''Sefronia'' is the eighth album by singer-songwriter

Tim Buckley Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years. Buckley began his career based in folk music, but his subsequent albums experimented with ja ...

, released in September 1973.

Production

The album was produced by

Denny Randell Denny Randell (born 1941) is an American songwriter and record producer, who is best known for his songwriting collaborations with Sandy Linzer and Bob Crewe in the 1960s and 1970s. He co-wrote hits including "A Lover's Concerto", "Let's Hang O ...

. It was recorded at Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California. Other tracks were recorded at Record Plant, in New York, and at Devonshire Sound Studios in North Hollywood.

Critical reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote that Buckley's "voice isn't as stunning as usual on his next-to-last album, but the bigger problem is the material, which is usually forced and pedestrian." ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' wrote: "Denny Randell’s anachronistic-on-impact LA white-soul production, which pours syrupy strings over several numbers, is hardest to digest on poorly chosen middle-of-the-road love songs that didn’t suit Buckley at all." ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' declared that the album is "widely agreed to be Buckley’s most over-produced and underwhelming effort."

Track listing

Side One #"

Dolphins A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...

" (

Fred Neil Fred Neil (March 16, 1936 – July 7, 2001) was an American folk singer-songwriter active in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material&n ...

) – 3:10 #"Honey Man" (

Larry Beckett Larry Beckett (born April 4, 1947) is an American poet, songwriter, musician, and literary critic. As a songwriter and music arranger, Beckett collaborated with Tim Buckley in the late 1960s and early 1970s on several songs and albums, including ...

) – 4:10 #"Because of You" (Beckett, Buckley) – 4:25 #"Peanut Man" (Fred Freeman, Harry Nehls) – 2:52 #"Martha" (

Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...

) – 3:10 Side Two #"Quicksand" (Buckley) – 3:22 #"I Know I'd Recognize Your Face" (Letty Jo Baron,

) – 3:58 #"Stone In Love" (Buckley) – 3:27 #"Sefronia: After Asklepiades, After Kafka" (Beckett, Buckley) – 3:15 #"Sefronia: The King's Chain" (Beckett, Buckley) – 2:23 #" Sally, Go 'Round the Roses" (Lona Stevens, Zell Sanders) – 3:43

Personnel

*Tim Buckley – guitar, vocals * Lee Underwood – guitar *Joe Falsia – guitar *

Bob Rafkin Bob Rafkin (30 March 1944 – 2 May 2013) was an American singer, songwriter and guitar player. Rafkin was born in New York City in 1944. His musical career really took off when he moved to Greenwich Village in the mid-sixties. Here he met ...

– guitar *Marcia Waldorf, Sharon Beard, Myrna Matthews, Lisa Roberts – backing vocals *Bernie Mysior – bass guitar *Reinhold Press – bass guitar *Mark Tiernan – keyboards *

– keyboards, producer, arrangements * Tom Scott – tenor saxophone *Fred Selden – flute *Earl Dumler – English horn *

Larry Bunker Lawrence Benjamin Bunker (November 4, 1928 – March 8, 2005) was an American jazz drummer, vibraphonist, and percussionist. A member of the Bill Evans Trio in the mid-1960s, he also played timpani with the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra. ...

– percussion *King Errisson – percussion,

congas The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest) ...

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

*Ken Watson – percussion,

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

*Buddy Helm – drums *David Blumberg – string arrangements ;Technical *Greg Venable, Kerry McNabb, Larry Hirsch, Roger Dollarhide,

Roy Cicala Roy Joel Cicala (March 28, 1939 – January 22, 2014) was an American producer, engineer, songwriter and musician. His body of work includes over 10 Platinum Records for producing, writing, engineering and management for talent from the 1970s thro ...

– engineers *

Cal Schenkel Calvin "Cal" Schenkel (born January 27, 1947, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania) is an American illustrator, graphic designer, animator and comics artist, specializing in album cover design. He was the main graphic arts collaborator for rock musician F ...

– art direction *

Ed Caraeff Ed Caraeff (born April 18, 1950) is an American photographer, illustrator and graphic designer, who has worked largely in the music industry. He has art directed, photographed and designed more than 400 record album covers from 1967 to 1981 for ...

– cover photography

References

{{Authority control Tim Buckley albums 1973 albums