For Jeff Buckley, it had been an early evening of driving around Memphis, Tenn., in a rented truck with his fellow musician (and roadie) Keith Foti, listening to Foti’s mix tape —– Jane’s Addiction, Porno for Pyros, the Beatles’ “I am the Walrus.” Their idea was to eventually go play twin sets of drums at a rehearsal space set aside for Buckley’s band, which would be arriving by plane later that very night of Thursday, May 29, to begin recording the follow-up to his first full-length album, Grace. But Buckley couldn’t seem to locate the building.
Jeff Buckley's Biography With Birthday, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Nationality, Father, Mother, Siblings, Spouse, Kids, Wiki etc. Jeffrey Scott 'Jeff' Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994. Rolling Stone considers him one of the greatest singers of all time. On May 29, 1997, Jeff died from accidental drowning in Tennessee, Memphis at age 30.
So they drove, recalls the 23-year-old Foti, not stopping to eat or drink, until the idea came: “Why don’t we go down by the water?” Around dusk they parked the truck in the nearly empty lot adjoining the Tennessee Welcome Center near the heart of downtown. They brought their boombox down the sloping bank to the shoreline of the Wolf River channel of the Mississippi River.
Within a few minutes, Buckley would be a victim of the river’s noted unpredictability –— and his own. Though his friends and the local authorities would spend a long night of fruitless searching, it was presumed that Buckley had drowned. It would be six days before the singer’s body was given up by the river, found at the foot of Beale Street —– amid branches and the other debris that typically gathers at a slow-swirling eddy where the channel meets the Mississippi. At the time of his death, Jeff Buckley was six months short of his 31st birthday, and his fans and many critics felt that his promise was as bright as any musician of his generation.
Ten days after Buckley’s body has surfaced, his road manager, Gene Bowen, stands by the riverbank. Looking at the muddy rush of water, he asks, “Why would you even put your toe in that? But it’s typical Jeff. He was a butterfly, you know? He was just like: ‘Go with it.’“
You can’t swim in that water
“We used to call it the chute,” says Coast Guard Petty Officer H.C. Kilpatrick about the channel, because it carried the eastern fork of the Wolf’s flow into the Mississippi. But the Army Corps of Engineers had capped the north end of the chute with an earthen dam, creating a seemingly quiet channel set apart from the Mississippi by a sprawling sandbank known as Mud Island but still fed from the south by the river’s waters. “Almost like a backwater,” Kilpatrick points out, noting the whirlpool-like eddies where the river rushes around Mud Island, “and definitely having undertows that are way underestimated.”
When Buckley entered the water from the trash-strewn bank, he was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and boots. He turned, grinning back at Foti, as he drifted in backward. When he was about knee deep, Foti remembers cautioning him: “You can’t swim in that water.” As Buckley continued, Foti repeated his caution: “What are you doing, man?” But Buckley smilingly reclined into the slate-gray water, singing the chorus of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” as he backstroked into the channel.
About 100 feet offshore is one of two massive cement pylons that support a monorail bridge to Mud Island. Buckley had just crossed past it in the growing darkness when Foti yelled that a small boat was approaching down the center of the channel, which the corps keeps dredging to a depth of some 9 feet.
“Hey, get out of the way!” yelled Foti, and Buckley did, but very shortly afterward, a larger boat appeared, creating a wake that surged toward the shoreline. Foti turned for just seconds to move the boombox off the flat rock where it sat. When he turned back, he says, “There was no sight of Jeff.”
After calling out for Buckley with increasing desperation for several minutes, Foti ran up the bank to the welcome center. There, at a pay phone not far from a statue of Elvis Presley, he called the police at 9:22 p.m. Help arrived quickly, but despite the presence of helicopters, police launches and officers combing the shoreline under emergency lighting (“This place was lit up like Christmas,” recalls Bowen), there would be no sight of Buckley until June 4, around 4:30 p.m., when a passenger aboard the riverboat American Queen spotted his body.
Bowen identified the body, barely recognizable at this stage but bearing Buckley’s navel ring with a purple bead and, as the autopsy noted, “green shiny toenail polish on three toenails.” The probable cause of death was “drowning,” although at press time, the Shelby County medical examiner had not yet completed a toxicology report from blood samples taken before Buckley’s body was cremated. Bowen, after closing down the house Buckley had planned to buy on a quiet residential street in Memphis, drove some of the singer’s possessions up to New York and carried his ashes to Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert.
Buckley had moved to Memphis to record what would effectively be his second album, though 1994’s Grace had been preceded by a well-loved four-song EP, Live at Sin-é, which had introduced the singer in December of 1993. Whether onstage or in the studio, Buckley made intensely personal music, ushering in songs with quavering guitar and moving from whispery, sensitive soliloquies to wailing, drum-thrashed sonic assaults. A natural high tenor with unfailing control of his falsetto, he could move surely through four octaves.
Even though Buckley avoided the guttural rumblings that marked the folk and jazz excursions of his natural father, the much-celebrated ’60s singer Tim Buckley, he was constantly being compared to the man whom he met only once, briefly, when Jeff was 8. Two months after that meeting, on June 29, 1975, Tim was dead, at age 28, of an overdose brought on by a combination of heroin, morphine and alcohol.
Tim Buckley left behind nine albums, which portrayed his singular progression from a romantic, visionary folk troubadour (Goodbye and Hello, 1967) to his increasingly jazz-inflected poesy (Starsailor, 1971) to, finally, a randy rocker. The apparitions in his brilliant 1972 album Greetings From L.A. range from post-Vietnam lost soul (“Nighthawkin”) to broken-hearted international roué (“Hong Kong Bar”). The elder Buckley never quite became a star, and the few sparing obituaries generally failed to mention his estranged wife, Mary, a classically trained pianist who’d been born in the Panama Canal Zone. Most also failed to mention his son, Jeffrey Scott Buckley.
Life as Scott Moorhead
Jeff Buckley was born in Los Angeles, on Nov. 17, 1966, at a time when his father already had abandoned his mother. Buckley was raised mostly in Orange County, Calif., surrounded, he has said, “by music and marijuana,” and kept his belongings in paper bags because of the family’s frequent moves. He spent his high school years among kids he referred to as the “Disneyland Nazi youth” of Anaheim, Calif. An elfin, contrary loner, he didn’t cherish his yearbook: “I had already drawn trails of blood trickling down the faces of all the popular people, and I just threw it out.”
Buckley had been raised as Scott Moorhead –— from his middle name and the surname of his stepfather, auto mechanic Ron Moorhead. Unresolvedly bitter over his natural father’s uncaringness, Buckley spoke well of Moorhead –— often noting that his step-dad gave him his first Led Zep album –— and the two stayed in touch even after Ron and Mary split up.
“Jeff and I had a wonderful talk on the telephone a few days prior to the accident,” says Moorhead. “He always reassured me that I was his dad and he was my son. Jeff was so happy. He told me he had stopped smoking and stopped eating meat. He was so excited about going into the studio; he felt his voice was the best it had ever been. Nothing in this world will ever take away the hurt in my heart, but the fact that I know my Scotty was so happy and full of joy softens my tears.”
Mary Guibert (who appears to be Buckley’s sole heir; he left no will) became a remote yet curiously vivid figure in the days after her son’s drowning. “It has become apparent to me my son will not be walking out of the river,” she said in a press release. “It is now time to make plans to celebrate a life that was golden.” In her statement for this article, she said, “The story of my son’s life is much bigger and richer than the few years he spent as a recording artist.”
Chanteuse with a penis
Jeff Buckley grew up consumed by music, playing in outfits ranging from reggae cover groups to metal bands. Not long after he decided to skip college, he enrolled in Los Angeles’ Musicians Institute – — a notorious station of the cross for L.A. hair bands. The music he’d learned from his classically trained mom melded with something much ruder, and Buckley soon bounced between coasts, making demos –— clearly talented but still searching for focus.
Buckley had immense self-confidence, a kind of bad-boy zeal mixed with a natural spieler’s stage savvy. He could play, note-perfectly, the ’60s and ’70s rock that he said had “polluted” his musical training. And he immersed himself, courageously, into anything from Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday (he once called himself “a chanteuse with a penis”) to the Bad Brains, Van Morrison and scads of Bob Dylan. He particularly loved Dylan’s “If You See Her, Say Hello.” At a gathering held at St. Mark’s Church in New York 13 days after Buckley’s death, many a tear was shed when his musical pal Tom Clarke played “If You See Her.” The mythological strands around the singer’s death will enforce the true believer’s mystical view that Buckley’s gift came from “some other place.” But his craft actually has roots that are quite straightforwardly traced.
Buckley often cited Led Zeppelin II (“Whole Lotta Love,” “Ramble On”) as the record that bewitched him into rocking, though he came to favor the more exotic drones and wailing of Zep’s Physical Graffiti. “He had the audio equivalent of a photographic memory,” recalls Andy Wallace, who produced Grace. “Not only everything from [Charles] Mingus to Sonic Youth, but every verse of ‘Yummy, Yummy, Yummy.'”
Buckley’s abrupt arrival on the New York art-pop scene came with his invitation to play at a concert tribute to Tim Buckley at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991. Writer Bill Flanagan, an early Buckley adherent, recalls how, just before intermission, during an “at-times tedious” show in which performers played by an altar, “Jeff appeared, in silhouette, and for the first time the stained-glass window was lit up. He strums a guitar and starts singing one of Tim’s songs, ‘I never asked to be your mountain.'” It was the elder Buckley’s autobiographical tale of abandoning his family: “The flying Pisces sails for time and tells me of my child/Wrapped in bitter tales of heartache, he begs for just a smile.” His hair then long and curly, Buckley sounded uncannily like his father and evoked “a little bit of a gasp,” recalls Flanagan. “At the end of that night, he was surrounded by people handing him their business cards.”
It was the start of Buckley’s cat-and-mouse game not just with his father’s legend but with his own. “He had been in bands in L.A.,” says Flanagan. “He’d bumped into Tim Buckley cultists enough to notice he wanted to stay clear of them; he wasn’t a novice to any of this.”
That night he met lover-to-be Rebecca Moore, who at the time was helping to stage the shows at St. Ann’s. The daughter of veteran downtown photographer Peter Moore, who documented the famed ’60s performance-art group Fluxus and other avant-garde phenomena, she was a beauty who plugged Buckley into an arty world he hadn’t seen. He finally decamped for good from California to be near her. In the inner fold of Grace‘s sleeve, he acknowledged Rebecca’s father: “P., Thank you for her. Thank you for them all. Bless you for us two. Love, Jeff.”
“When he got here, at 23 or 24,” says New York performance artist Penny Arcade, who was among Buckley’s closest friends, “Jeff was coming from pop culture, from cultural amnesia, and all of a sudden he found himself in the middle of a scene steeped in a history of artists working for generations.”
After a brief stint in the band Gods and Monsters —– led by Captain Beefheart alumnus Gary Lucas –— Buckley took his craft solo, he said, “to sit still and let the music –— what it sounded like, its philosophy, its needs, its eccentricities —– come to me.” He listened repeatedly to such adored musical touchstones as Duke Ellington and Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but on-stage Buckley poured his irrepressible emotionality into covers of pop, rap, folk and even cabaret songs. “Certain emotions,” he said, “just take you to the notes —– being furious, heroic, sad, erotic, when rain comes….”
![Last Last](https://jeffbuckley.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/JeffBday01.jpg)
Buckley was quite capable of shedding tears, doing Edith Piaf’s “Je N’en Connais Pas la Fin” at Sin-é, but he was even more capable of doing long skeins of stand-up-style banter with the audience. Present at those early shows at the East Village dive were label heads like Arista’s Clive Davis and Columbia’s Don Ienner. Even though Buckley had virtually nothing but cover tunes to offer them, his gift was so apparent that a quiet bidding war began. He had hooked up with lawyer George Stein for guidance, and, although several labels were willing to cut him a deal with rich signing bonuses and creative control, he settled in at Sony in part because of an empathetic A&R man, Steve Berkowitz –— plus, Buckley had glimpsed a giant photo of the young Dylan in the company’s hallway.
Buckley’s debut EP had primed the pump, and when Grace came out, in August of 1994, it was welcomed not just by his eager cult but by some 250,000 others (“The Last Goodbye” stayed near the top of Billboard‘s Modern Rock chart for 19 weeks). With the band he’d recruited for the studio –— drummer Matt Johnson, bassist Mick Grondahl and, just in time for the last album cut, guitarist Michael Tighe –— Buckley hit the road for the better part of two years, crisscrossing the United States and Europe (where, at Paris’ Olympia Theater, fans ripped his shirt off his back) and also breaking big in Australia.
The road, and the demands of minor but intense rock stardom, undid the romance with Moore. Joan Wasser, violinist and vocalist with Buckley’s sometime support act the Dambuilders, became a frequent companion. So he toured on, playing quirky club gigs and giving fervid interviews: “My personal aesthetic is to be affected directly by everything about what you’re seeing…. I don’t mind being dashed on the rocks…. My most base act of defiance is to live a long time and still rock.”
He’d survived past 28, the year of Tim Buckley’s sudden end, but had grown plenty sick of the questions about and the comparisons with his father. “I remember,” recalls producer Wallace, “him telling me how the one time that he met his father, it was a relatively negative interaction where he sort of felt like his father just wasn’t that interested in Jeff. That’s a tough thing to have happen —– that [and the comparisons] combined just make it a very, very raw nerve.”
I’ll never end up like my old man
After nearly three years on the road, Buckley halted. Management told him to take some time off, then woodshed and write songs. No pressure —– just that dreaded second album. His downtown friends felt the tension: “He was on edge in terms of being completely afraid to make a second album,” says a friend Nicholas Hill, a record producer and alternative-radio DJ, who heard Buckley’s frustration come out as anger against the label. “I would always yell back at him, ‘You consciously made a decision to go with the biggest record company you could find.'”
“Last fall,” says Penny Arcade, who shared a psychoanalyst with Buckley, “he called me late one night, and I went and met him. He was really going through a lot of changes about the new album, feeling a lot of pressure. He just had his 30th birthday. He was pretty upset, pretty shaky, and he said, ‘I just want to be as good as my father.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’ve got a problem, because your father made nine albums before he was 28…. Just by virtue of the way the music industry is today, you couldn’t make that many records…. [But] he wasn’t at all about, you know, being the guy with dark glasses in the convertible breezing down La Brea Boulevard. That wasn’t his vision.
“Jeff has been going through turbulence ever since he was born,” Arcade continues. “He was in a very rigorous personal inquiry of what it was to live in America at this point in history. I’m playing a tape now of one of his unreleased songs, ‘The Sky Is a Landfill.’ Before he died he called me from Memphis, and we spoke for three hours. I told him that that song would be the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ of his generation.”
With the public ghost of his father (and a glimmer of Jim Morrison, who died at age 27) shadowing him, it was often rumored that Buckley had been abusing drugs, notably heroin. Gossip, about which Buckley vented his disgust in these pages, had him playing romantic games with Courtney Love and Holemate Melissa Auf Der Maur. But one source deep in the Love/Hole camp maintains that Buckley’s smack use was “common knowledge.” The source, however, never saw it. Another musician who is a veteran of such scenes said that Buckley’s behavior at a particular after-show party was, to his eyes, blatantly junked out. Yet a good dozen friends and colleagues who saw Buckley regularly in recent years insist he was either categorically clean or, at most, may have merely experimented with drugs. “If you’re an addict, you’re an addict,” says Keith Foti, who quit substance abuse two years ago, “and if you’re not, you’re not. Jeff obviously was not.”
“It just wasn’t around,” says Bowen, who kicked five years ago. “My drug of choice was heroin —– that’s what took me down, and that’s what took his father down. And he always said, ‘I’ll never end up like my old man.'” Buckley was the age his father died at when he said in an interview that “drugs are like Vegas: The house always wins.”
The singer would make knowledgeably sardonic references to drugs, as in his description of Grace‘s “Mojo Pin” in a 1994 interview: “Plainly speaking… it’s a euphemism for a dropper full of smack that you shoot in your arm.” In any event, despite early reports mistakenly saying that the autopsy itself had scotched the drug rumors, final confirmation that Buckley died clean was still pending the Memphis medical examiner’s toxicology report, not completed as of a month after his death. (The ME is Dr. Jerry Francisco, who controversially ruled that Elvis Presley’s body had shown “no evidence of any abnormal illegal-drug use” when Presley died, in August 1977.)
Bowen insists that there were no drugs present on the night of Buckley’s death. “The police grilled us,” he says, “and we handed over the keys to the truck and said, ‘Have fun —– we have nothing to hide.'”
He just wanted to go in
In Memphis, Buckley apparently spent much of his time alone in his house, laying down demos and struggling to get his songs perfected. (One standout cut was called “Nightmares by the Sea.”) Both Buckley and punk legend Tom Verlaine had guested on Patti Smith’s Gone Again, and from their acquaintanceship emerged two sets of sessions: first in Manhattan, in the summer of ’96; and later in Memphis.
None of Buckley’s closest colleagues and confidants admits to hearing the results, which now, sadly, are the major part of the recorded legacy. What did result is a ripe fondness for Memphis, home to Buckley’s old pals the Grifters (especially leadman Dave Shouse and his wife, Tammy). When the sessions were done, Buckley stayed, moving from dreary corporate apartments to a small, funky cottage on a quiet midtown street where he let the grass grow wild and set up shop: a front room for his four-track, a pair of spare bedrooms in the back for the band when it would arrive. Buckley had a regular Monday night gig at a hole-in-the-wall club called Barrister’s. With the band due in, he was eager to begin recording. “Everything’s in black and white now,” he told Bowen. “The band’s coming down, and then… and then we’ll have color.”
He’d vowed to get a car but was getting around by bicycle and the kindness of not-quite strangers. Music writer Robert Gordon had met Buckley at Easley Studios during the Verlaine sessions; Buckley’s cottage was Gordon’s find, on the street where he and his wife, Tara, lived. “If you’ve moved somewhere by yourself, you know it’s a time to shed an old skin,” says Gordon. “I think he came here to woodshed.” But Buckley would come to dinner at the Gordon’s house wearing suspenders and green sharkskin; he’d sing to their newborn and drink his big coffees: “He had this energy inside of him, this excitement about everything. That vitality came out in his music. That he wanted to get into the river was totally characteristic; what my wife says is true –— the thing that killed him is also what made him who he was. Most people talk about the river, but they don’t go to it.”
Andria Lisle, a Memphis record-store manager who lived around the corner from Buckley and became a steady, platonic companion during the singer’s five months in Memphis, remembers him as existing there “like a kitten that would go from house to house, and everyone would do for him. He’d just show up and then go to the next house and get fed there, too. He lived for the moment —– spontaneous, very flirtatious, full of whimsy, mischievous. But he knew he was so blessed, and he was so committed to life.”
Lisle went with him to Al Green’s church. Afterward, Buckley ate two massive soul-food platters while the restaurant staff watched. The last time she saw Buckley was about 7:30 on the night he died. “Jeff and Keith [Foti] drove up, and Jeff was so excited,” Lisle recalls. “He’d gone to open a bank account, to get a car; he was going to buy the house he was living in, and he was walking on air about his boys coming in. We’d planned to go to a casino, but he wanted to go play the drums.”
Instead, he went to the river. Standing above the channel 10 days later, Gene Bowen considers it all: “The objective originally was just to go down there and —– you know, the sun was setting; it’s beautiful here, with the breeze —– and play some music and sing. And then he just wanted to go in.”
“He was unpredictable,” says Keith Foti. “That was the beauty about Jeff. Every moment was an expression.”
Buckley in 1994 | |
Background information | |
---|---|
Birth name | Jeffrey Scott Buckley |
Also known as | Scott 'Scottie' Moorhead |
Born | November 17, 1966 Anaheim,California, U.S. |
Died | May 29, 1997 (aged 30) (Drowning) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Instruments | |
Years active | 1990–1997 |
Labels | Columbia |
Associated acts | |
Website | jeffbuckley.com |
Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scott Moorhead,[1] was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing much interest from record labels[2] and his father Tim Buckley's manager Herb Cohen,[3] he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994.
Over the following three years, the band toured extensively to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring[4] and made sporadic attempts to record Buckley's second album in New York City with Tom Verlaine as producer.
In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-trackdemos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. On May 29, 1997, while awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim, fully clothed, in the Mississippi River when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat; his body was found on June 4.[5]
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk, expansions of Grace, and the Live at Sin-éEP. Chart success also came posthumously: with his cover of Leonard Cohen's song 'Hallelujah' he attained his first number one on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart that December. Buckley and his work remain popular[6] and are regularly featured in 'greatest' lists in the music press;[7][8] in 2004, Rolling Stone listed him at number 39 on their list of greatest singers of all time.[9]
- 8Musical style
- 10Legacy
Early life[edit]
Born in Anaheim, California,[1] Buckley was the only son of Mary Guibert and Tim Buckley. His mother was a Zonian of mixed Greek, French, and Panamanian descent,[10] while his father was the son of an Irish American father and an Italian American mother.[11] Buckley was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ron Moorhead, in Southern California, and had a half-brother, Corey Moorhead.[12][13] Buckley moved many times in and around Orange County while growing up, an upbringing Buckley called 'rootless trailer trash.'[14] As a child, Buckley was known as Scott 'Scottie' Moorhead based on his middle name and his stepfather's surname.[1]
His biological father, Tim Buckley, was a singer-songwriter who released a series of highly acclaimed folk and jazz albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and whom, he said, he only met once, at the age of eight.[15] After his biological father died of a drug overdose in 1975,[16] he chose to go by Buckley and his real first name, which he found on his birth certificate.[17] To members of his family he remained 'Scottie.'[18]
Buckley was brought up around music. His mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist.[19] His stepfather introduced him to Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and Pink Floyd at an early age.[20]
Buckley grew up singing around the house and in harmony with his mother,[21] later noting that all his family sang.[22] He began playing guitar at the age of five after discovering an acoustic guitar in his grandmother's closet.[23]
Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was the first album he ever owned;[24] the hard rock band Kiss was also an early favourite.[25] At the age of 12, he decided to become a musician,[24] and received his first electric guitar — a black Les Paul — at the age of 13.[26] He attended Loara High School,[27] and played in the school's jazz band.[28] During this time, he developed an affinity for progressive rock bands such as Rush, Genesis, and Yes, as well as jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.[29]
After graduating from high school, he moved north to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute,[30] completing the one-year course at the age of 19.[31] Buckley later told Rolling Stone the school was 'the biggest waste of time,'[24] but noted in an interview with DoubleTake Magazine that he appreciated studying music theory there, saying, 'I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartók.'[32]
Career[edit]
Buckley spent the next six years working in a hotel and playing guitar in various struggling bands playing in styles from jazz, reggae, and roots rock to heavy metal.[33] He toured with the dancehall reggae artist Shinehead[34] and also played the occasional funk and R&B studio session, collaborating with fledgling producer Michael J. Clouse to form X-Factor Productions.[35] Throughout this period, Buckley limited his singing to backing vocals.[citation needed]
He moved to New York City in February 1990,[36] but found few opportunities to work as a musician. He was introduced to Qawwali, the Sufi devotional music of India and Pakistan, and to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of its best-known singers.[37] Buckley was an impassioned fan of Khan,[38] and during what he called his 'cafe days,' he often covered Khan's songs. In January 1996, he interviewed Khan for Interview and wrote liner notes for Khan's Supreme Collection, Vol. 1 compilation. He became interested in blues musician Robert Johnson and hardcore punk band Bad Brains during this time.[20] Buckley moved back to Los Angeles in September when his father's former manager, Herb Cohen, offered to help him record his first demo of original songs. Buckley completed Babylon Dungeon Sessions, a four-song cassette that included the songs 'Eternal Life,' 'Unforgiven' (later titled 'Last Goodbye'), 'Strawberry Street' (a different version of which appears on the Grace Legacy Edition), and punk screamer 'Radio.'[39] Cohen and Buckley hoped to attract attention from the music industry with the demo tape.[40]
Buckley flew back to New York early the following year to make his public singing debut at a tribute concert for his father called 'Greetings from Tim Buckley.'[41] The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991.[41] Buckley rejected the idea of the concert as a springboard to his career, instead citing personal reasons regarding his decision to sing at the tribute.[42]
With accompaniment by experimental rock guitarist Gary Lucas, Buckley performed 'I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain,' a song Tim Buckley wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother.[43] Buckley returned to the stage to play 'Sefronia – The King's Chain,' 'Phantasmagoria in Two,' and concluded the concert with 'Once I Was' performed acoustically with an impromptu a cappella ending, due to a snapped guitar string.[43] Willner, the show's organizer, later recalled that Buckley's set closer made a strong impression.[44] Buckley's performance at the concert was counter-intuitive to his desire to distance himself musically from his father. Buckley later explained his reasoning to Rolling Stone: 'It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything. I used that show to pay my last respects.'[24] The concert proved to be his first step into the music industry that had eluded him for years.[45]
On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991, Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas resulting in the songs 'Grace' and 'Mojo Pin,'[46] and by late 1991 he began performing with Lucas' band Gods and Monsters around New York City.[47] After being offered a development deal as a member of Gods and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved back to New York to the Lower East Side at the end of 1991.[48] The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted in March 1992, he decided to leave the band.[49]
from Live at Sin-é (Legacy Edition) | |
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Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés around Lower Manhattan,[50] but Sin-é in the East Village became his main venue.[20] He first appeared at Sin-é in April 1992,[51] and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot there.[52] His repertoire consisted of a diverse range of folk, rock, R&B, blues and jazz cover songs, much of it music he had newly learned. During this period, he discovered singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland.[53] Buckley performed an eclectic selection of covers from a range of artists from Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bob Dylan, Édith Piaf, Elton John, the Smiths, Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson[39][52][53] and Siouxsie Sioux.[54][55] Original songs from the Babylon Dungeon Sessions, and the songs he'd written with Gary Lucas were also included in his set lists.[53] He performed solo, accompanying himself on a borrowed Fender Telecaster.[51] Buckley stated that he learned how to perform onstage from playing to small audiences.[15]
Over the next few months, Buckley attracted admiring crowds and attention from record label executives.[56] Industry maven Clive Davis even dropped by to see him.[15] By the summer of 1992, limos from executives eager to sign the singer lined the street outside Sin-é.[56] Buckley signed with Columbia Records, home of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen,[57] for a three-album, essentially million-dollar deal in October 1992.[58] Buckley spent three days in February 1993 in the studio with engineer Steve Addabbo and Columbia A&R man, Steve Berkowitz, recording much of Buckley's solo repertoire. Buckley sang a cappella and also accompanied himself on acoustic and electric guitars, Wurlitzer electric piano, and harmonium. These tapes remain unreleased in the Columbia vaults, but much of this material later surfaced on the Grace album.[59] Recording dates were set for July and August 1993 for what would become Buckley's recording debut, an EP of four songs which included a cover of Van Morrison's 'The Way Young Lovers Do'.[60]Live at Sin-é was released on November 23, 1993, documenting this period of Buckley's life.[61]
Grace[edit]
In mid-1993, Buckley began working on his first album with record producer Andy Wallace. Buckley assembled a band, composed of bassist Mick Grøndahl and drummer Matt Johnson, and spent several weeks rehearsing.[62][63]
In September, the trio headed to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York to spend six weeks recording basic tracks for what would become Grace. Buckley invited ex-bandmate Lucas to play guitar on the songs 'Grace' and 'Mojo Pin,' and Woodstock-based jazz musician Karl Berger wrote and conducted string arrangements with Buckley assisting at times.[64] Buckley returned home for overdubbing at studios in Manhattan and New Jersey, where he performed take after take to capture the perfect vocals and experimented with ideas for additional instruments, and added textures to the songs.[65]
In January 1994, Buckley left to go on his first solo North American tour to support Live at Sin-é.[65] It was followed by a 10-day European tour in March.[66] Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made in-store appearances.[65] After returning, Buckley invited guitarist Michael Tighe to join the band and a collaboration between the two resulted in 'So Real', a song which was recorded with producer/engineer Clif Norrell as a late addition to the album.[67][68] In June, Buckley began his first full band tour called the 'Peyote Radio Theatre Tour' that lasted into August.[69]PretenderChrissie Hynde,[70]Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and The Edge from U2[71] were among the attendees of these early shows.
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Grace was released on August 23, 1994. In addition to seven original songs, the album included three covers: 'Lilac Wine,' based on the version by Nina Simone;[53] made famous by Elkie Brooks, 'Corpus Christi Carol', from Benjamin Britten's A Boy was Born, Op.3, a composition that Buckley was introduced to in high school, based on a 15th-century hymn;[72] and 'Hallelujah'[73] by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your Fan.[53] His rendition of 'Hallelujah' has been called 'Buckley's best' and 'one of the great songs'[74] by Time, and is included on Rolling Stone's list of 'The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.'[75]
Sales of Grace were slow, and it garnered little radio airplay despite critical acclaim.[76]The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed it 'a romantic masterpiece' and a 'pivotal, defining work.'[77] Despite slow initial sales the album went gold in France and Australia over the next two years,[69] achieving gold status in the U.S. in 2002,[78] and selling over six times platinum in Australia in 2006.[79]
Grace won appreciation from a host of revered musicians and artists, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin.[80]Jimmy Page considered Grace close to being his 'favorite album of the decade.'[81]Robert Plant was also complimentary,[82] as was Brad Pitt, saying of Buckley's work, 'There's an undercurrent to his music, there's something you can't pinpoint. Like the best of films, or the best of art, there's something going on underneath, and there's a truth there. And I find his stuff absolutely haunting. It just ... it's under my skin.'[83]Others who had influenced Buckley's music lauded him:[84] Bob Dylan named Buckley 'one of the great songwriters of this decade,'[82] and, in an interview with The Village Voice, David Bowie named Grace as one of 10 albums he'd bring with him to a desert island.[85] The album eventually went on to feature in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, appearing at No. 303.[86]
Concert tours[edit]
Buckley spent much of the next year and a half touring internationally to promote Grace. From the album's release, he played in numerous countries, from Australia, to the UK (Glastonbury Festival and the 1995 Meltdown Festival — at which he sang Henry Purcell's 'Dido's Lament'[87] — at the invitation of Elvis Costello).[88] Following Buckley's Peyote Radio Theater tour, the band began a European tour on August 23, 1994, starting with performances in the UK and Ireland. The tour continued in Scandinavia and, throughout September, numerous concerts in Germany were played. The tour ended on September 22 with a concert in Paris. A gig on September 24 in New York dovetailed on to the end of the European tour and Buckley and band spent the next month relaxing and rehearsing.[89]
A tour of Canada and the U.S. began on October 19, 1994 at CBGB's. The tour was far reaching with concerts held on both East and West Coasts of the U.S. and a number of performances in central and southern states. The tour ended two months later on December 18 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey.[89] After another month of rest and rehearsal, the band commenced a second European tour, this time mainly for promotion purposes. The band began the tour in Dublin; Buckley has remained particularly popular in Ireland.[90] The short tour largely consisted of promotional work in London and Paris.[89]
In late January, the band did their first tour of Japan, playing concerts and appearing for promotion of the album and newly released Japanese single 'Last Goodbye.' The band returned to Europe on February 6 and toured various Western European countries before returning to the U.S. on March 6. Among the gigs performed during this period, Buckley and his band performed at a 19th-century-built French venue, the Bataclan, and material from the concert was recorded and later released in October of that year as a four track EP, Live from the Bataclan. Songs from a performance on February 25, at the venue Nighttown in Rotterdam, were subsequently released as a promotional-only CD, So Real.[89]
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Touring recommenced in April with dates across the U.S. and Canada. During this period Buckley and the band notably played Metro in Chicago, which was recorded on video and later released as Live in Chicago on VHS and later on DVD. In addition, on June 4 they played at Sony Music Studios for the Sony Music radio hour. Following this was a month-long European tour between June 20 and July 18 in which they played many summer music festivals. During the tour, Buckley played two concerts at the Paris Olympia, a venue made famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf. Although he had failed to fill out smaller American venues at that point of his career, both nights at the large Paris Olympia venue were sold out.[91] Shortly after this Buckley attended the Festival de la Musique Sacrée (Festival of Sacred Music), also held in France, and performed 'What Will You Say' as a duet with Alim Qasimov, an Azerbaijanimugham singer. Sony BMG has since released a live album, 2001's Live à L'Olympia, which has a selection of songs from both Olympia performances and the collaboration with Qasimov.[92]
Buckley's Mystery White Boy tour, playing concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, lasted between August 28 and September 6 and recordings of these performances were compiled and released on the live album Mystery White Boy. Buckley was so well received during these concerts that his album Grace went gold in Australia, selling over 35,000 copies, and taking this into account he decided a longer tour was needed and returned for a tour of New Zealand and Australia in February the following year.[69]
Between the two Oceanian tours, Buckley and the band took a break from touring. Buckley played solo in the meantime with concerts at Sin-é and a New Year's Eve concert at Mercury Lounge in New York.[89] After the break, the band spent the majority of February on the Hard Luck Tour in Australia and New Zealand, but tensions had risen between the group and drummer Matt Johnson. The concert on March 1, 1996 was the last gig he played with Buckley and his band.[69]
Much of the material from the tours of 1995 and 1996 was recorded and released on either promotional EPs, such as the Grace EP, or posthumously on albums, such as Mystery White Boy (a reference to Buckley not using his real name) and Live à L'Olympia. Many of the other concerts Buckley played during this period have surfaced on bootleg recordings.[93]
Following Johnson's departure, the band, now without a drummer, was put on hold and did not perform live again until February 12, 1997.[94] Due to the pressure from extensive touring, Buckley spent the majority of the year away from the stage. However, from May 2 to 5, he played a short stint as bass guitarist with Mind Science of the Mind, with friend Nathan Larson, then guitarist of Shudder to Think.[69] Buckley returned to playing live concerts when he went on his 'phantom solo tour' of cafés in the Northeast in December 1996, appearing under a series of aliases: the Crackrobats, Possessed by Elves, Father Demo, Smackrobiotic, the Halfspeeds, Crit-Club, Topless America, Martha & the Nicotines, and A Puppet Show Named Julio.[89] By way of justification, Buckley posted a note on his Internet site stating that he missed the anonymity of playing in cafes and local bars:
There was a time in my life not too long ago when I could show up in a cafe and simply do what I do, make music, learn from performing my music, explore what it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or entertain an audience who don't know me or what I am about. In this situation I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender. I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together, this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming it.[95]
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk[edit]
After completing touring in 1996, Buckley started writing a new album, to be called My Sweetheart the Drunk. He worked with Patti Smith on her 1996 album Gone Again and met collaborator Tom Verlaine, the lead singer for the punk band Television. Buckley asked Verlaine to be producer on the new album and he agreed.[96] In mid-1996, Buckley and his band began recording sessions in Manhattan with Verlaine. Eric Eidel played the drums through these sessions as a stop-gap between the dates drummer Matt Johnson left and before Parker Kindred joined as full-time drummer.[97] Around this time Buckley met Inger Lorre of The Nymphs in an East Village bar,[98] and struck up a fast and close friendship. Together, they contributed a track to Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness, a Jack Kerouac tribute album.[96] After Lorre's backup guitarist for an upcoming album quit the project, Buckley offered to fill in.[99] He became attached to one of the songs from the album, 'Yard of Blonde Girls', and covered it on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.[100] Another recording session in Manhattan followed in early 1997, but Buckley and the band were unsatisfied.[citation needed]
On February 4, 1997, Buckley played a short set at The Knitting Factory's tenth anniversary concert featuring a selection of his new songs: 'Jewel Box,' 'Morning Theft,' 'Everybody Here Wants You,' 'The Sky is a Landfill' and 'Yard of Blonde Girls.'[101]Lou Reed was there to watch[101] and expressed an interest in working with Buckley.[85] The band played their first gig with Parker Kindred, their new drummer, at Arlene's Grocery in New York on February 9. The set featured much of Buckley's new material that would appear on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk and a recording has become one of Buckley's most widely distributed bootlegs.[102] Later that month, Buckley recorded a spoken word reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, 'Ulalume,' for the album Closed on Account of Rabies.[103] It was his last recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee.[citation needed]
Buckley became interested in recording at Easley McCain Recording in Memphis, at the suggestion of friend Dave Shouse from the Grifters.[104] He rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of buying it.[105] Throughout this period, February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley played at Barristers', a bar located in downtown Memphis underneath a parking garage in an alley off Jefferson Avenue. He played numerous times in order to work through the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with the band then solo as part of a Monday night residency.[106] In early February, Buckley and the band did a third recording session with Verlaine, in Memphis, but Buckley expressed his dissatisfaction with the sessions and later called Grace producer, Andy Wallace, to step in as Verlaine's replacement.[96] Buckley started recording demos on his own 4-track recorder in preparation for a forthcoming session with Wallace.[96] Some of these demos were sent to his band in New York, who listened to them enthusiastically, and were excited to resume working on the album. These recordings would go on to compose the second disc of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. However Buckley was not entirely happy with the results and he sent his band back to New York while he stayed behind to work on the songs. The band was scheduled to return to Memphis for rehearsals and recording sessions on May 29.[citation needed]
Death[edit]
Wolf River Harbor, with Memphis, Tennessee, in background
On the evening of May 29, 1997, Buckley's band flew to Memphis intending to join him in his studio to work on his new material. The same evening, Buckley went swimming in Wolf River Harbor,[107] a slack water channel of the Mississippi River, wearing boots and all of his clothing and singing the chorus of the song 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin.[108] Buckley had gone swimming in the river several times before.[109] A roadie in Buckley's band, Keith Foti, remained onshore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. Despite a rescue effort that night and the morning after by scuba teams and police, Buckley remained missing. On June 4, two locals spotted his body in the Wolf River near a riverboat, and he was brought to land.[citation needed]
Buckley's autopsy showed no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system, and the death was ruled as an accidental drowning. His estate declared:
Jeff Buckley's death was not mysterious, related to drugs, alcohol, or suicide. We have a police report, a medical examiner's report, and an eye witness to prove that it was an accidental drowning, and that Mr. Buckley was in a good frame of mind prior to the accident.[110]
Tributes[edit]
Graffiti memorium by fans in Russia, 2015
- One-time friend Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins recorded the Massive Attack song 'Teardrop' on the day he died, and later stated: 'That was so weird ... I'd got letters out and I was thinking about him. That song's kind of about him – that's how it feels to me anyway.'[111]
- Duncan Sheik's 'A Body Goes Down' paid tribute to Buckley on Sheik's 1998 album Humming, which was also included in the documentary Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley. Drummer Matt Johnson played drums on the track, as well as for Grace and most of Humming.[112]
- Glen Hansard wrote 'Neath the Beeches' in memory of Buckley; it appears on the album Dance the Devil by Hansard's band The Frames.[113]
- Chris Cornell's song 'Wave Goodbye' from his album Euphoria Morning pays tribute to Buckley.[114][115]
- Pete Yorn's song 'Bandstand in the Sky' from his album Nightcrawler and his live album Live from New Jersey is a tribute to Buckley.[116]
- Zita Swoon's song 'Song for a Dead Singer' from the album I Paint Pictures on a Wedding Dress is a tribute to Jeff Buckley.[117]
- Coldplay's song 'Shiver' was inspired by Jeff Buckley's 'Grace.' Chris Martin called it 'a rip off of Jeff Buckley.'[118]
- Rufus Wainwright's 2004 album Want Two includes the track “Memphis Skyline” about the death of Buckley.
- Lisa Germano's 'Except For The Ghosts,' from the album In The Maybe World, was written for Buckley.[119]
- Aimee Mann's 'Just Like Anyone,' from the album Bachelor No. 2, pays tribute to Buckley.[120]
- Juliana Hatfield's song 'Trying Not To Think About It' from the album Please Do Not Disturb was written about the death of Jeff Buckley.[121]
- Lana Del Rey's song 'Gods and Monsters' is a direct nod to Buckley's former band. Del Rey cites Buckley as an influence.[122]
- Caligula's Horse's song 'Dragonfly' was described as 'a vocal dedication to the music of Jeff Buckley' by Jim Grey (the band's lead vocalist).[123]
Musical style[edit]
Buckley's voice was a particularly distinguished aspect of his music. He possessed a tenorvocal range that spanned around four octaves.[124] Buckley made full use of this range in his performance, particularly in the songs from Grace, and reached peaks of high G in the tenor range at the culmination of 'Grace.' 'Corpus Christi Carol' was sung entirely in a high falsetto. The pitch and volume of his singing was also highly variable, as songs such as 'Mojo Pin' and 'Dream Brother' began with mid-range quieter vocals before reaching louder, higher peaks near the ending of the songs.[125][126]
Buckley played guitar in a variety of styles ranging from the distorted rock of 'Sky is a Landfill', to the jazz of 'Strange Fruit', the country styling of 'Lost Highway', and the guitar fingerpicking style in 'Hallelujah'. He occasionally used slide guitar in live performances as a solo act and used a slide for the introduction of 'Last Goodbye' when playing with a full band. His songs were written in various guitar tunings which, apart from the EADGBE standard tuning, included Drop D tuning and an Open G tuning. His guitar playing style varied from highly melodic songs, such as 'The Twelfth of Never', to more percussive ones, such as 'New Year's Prayer'.[127][128]
Equipment[edit]
Buckley mainly played a 1983 Fender Telecaster and a Rickenbacker 360/12, but also used several other guitars, including a black Gibson Les Paul Custom and a 1967 Guild F-50 acoustic. When on tour with his band, he used Fender Amplifiers for a clean sound and Mesa Boogie amps for his overdriven tones. He was primarily a singer and guitarist; however, he also played other instruments on various studio recordings and sessions, including bass, dobro, mandolin, harmonium (heard on the intro to 'Lover, You Should've Come Over'), organ, dulcimer ('Dream Brother' intro), tabla, esraj, and harmonica.[129]
Personal life[edit]
Shortly before recording Grace, Jeff was roommates with actress Brooke Smith.[130] Smith takes credit for introducing Buckley to the music of Bad Brains during that time.
In 1994-95, Jeff had an intense relationship with Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins.[131]
At the time of his death, Jeff was in a relationship with Joan Wasser[132], to whom he had reportedly proposed marriage.[133]
Legacy[edit]
After Buckley's death, a collection of demo recordings and a full-length album he had been reworking for his second album were released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk — the compilation being overseen by his mother, Mary Guibert, band members and old friend Michael J. Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. The album achieved gold sales in Australia in 1998.[134] Three other albums composed of live recordings have also been released, along with a live DVD of a performance in Chicago. A previously unreleased 1992 recording of 'I Shall Be Released', sung by Buckley over the phone on live radio, was released on the album For New Orleans.
Since his death, Buckley has been the subject of numerous documentaries: Fall in Light, a 1999 production for French TV; Goodbye and Hello, a program about Buckley and his father produced for Netherlands TV in 2000; and Everybody Here Wants You, a documentary made in 2002 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). An hour-long documentary about Buckley called Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley has been shown at various film festivals to critical acclaim.[135] The film was released worldwide in 2009 by Sony BMG Legacy as part of the Grace Around The World Deluxe Edition.[136][137] In the spring of 2009 it was revealed that Ryan Jaffe, best known for scripting the movie The Rocker, had replaced Brian Jun as screenwriter for the upcoming film Mystery White Boy.[138]Orion Williams is also set to co-produce the film with Michelle Sy.[139] A separate project involving the book Dream Brother was allegedly cancelled.[140]
Buckley's premature death inspired many artists he knew or influenced to write songs in tribute to the late singer. PJ Harvey knew him personally and in the song 'Memphis' she takes lines from a song on his unfinished album, 'Morning Theft', and in her own words reflects on Buckley's death: 'In Memphis ... die suddenly, at a wonderful age, we're ready to go'.[141]Chris Cornell wrote 'Wave Goodbye', which appeared on his first solo album, Euphoria Morning, for Buckley.[115]Rufus Wainwright, whose fledgling career had barely started when he met Buckley, wrote 'Memphis Skyline' in tribute to him, singing 'then came hallelujah sounding like Ophelia, for me in my room living, turn back and you will stay, under the Memphis Skyline'.[142]Duncan Sheik's 'A Body Goes Down', from his 1998 album Humming, was a response to Buckley's death.[143]Steve Adey wrote a song tribute entitled 'Mississippi' on his 2006 album All Things Real. The song contains the lyrics 'Until the morning thief steals the humming of the Lord', a reference to Buckley's song 'Morning Theft'.[144]
In May and June 2007, Buckley's life and music were celebrated globally with tributes in Australia,[145] Canada, UK, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland,[146] Republic of Macedonia, Portugal and the U.S.[147][148][149] Many of Buckley's family members attended the various tribute concerts across the globe, some of which they helped organize. There are three annual Jeff Buckley tribute events: the Chicago-based Uncommon Ground, featuring a three-day concert schedule, An Evening With Jeff Buckley, an annual New York City tribute, and the Australia-based Fall In Light.[150] The latter event is run by the Fall In Light Foundation, which in addition to the concerts, runs a 'Guitars for Schools' program.[151] The name of the foundation is taken from the lyrics of Buckley's 'New Year's Prayer'.
In 2015, tapes of a 1993 recording session for Columbia Records were discovered by Sony executives doing research for the 20th anniversary of Grace. The recordings have been released on an album, You and I, in March 2016 and it features mostly covers of songs recorded previously by other artists.[152]
In 2012, at Toronto International Film Festival, Greetings from Tim Buckley premiered; the film explores the relationship Jeff Buckley had with his father.[153]
Buckley is referenced in the 2001 film Vanilla Sky, when Sofia asks David if he would rather listen to Jeff Buckley or Vikki Carr, to which he responds, 'Both. Simultaneously.' As David is leaving Sofia's apartment, the music playing is the intro to Jeff Buckley's song 'Last Goodbye', from his 1994 studio album Grace.
Resurgence[edit]
On March 7, 2008, Buckley's version of the Leonard Cohen song, 'Hallelujah', went to No. 1 on the iTunes chart, selling 178,000 downloads for the week, after being performed by Jason Castro on the seventh season of the television series American Idol.[154] The song debuted at No. 1 that week on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart, giving Buckley his first No. 1 on any Billboard chart.
In a similar vein, the 2008 UK X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, released a cover of 'Hallelujah' with the intent to top the UK Singles Chart as the Christmas number one single. Buckley fans countered this, launching a campaign with the aim of propelling Buckley's version to the number one spot. The campaign picked up support through social networking websites and it soon spread to the mainstream media.[155] Burke's version eventually reached Christmas Number One on the UK charts in December 2008.[156] Buckley's version of the song entered the UK charts at No. 49 on November 30, and by December 21 it had reached No. 2 despite the fact that it had not been rereleased in a physical format.[157][158]
Discography[edit]
- Studio album
- Grace (1994)
Awards and nominations[edit]
- The Académie Charles Cros awarded Buckley the 'Grand Prix International Du Disque' on April 13, 1995 in honor of his debut album Grace.[69]
- MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best New Artist in a Video for 'Last Goodbye', 1995.[159]
- Rolling Stone magazine nomination for Best New Artist, 1995.[5]
- Triple J Hottest 100 awarded No. 14 best song for that year in the world's largest voting competition for 'Last Goodbye', 1995.[160]
- In 2006, Mojo named Grace the No. 1 Modern Rock Classic of all Time. It was also rated as Australia's second favorite album on My Favourite Album, a television special aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on December 3, 2006.[161]
- Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for 'Everybody Here Wants You', 1998.[159]
- MOJO Awards nomination for Calalogue Release of the Year for Grace, 2005
- Grace was ranked No. 303 of the 500 Greatest Albums by Rolling Stone in 2003.[86]
- Buckley's cover of 'Hallelujah' was ranked No. 259 of the 500 Greatest Songs by Rolling Stone in 2004.[75]
- Rolling Stone ranked Buckley No. 39 in its 2008 list: The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.[162]
- On the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time, 2009,[163] Buckley's version of 'Hallelujah' was voted in 3rd place, Last Goodbye was 7th, Lover, You Should've Come Over was 56th and Grace came in 69th.
- On the Triple J Hottest 100 of the Past 20 Years, 2013, Last Goodbye was voted in 3rd place and Hallelujah at number 36.
Notes[edit]
- ^ abcBrowne (2001), p. 58
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 171–3
- ^Browne (2001), p. 107
- ^'The Kingdom For A Kiss Tourography'. Jeffbuckley.com. 1999. Archived from the original on December 15, 2014.
- ^ ab'Jeff Buckley — The Haunted Rock Star'. Marie Claire. October 29, 2001. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne, (2001) p. 337
- ^'The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time'. Rolling Stone. November 18, 2003. Archived from the original on April 30, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^'100 greatest songs of all time October 2006'. Q. October 2006. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^'Jeff Buckley'. Rolling Stone. December 2, 2010.
- ^Kane, Rebecca (July 19, 1998). 'What is Jeff's Ethnic Background?'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 16
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 62–63
- ^Kane, Rebecca (April 5, 1999). 'Jeff's Personal History and Family'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
- ^Vaziri, Aidin (1994). 'Jeff Buckley profile'. Transcribed from Ray Gun Magazine to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on April 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^ abcBrowne, David (September 24, 1993). 'The Unmade Star'. Transcribed from The New York Times to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 11
- ^Browne (2001), p. 68
- ^Kane, Rebecca (July 18, 1998). 'Scott Moorhead = Jeff Buckley'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Brooks, Daphne A. (2005). 'Chapter 1: Guided by Voices'. Grace. 331⁄3 series. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 19. ISBN0-8264-1635-7. Retrieved June 20, 2008.
- ^ abcFlanagan, Bill (February 1994). 'The Arrival of Jeff Buckley'. Transcribed from Musician to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Rogers, Ray (February 1994). 'Jeff Buckley: Heir apparent to ...' Transcribed from Interview to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on February 1, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Yates, Amy Beth (October – November 1994). 'Painting with Words'. Transcribed from B-Side Magazine to jeffbuckley.com. pp. 26–27. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Perrone, Pierre (June 6, 1997). 'Obituary: Jeff Buckley'. The Independent. London, UK. Retrieved August 8, 2010.
- ^ abcdDiehl, Matt (October 20, 1994). 'The Son Also Rises: Fighting the Hype and Weight of His Father's Legend, Jeff Buckley Finds His Own Voice On Grace'. Transcribed from Rolling Stone to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 64
- ^Browne (2001), p. 67
- ^'Loara High School Alumni List'. Loara High School. 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 69
- ^Browne (2001), p. 70
- ^Browne (2001), p. 95
- ^Browne (2001), p. 97
- ^Farrar, Josh (February 29, 1996). 'Interview'. Transcribed from DoubleTake Magazine to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 99–103
- ^Kane, Rebecca (May 25, 1998). 'What was his musical history?'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 98–99
- ^Browne (2001), p. 104
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 106–07
- ^Young, Paul (1994). 'Talking Music: Confessing to Strangers'. Transcribed from Buzz Magazine to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^ abBrowne (2001), p. 205
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 108–09
- ^ abBrowne (2001), pp. 130–134
- ^Kane, Rebecca (May 26, 1998). 'What was Jeff's public debut?'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 10, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^ abBrowne (2001), pp. 136–37
- ^Arcade, Penny (June 1997). 'Mannish Boy, Setting Sun'. Transcribed from Rolling Stone by pennyarcade.tv. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 138
- ^Browne (2001), pp. 140–141
- ^Kane, Rebecca (1999). 'Jeff Buckley Tourography: 1991–1993'. jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^Browne (2001), p. 142
- ^Browne (2001), p. 146
- ^Testa, Jim (1993). 'Making It In New York: Jeff Buckley'. Transcribed from Jersey Beat to jeffbuckley.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2008.
- ^ abBrowne (2001), p. 165
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This song I wrote in, I think, 1997 the day that Jeff Buckley died. He was a great singer-songwriter. But this is for him. And, uh, it's called Bandstand in the Sky.
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References[edit]
- Browne, David. Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley. HarperEntertainment. 2001, 2002. ISBN0-380-80624-X
- Kane, Rebecca. 'Kingdom for a Kiss—The Jeff Buckley F.A.Q.'. 1998, 1999. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
- Biography from jeffbuckley.com Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
Further reading[edit]
- Price, Chris & Harland, Joe. Live Fast, Die Young: Misadventures in Rock & Roll America. Summersdale. 2010. ISBN978-1-84953-049-1
- Apter, Jeff. A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley. Backbeat Books. 2009. ISBN978-0-87930-954-1
- Brooks, Daphne. Jeff Buckley's Grace. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2005. ISBN0-8264-1635-7
- Buckley, Jeff. Jeff Buckley Collection. Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN0-634-02265-2
- Cyr, Merri and Buckley, Jeff. Wished for Song: A Portrait of Jeff Buckley Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN0-634-03595-9
- Giulia Cortella, New York I love you a personal diary of Jeff Buckley, Cortellaeditore 2013. ISBN978-8895846095
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeff Buckley. |
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jeff Buckley |
- Jeff Buckley Videos Official Sony BMG music videos
- Jeff Buckley at AllMusic
- Jeff Buckley on IMDb
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