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If you could duet with anyone dead or alive who would it be?
Natalie Merchant although I think my voice blends well with higher voices. I love the way Helen Avakian and I sound on my CD.
Who are your musical influences?
Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Mayer, and every artist I've ever encountered if you want to be truthful.
How do you write your songs? Do you start with the music or the lyrics.
It used to be exclusively words first but lately I've been working it the other way which takes longer but more efficient in exploring different musical directions . Sometimes, but rarely, words and music come at the same time.
Can you play any instruments if so which ones and do you have a favourite.
I play acoustic guitar and harmonica. I also play Air Sax, when will they invent Sax Hero?
How did you get into music, was it from an early age?
Listening to the radio as a child and to my Dad and Sister playing piano, I was always enthralled. But when I took piano at age 8 I was discouraged by an impatient teacher. Didn't get the courage again until my twenties when I taught myself guitar.
Do you have any musical training,
I studied with classical and pop guitarist Helen Avakian who produced my last CD. I took voice with Leslie Ritter of the duo Leslie Ritter and Amy Fradon.. My performance coach is Joe Yazbeck
Which of your songs are you most proud of?
Ah, they're all my children. Who can choose?
Where were you born, and do you still live there?
I was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ and spent most of my adult life not far from Woodstock, NY where I was an elementary school teacher. I'm now in Venice, Florida avoiding cold weather for the rest of my life.
Where would you like to see yourself in five years time?
Ten years younger with a bunch of songs in the movies.
Six words that best describe you..
Tenacious, mellow, sensitive, courageous, healthy, open-minded
What's your favourite of all of your songs?
Let Me Go. I feel I put the most emotion into it and I love how it's interpreted so many different ways.
how long did it take to write and record the 'It's about Time' album
The writing was a couple of years. The recording about six months, counting demos, rearranging and actual studio time. It took three trips to Woodstock over that time.
What is the best Live / recording moment you've ever had
Playing live for a benefit with Helen Avakian for a bunch of former students in a Pougkeepsie, NY coffee house. Any time I can share a stage with Helen is special. I love the looks she gives me when I deviate from what we rehearsed. And I loved amazing my former students who had grown some and never saw me in that light. Recording a demo of Let Me Go in Helen's studio was probably my best studio performance. Too bad the track quality was incompatible with the final studio mix.
Where was your first public performance
Helen conned me into a recital when I was a new student of hers. Closest I ever came to public projectile vomiting. My first paid performance was probably on Amelia Island, Florida at a restaurant called LuLu's Bra and Grille. Yes, Bra, not Bar. No, it wasn't a strip joint. Although I did go braless.
cd tracklisting
1 Let Me Go
2 Can't Leave My Mind
3 Underground
4 Keeping Secrets
5 Elevator
6 The Silence There
7 I Still Remember (How That Feels)
8 Meltdown
9 Tattoo
10 Crowded Memory
featured track
Let Me Go - It's been selected many times to be on various compilation CD's and web radio and seems to have the most traction with all age groups. I enjoy how it's interpreted in so many different ways. To some it resonates as a break-up song of a toxic relationship and for others it is recognized for what it was intended; a goodbye from a dying lover. To those who might quibble about it's unspecificness, I say, go argue with Bob Dylan......bud buckley
biography
Drawing strong comparisons to Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler, Bud Buckley has come on to the indie acoustic rock scene by blending thoughtful fingerstyle acoustic guitar with thoughtful vignette-style lyrics.
His second CD, It’s About Time, was released at the end of 2007 and brought more of the same musical stylings after his debut release, Feel My Love, in 2004. Overall, however, the 10-track CD has a more mature, refined tone. “Can’t Leave My Mind,” features intricate strings precisely mixed while Bud’s thoughtful lyrics depict an endearing relationship. In it, he sings, “You blow through my hair even when it’s still/ I feel you in everything you’ve touched/ You seep into me against my will.” His track “Underground” offers a true acoustic rock sound ala John Mellencamp with a humane message as he sings, “The air is getting filthy so we’ll call it nice and clean/ The rivers run with mercury and the fish are turning mean.”
“To me songs are more about the words and the vocal delivery. My lyrics speak to our humanity, our wins and losses, our draws and each of those is equally valuable. I also strive not to use clichés either lyrically or vocally. Damn hard to do in this day and age and still be at all intelligible.”
It’s About Time features appearances by a variety of noted musicians. Helen Avakian, a singer/songwriter who has opened for Mary Chapin Carpenter, Marshall Crenshaw and the New York Philharmonic, produced and contributed acoustic guitar as well as etherial back-up vocals to the album. Other musicians who contributed to It’s About Time include Terry Champlin played classical guitar. His music has been performed worldwide by such groups and artists as David Starobin, Evangelos and Liza, The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra and The Highlands Symphony. Grammy-nominated producer Scott Petito, who engineered, mixed and mastered at his NRS Studios in Woodstock, NY, and whose recording credits include The Band, James and Livingston Taylor, Mark Knopfler, Keith Richards, Bela Fleck, and Stevie Wonder, played bass, piano, B2 organ, acoustic and electric guitar. Deni Bonet, a Lilith Fair singer/songwriter/musician who has recorded and/or performed with REM, Sarah McLachlan and Cyndi Lauper, added violin, viola and electric violin. Beth Reineke served as a vocal coach and production assistant.
Reviewers have glowed about the release. Creative Loafing called Bud’s music “…a sincere set of acoustic folk rock, elevated by mature arrangements.” Among a slew of other positive comments have earned Bud a positive reputation. “Bud Buckley makes the kind of music that I want to hear when I listen to the radio, and that's why I don't listen to the radio,” claims Chris Propfe of MusesMuse.com.
Hailing from Venice, Florida, Bud has also lived in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Bud spent most of his adult life in the Woodstock, New York, region. A self-taught guitarist, he was also an elementary school teacher. It was then he met his mentor Helen Avakian, a resident Flamenco guitarist at Bard College and multi-talented singer/songwriter, who educated him in fingerstyle guitar. She was a driving force in challenging him to write and worked with Bud’s wife, Cathy Lewis, to connect him with voice instructor Leslie Ritter (of the duo Leslie Ritter and Amy Fradon).
“Helen set me loose and my musician friend Davis Turner on Amelia Island, Florida, coaxed me to perform. I started doing open mic and bars and coffee houses and started getting steady gigs and eventually had enough material to record two CDs,” says Bud.
His college education in journalism and experience as a feature writer and columnist lent him strength in the songwriting department, though Bud admits that he had help from others to create the tracks. Bud penned all of the songs on his album with some co-writing input from former student Kathy Feeney. Author James Braha, one of his guitar students, co-wrote “Meltdown” while he was teaching him.
“Writing is my first strength, certainly. But I love the process of striving to become better and better at writing music. The same is true of my performance skills. I like to think I get better all the time. I certainly work at it,” says Bud, who plays harmonica as well as guitar.
Bud’s music has been featured on compilation CDs such as Moozikoo’s Best of Indies and Indie Music for Life, Positively Music Benefit Music Compilation and Quickstar’s Chill Out. His song “Crowded Memory” has been placed in a public service advertisement in California for a drug rehabilitation facility. He is entertaining several licensing and co-publishing deals with different music libraries. “I have to be patient about that. There are many offers to use me and abuse me, but I’ll wait for an honest offer to come along.”
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