Jeff Buckley

Born Orange County, California, 1966; died Memphis, Tennessee May 29, 1997.

Jeff Buckley emerged in the mid-90s as one of the most gifted singer-songwriters of his generation; a remarkable feat considering it was achieved on the basis of just one album – and that everyone was comparing him to his late father, Tim, himself one of the most creative talents of the 60s.

Young Jeff made his first appearance in the early 90s, knocking about on New York’s Greenwich Village club circuit, the reputation of his mesmeric multi-octave voice and striking looks quickly spreading by word of mouth. The LIVE AT SIN-E mini-LP, released by British independent label Big Cat in 1994, captured Buckley in a typical club setting, alone with his electric guitar. Two originals, “Mojo Pin” and “Eternal Life”, highlighted his emerging talent, but it was on covers of Edith Piaf’s “Je N’en Connais Pas Le Fin” and Van Morrison’s “The Way Young Lovers Do” that Buckley really shines, on the latter scatting and improvising around the melody for a full ten minutes.

The debut album GRACE, (1995) appeared a few months later, and duly bowled the music press over. Particularly impressive was Buckley’s grasp of structure on the self-penned songs, employing a basic rhythm section behind his own guitar, augmented by sparse keyboards and strings. Buckley and his band showed themselves equally adept at creating dreamlike reveries (“So Real” and “Dream Brother”) and Led Zep-style riffing (“Eternal Life”), but the central feature of attention was Buckley’s startling voice. Like his father, he dominated the mood and tone of a song: he could effortlessly cruise along, then suddenly veer away in a flight of vocal power and finesse – listen to the codas of “Grace” and “So Real”.

Buckley cited heartbreak troubadours as his musical heroes and influences, and he possessed a lyrical depth and emotional honesty to match the best of them. Live appearances throughout the mid-90s saw an ever-increasing audience response to his music, and one that went well beyond the folk-club scene. Buckley triumphed, for example, at Elvis Costello’s Meltdown festival alongside a broad spectrum of other artists and musical styles. Maybe he inherited from his father that adventurous stance towards musical boundaries and the capabilities of the human voice.

His death – he drowned on Thursday, May 29, 1997, in the Mississippi River outside of Memphis – brought his outstanding promise to an abrupt end. GRACE will stand as his finest testament, despite the awesome beauty evident in the posthumously released and unfinished follow-up (SKETCHES FOR) MY SWEETHEART THE DRUNK (1998), and the sporadically wondrous live set MYSTERY WHITE BOY (2000), which was compiled by his mother and his guitarist, Michael Tighe, from his group’s 1994–1996 tour tapes.

Source: Rough Guides