album)

Starsailor
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 1970
RecordedSeptember 10–21, 1970
StudioWhitney Studios, Glendale, California
Genre
Length36:00
LabelStraight
ProducerTim Buckley
Tim Buckley chronology
Lorca
(1970)
Starsailor
(1970)
Greetings from L.A.
(1972)

Starsailor is the sixth studio album by Tim Buckley, released on Herb Cohen's Straight Records label in November 1970. Starsailor marks Buckley's full embrace of avant-garde and jazz-rock styles into his music. Although it alienated elements of his fanbase upon release,[1] it also contains his best known song, "Song to the Siren", which was written much earlier than the rest of the material. Bunk Gardner, a former member of the Mothers of Invention, joined Buckley's backing band to record the album. Also, Buckley began working again with lyricist Larry Beckett, after a three-album hiatus.

Leontyne Price attended a concert in New York City during the supporting tour and told Buckley, "Boy, I wish they were writing things like that for us opera singers," to which Buckley responded, "Well, do what I did; get your own band."

"Starsailor" is a literal English rendering of the Greek-derived word "astronaut."

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