Buckley, Jeff

JEFF BUCKLEY

Born: Jeff Scott Buckley; Orange County, California, 17 November 1966; died Memphis, Tennessee, 29 May 1997

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Grace (1994)

Hit songs since 1990: "Last Goodbye"

The life of singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley is fraught with sadness and tragedy. Buckley's mastery of guitar and his fragile-sounding tenor earned him comparisons to veteran rockers Robert Plant and Van Morrison, and his bittersweet lyrics and early death at the age of thirty earned him comparisons to British folksinger Nick Drake, who suffered a similar fate. Although Buckley had released only a live EP and one full-length studio album, Grace (1994), before his untimely death in 1997, his death saddened thousands of fans and friends in the music industry. At the time of his death, Buckley had recorded much of his second full-length album, which was released in 1998 under the guidance of his mother, Mary Guibert, who is the executor of his estate.

Buckley had the uncanny misfortune of following the legacy of his father, Tim Buckley, an eccentric folksinger known by critics and the folk music community for the innovation he showed in the melding of jazz, folk, and rock in the 1960s and 1970s. Tim Buckley also suffered a tragic death; he died, penniless, of a heroin overdose when Jeff was only eight years old. Despite the impressive lineage, Jeff Buckley never really knew his father. His Panamanian-born, classical pianist mother divorced Tim when Jeff was very young. Buckley grew up in Orange County, California, and was uprooted constantly throughout his childhood as his mother struggled against poverty.

He began to perform in the early 1990s and released an EP, Live at Sin-e, named after a club in New York City where Buckley had been playing steadily. Ironically, Buckley first caught the attention of music industry executives when he performed at a tribute concert for his father in April 1991, at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn. On Live at Sin-e, with grace and fire equally present, Buckley shifts from a cover of French cabaret singer Edith Piaf to Van Morrison without missing a beat. It caught the attention of music critics, industry veterans, and fans for its rawness, passion, and deft guitar playing.

When Buckley released his full-length debut Grace (1994), critics could not stop praising him as a virtuoso and an original. Richly textured, ambitious, and marked by spiritual and emotional examinations, Grace is so coherent and moving it shows that Buckley possessed the wisdom, romanticism, and the skill of someone much older. On the rollicking "Last Goodbye," he sings "This is our last embrace / Must I dream and always see your face?" The string instruments soar along with his voice; it is impossible to miss his utter devastation. Though his friends and his mother avow that Buckley during those years was happy and not depressed, it is impossible to miss the despair in his lyrics. Another standout track "Lover, You Shouldn't Have Come Over," with its romantic ruminations, showcases his emotional range.

There are a few covers on the album, which are as varied as they are lovely. Buckley imbues Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" with a sad joyfulness, accompanied solely by a meandering electric guitar. With his angelic, soulful falsetto, Buckley hits the upper register in his cover of "Corpus Christi Carol," a sixteenth-century madrigal arranged by composer Benjamin Britten.

After the success of his debut, Buckley took a break from recording. It was during this break that he died from drowning in the Mississippi River after deciding to go for a swim with his boots on. His body was found on June 4, 1997. His death was deemed an accidental drowning.

After Buckley's death, his mother met with executives from Columbia, and they decided to release an album he had been working on. In the liner notes to the posthumous album, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, a title that Buckley had chosen himself, Bill Flanagan writes that it was not out of character for Buckley to spontaneously jump in the river for a swim. Buckley was a passionate individual who had scarcely begun what was sure to be a storied and varied musical career. He will be remembered for his powerful, pained voice, sturdy command of the guitar, and achingly honest songwriting.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Live at Sin-e EP (Columbia, 1993); Grace (Columbia, 1994); Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (Columbia, 1998). Mystery White Boy: Live Recordings 1995–1996 (Columbia, 2000).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

D. Browne, Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley (New York, 2001).

carrie havranek