Given his voracious desire to perform, it was always inevitable that last year's formidable 'Mystery White Boy' would not be the only Jeff Buckley live album to see the light of day. Once again, his mother Mary Guibert and guitarist Michael Tighe have collaborated to make these tapes available for release, a document of his concerts at the legendary Parisian venue L'Olympia in July 1995, nearly two years before his death.

"First and foremost," read the sleevenotes, "we'd like to acknowledge the fact that it was the French who were the first to recognize and acclaim the magic and power of Jeff's voice, music and poetry." This might well be true, but that means we can also hold them responsible for marring this version of 'Hallelujah', Buckley laughing as the audience hold their lighters in the air and exclaiming "This is so rock'n'roll". Yet elsewhere, the sense of live excitement is palpable and touching: the explosive segue from 'Eternal Life' into 'Kick Out The Jams'; playing at Piaf with 'Je N'En Connais Pas La Fin', a luminous 'Lover You Should Have Come Over'; a hilarious "33 rpm played at 45 rpm" helium gabble through 'Kashmir'. "You've given us a lot," yells an ecstatic audience member. "You've given me a lot too," replies Buckley, but this album once again proves our debt.

Release Notes

French Edition:
Release Date: June 17, 2001
CD #: COL 503204-2

Produced by Michael Tighe and Mary Guibert.
Original soundboard mix by Mark Naficy, Naf Productions, Seattle, Washington.
Engineer/editing by Michael J. Clouse at Ginstar Studios, Cresskill, New Jersey.
Mastered by Vic Anesini at Sony Studios, New York.
Digitally mastered from an analog audio cassette (tracks 1-10) and from a 2-track DAT (track 11).

Jeff Buckley: voice and guitar
Michael Tighe: guitar
Mick Grondahl: bass
Matt Johnson: drums
Alim Qasimov: guest voice on What Will You Say

Kick Out The Jams is a cover of a song originally performed by the MC5.
That's All I Ask is a cover of a song originally performed by Nina Simone.
Kashmir is not a complete cover, but just Jeff joking with the famous Led Zeppelin's song.

The booklet features lyrics to most of the songs, and excerpts of a biography (in French in the French edition, translated in English in the international edition) written in April 2001 by Jean Daniel Beauvallet. This biography has been integrally published in Jeff Buckley Une vie fulgurante, a monograph that was attached to Les Inrockuptibles issue number 295, in June 2001. Excerpts of the same biography were also included in Fall In Light, a documentary by Don Kent produced by Morgane Productions and broadcast on Arte.

Sony Music France has published an internet site at www.sonymusic.fr/buckley where you can read the liner notes and see the photos in the booklet. The booklet contains also a secret code that you can use on that site to see a streaming video of Jeff and Alim Qasimov rehearsing What Will You Say.