Tim Buckley: Morning Glory: The Tim Buckley Anthology

FOR AN OVERVIEW of a career that began in seemingly humble singer/songwriter tradition, shot skyward in a surge of near-astonishing artistic ambition, then apparently fizzled in a half-hearted muddle of compromise, Morning Glory is a remarkably consistent listen. The zigs and zags that make Tim Buckley's recorded legacy a puzzle to the uninitiated have, perhaps wisely, been smoothed out for this first attempt at a comprehensive career summation. And one can't fairly argue the point: until those unfamiliar with his wild artistic leaps get a glimmer of his more restrained ones, they might not appreciate how very high he soared. Which means that the yodelling, multidubbed, metallic-shrieking Tim Buckley who sang the title track of 1971's Starsailor, his crowning artistic achievement, is under wraps here, emerging just once, on 'Monterey', before being reined in by time and, one assumes, commercial reality.