Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley died just a couple of years after his one and only official album, the stupendous Grace was released in 1994. Since then, a small industry has grown up around further releases of out-takes, LIVE recordings, re-packagings, tastefully overseen by his mother*

However, it's Grace that everybody starts from. To tell you the truth, I don't really feel capable of reviewing this stunning suite. Without a doubt, it's the best album Led Zepplin never recorded, the essence of the very best 70s English rock, tempered with a sensitivity that Robert Plant could never even come close to although but Grace is no clone, it's distinctly individual.

If it had been released back then, Grace would probably have been the best album of 1974. However, released 20 years later, it didn't (and doesn't) so much seem old-fashioned, as that contemporary music seemed (and seems) so bereft of Passion and well, Magnificence, that it just doesn't compare. It's music that both seduces and rampages for every glorious second.

While I don't believe it would be unfair to say that Grace's lyrics are hardly anything to get excited about...the fact is that they really don't matter, because Jeff "feels" everything so strongly, that words becoming integrated into the "sound" of the album rather than having any seperate sense. Perhaps they do actually make sense...but having heard the album several hundred times over the years, I've never been motivated enough to try to work out their literal meaning, the sound is that complete. Grace is a real audio experience, not a song-writing tutorial.

As such, I'm not going to even bother to talk about the songs individually, I'm only going to say that the overall effect is, well, glorious and I was genuinely surprised when I discovered that Buckley is mostly unknown in the USA. This album was a monstrous hit in Australia (where I live) and I promise you, if you're remotely interested in Led Zep-type of English Rock with and you've somehow missed out on Jeff Buckley, then you must have this album!

This is guitar rock with discipline, emotion and a near-religious sense of passion, very dramatic and intense. I strongly recommend it.

*Here's a 2007 audio interview with Buckley's effervescent mom, Mary Guibert, talking about Jeff's legacy, his youth etc.

As I mentioned before, there's something of a small industry around Buckley, and here is a small selection of the products, including:

a well-regarded LIVE album recorded in Paris...

"...Jeff Buckley's "Live A L'Olympia" is a work of art! You can just feel the happy atmosphere in the concert, and it's like you're actually there. Jeff's Zeppelin parody is hilarious, and every song will have you either laughing or crying!..." Maeve O'Brien

"...The sound on this CD is not the best- it was taken from a cassette that was found among Jeff's belongings after he "left us". But as many people have pointed out, it is a BETTER recording because there is a flow to it..." Anon

a LIVE concert DVD from Chicago, USA

"...This footage bleeds the passion and raw intensity every live act should strive to emulate..." K. Ray

"...In my experience there are two types of musicians, those whose music is extracted precisely from notes on a page, and those whose music spills from their souls like a river whose banks can no longer contain it. Mr. Buckley is surely one of the later. .." D. Weaver

a biography of both him and his father, the folk musician, Tim Buckley...

"...As a huge fan of Jeff Buckley and a fan of Tim, I approached David Browne's "Dream Brother" with a real wariness...(but) this biography of both artists, though, while sympathetic and fair in its treatment of father and son, is convincing evidence that reading the lives of the Buckleys together sheds better light on both...their rise from near-crippling early financial woes, and their tragic, early ends..." Volkswagen Blues

...and the somewhat bizarre string quartet tribute...

"...Of course, we'll always miss Jeff's voice. I found these arrangements of Buckley's music to be an interesting exploration of his songwriting --which is unique and intelligent..." Anon

"Why?" Michael Zannetou