Biography
Lee Underwood, the guitarist whose lengthy partnership with Tim Buckley frequently leads listeners to label him a folk-rock player, cultivates an unmistakable instrumental approach that incorporates British, Celtic, and American folk elements alongside modal and vanguard jazz, classical repertoire, and Latin and Spanish lineages. He served for ten years as Buckley's principal guitarist from 1965 through 1975, appearing on seven of the nine studio albums—Tim Buckley, Goodbye and Hello, Happy Sad, Blue Afternoon, Lorca, Starsailor, and Sefronia—plus notable posthumous concert documents such as Dream Letter: Live in London 1968 and Live at the Troubadour 1969. After stepping away from the road in 1973, Underwood joined the staff of Downbeat and held the West Coast editorship from 1975 to 1981; his byline also surfaced in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Coda, and additional publications. Throughout the late 1970s he contributed to Mind/Body/Spirit and New Age Journal. His solo acoustic guitar recording California Sigh appeared in 1988, followed in 1990 by the co-authored volume Inside Paul Horn and, in 2002, by Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered. Two further solo piano collections arrived later: Phantom Light in 2003 and Gathering Light in 2009. Drag City of Chicago reissued California Sigh in 2024.
Born in Boulder, Colorado, in 1938 while his parents pursued master's degrees, Underwood moved frequently during childhood after his father became a Veterans Administration hospital administrator. Saturday evenings found the boy concealed beneath blankets, secretly tuned to The Grand Ole Opry on a plastic portable radio, where Hank Williams, Chet Atkins, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, and many others captivated him; Atkins first sparked his interest in the guitar.
In high school Underwood competed in varsity athletics and took up piano, absorbing the work of jazz pianists Dave Brubeck and Lennie Tristano as well as saxophonists Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins before discovering Miles Davis. Jazz shaped not only his musical outlook but also his broader perspective on daily existence. He spent a year and a half at the University of Colorado, transferred to San Francisco State College where he earned a BA in English literature, and briefly attended graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. There he abandoned his studies, acquired a secondhand Martin guitar, and taught himself to play while absorbing Doc Watson, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Spider John Koerner; he also began composing songs and refining his technique, later recalling early lessons from Stu Goldberg and Peggy Seeger.
After relocating to New Jersey for a year of English instruction, restlessness prompted him to abandon conventional employment. He returned to San Francisco to perform on the streets and in North Beach folk clubs before crossing the continent to New York.
During his twenties in Greenwich Village, while gigging in folk venues, he encountered nineteen-year-old Tim Buckley in 1964. Buckley, having just signed with Elektra, heard Underwood perform and immediately invited him to join a six-week engagement at The Night Owl. The pair remained close until Buckley's death in June 1975, with Underwood appearing on Essra Mohawk's Primordial Lovers and contributing lead guitar to the second side of the Doors' self-titled debut album.
Underwood made his recording debut on Buckley's 1965 self-titled album, then participated in seven of the nine studio releases, including Happy Sad, Goodbye and Hello, Blue Afternoon, Lorca, and Starsailor, though his presence on Sefronia was minimal; he is absent from the raw, wily funk of Greetings from L.A. and from the rock-oriented Look at the Fool. An aspiring jazz guitarist at the time of their first meeting, Underwood readily accompanied Buckley from hushed, hypnotic folk-jazz into the abrasive territory of an avant-garde ensemble featuring the silver-haired horn-playing brothers Buzz and Bunk Gardner. He eventually withdrew once Buckley pursued a fusion of loud, free-form funk and rock. Although Greetings from L.A. drew criticism upon release, later assessments have deemed it prescient, a reappraisal also extended to Starsailor and Lorca while Blue Afternoon continues to be viewed as underappreciated. Whether ahead or behind the curve, Underwood departed after Sefronia in 1973, by which point Joe Falsia had already assumed studio duties. His imprint on Buckley's sound and aesthetic remains substantial; observers frequently accord him equal creative responsibility for shaping the music that continued evolving into uncharted territory and influenced successive generations.
Underwood was familiar with alcohol and drugs. Following his final tour with Buckley he entered the Synanon rehabilitation center. Once sober he began writing short stories and poems and, to earn income, supplied jazz articles to Downbeat. Shortly after his friend's 1975 death he became West Coast editor and continued contributing criticism to Rolling Stone, Coda, the Los Angeles Times, and other outlets.
As editor he promoted the concept of local-scene columns and conducted a series of profiles on West Coast musicians. Throughout the latter half of the decade he remained an avid chronicler of new jazz developments and was instrumental in securing John Zorn's first photograph in Downbeat; he likewise directed readers toward international figures such as Pandit Pran Nath and L. Shankar as well as avant-garde composer LaMonte Young.
By 1980 Underwood had grown saturated with jazz performance and study. He turned toward new age music, particularly the work of synthesists Michael Stearns, Steve Roach, and Kevin Braheny. In 1988 he issued California Sigh, his first solo acoustic guitar album, produced by Roach and initially released solely on cassette, a format Underwood stated at the time sounded superior to the emerging compact disc.
He immersed himself musically, culturally, and spiritually in new age music, an orientation that likewise informed his prose. Underwood became a regular contributor to Body/Mind/Spirit, New Age Journal, New Realities, and numerous additional periodicals, conducting more than twenty-five interviews with space musicians ranging from Harold Budd and Steven Halpern to Terry Riley, Constance Demby, and Jon Hassell. Although a publisher initially accepted a book of these conversations, the house later demanded a less intellectual tone and requested edits; Underwood declined, leaving the project unpublished. The interviews remain available on his website.
In 1990 Underwood departed Los Angeles for New Mexico. He co-authored flutist Paul Horn's autobiography Inside Paul Horn: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Universal Traveler, issued by Harper Collins in 1991.
Steady work on Buckley's posthumous releases, among them the celebrated Dream Letter: Live in London 1968 and Live at the Troubadour 1969, afforded further practice in music writing; those sets, like many others by Tom Scott, Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Fortune, Roach, and Braheny, carried Underwood's liner notes. In 1998 he left New Mexico for Oakhurst, California, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Over ensuing years, emails, social-media posts, and other online forums repeatedly conveyed fans' desire for a Buckley biography. He responded by composing Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered, published in 2002. The following year he released the solo piano album Phantom Light. He began issuing and publicly performing his poetry, often accompanying himself on piano. After Gathering Light, a second piano collection, he published Timewinds the next year. Diamondfire: Selected Poems appeared in 2015, followed by Into Light in 2021 and Riversong in 2024. In June 2021, Chicago's independent label Drag City licensed, remastered, and reissued California Sigh on vinyl, marking its first appearance in that format.
Born in Boulder, Colorado, in 1938 while his parents pursued master's degrees, Underwood moved frequently during childhood after his father became a Veterans Administration hospital administrator. Saturday evenings found the boy concealed beneath blankets, secretly tuned to The Grand Ole Opry on a plastic portable radio, where Hank Williams, Chet Atkins, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, and many others captivated him; Atkins first sparked his interest in the guitar.
In high school Underwood competed in varsity athletics and took up piano, absorbing the work of jazz pianists Dave Brubeck and Lennie Tristano as well as saxophonists Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins before discovering Miles Davis. Jazz shaped not only his musical outlook but also his broader perspective on daily existence. He spent a year and a half at the University of Colorado, transferred to San Francisco State College where he earned a BA in English literature, and briefly attended graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. There he abandoned his studies, acquired a secondhand Martin guitar, and taught himself to play while absorbing Doc Watson, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Spider John Koerner; he also began composing songs and refining his technique, later recalling early lessons from Stu Goldberg and Peggy Seeger.
After relocating to New Jersey for a year of English instruction, restlessness prompted him to abandon conventional employment. He returned to San Francisco to perform on the streets and in North Beach folk clubs before crossing the continent to New York.
During his twenties in Greenwich Village, while gigging in folk venues, he encountered nineteen-year-old Tim Buckley in 1964. Buckley, having just signed with Elektra, heard Underwood perform and immediately invited him to join a six-week engagement at The Night Owl. The pair remained close until Buckley's death in June 1975, with Underwood appearing on Essra Mohawk's Primordial Lovers and contributing lead guitar to the second side of the Doors' self-titled debut album.
Underwood made his recording debut on Buckley's 1965 self-titled album, then participated in seven of the nine studio releases, including Happy Sad, Goodbye and Hello, Blue Afternoon, Lorca, and Starsailor, though his presence on Sefronia was minimal; he is absent from the raw, wily funk of Greetings from L.A. and from the rock-oriented Look at the Fool. An aspiring jazz guitarist at the time of their first meeting, Underwood readily accompanied Buckley from hushed, hypnotic folk-jazz into the abrasive territory of an avant-garde ensemble featuring the silver-haired horn-playing brothers Buzz and Bunk Gardner. He eventually withdrew once Buckley pursued a fusion of loud, free-form funk and rock. Although Greetings from L.A. drew criticism upon release, later assessments have deemed it prescient, a reappraisal also extended to Starsailor and Lorca while Blue Afternoon continues to be viewed as underappreciated. Whether ahead or behind the curve, Underwood departed after Sefronia in 1973, by which point Joe Falsia had already assumed studio duties. His imprint on Buckley's sound and aesthetic remains substantial; observers frequently accord him equal creative responsibility for shaping the music that continued evolving into uncharted territory and influenced successive generations.
Underwood was familiar with alcohol and drugs. Following his final tour with Buckley he entered the Synanon rehabilitation center. Once sober he began writing short stories and poems and, to earn income, supplied jazz articles to Downbeat. Shortly after his friend's 1975 death he became West Coast editor and continued contributing criticism to Rolling Stone, Coda, the Los Angeles Times, and other outlets.
As editor he promoted the concept of local-scene columns and conducted a series of profiles on West Coast musicians. Throughout the latter half of the decade he remained an avid chronicler of new jazz developments and was instrumental in securing John Zorn's first photograph in Downbeat; he likewise directed readers toward international figures such as Pandit Pran Nath and L. Shankar as well as avant-garde composer LaMonte Young.
By 1980 Underwood had grown saturated with jazz performance and study. He turned toward new age music, particularly the work of synthesists Michael Stearns, Steve Roach, and Kevin Braheny. In 1988 he issued California Sigh, his first solo acoustic guitar album, produced by Roach and initially released solely on cassette, a format Underwood stated at the time sounded superior to the emerging compact disc.
He immersed himself musically, culturally, and spiritually in new age music, an orientation that likewise informed his prose. Underwood became a regular contributor to Body/Mind/Spirit, New Age Journal, New Realities, and numerous additional periodicals, conducting more than twenty-five interviews with space musicians ranging from Harold Budd and Steven Halpern to Terry Riley, Constance Demby, and Jon Hassell. Although a publisher initially accepted a book of these conversations, the house later demanded a less intellectual tone and requested edits; Underwood declined, leaving the project unpublished. The interviews remain available on his website.
In 1990 Underwood departed Los Angeles for New Mexico. He co-authored flutist Paul Horn's autobiography Inside Paul Horn: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Universal Traveler, issued by Harper Collins in 1991.
Steady work on Buckley's posthumous releases, among them the celebrated Dream Letter: Live in London 1968 and Live at the Troubadour 1969, afforded further practice in music writing; those sets, like many others by Tom Scott, Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Fortune, Roach, and Braheny, carried Underwood's liner notes. In 1998 he left New Mexico for Oakhurst, California, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Over ensuing years, emails, social-media posts, and other online forums repeatedly conveyed fans' desire for a Buckley biography. He responded by composing Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered, published in 2002. The following year he released the solo piano album Phantom Light. He began issuing and publicly performing his poetry, often accompanying himself on piano. After Gathering Light, a second piano collection, he published Timewinds the next year. Diamondfire: Selected Poems appeared in 2015, followed by Into Light in 2021 and Riversong in 2024. In June 2021, Chicago's independent label Drag City licensed, remastered, and reissued California Sigh on vinyl, marking its first appearance in that format.
Albums
Singles
