| Jeffrey Scott Buckley |
Buckley in 1995.
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Jeffrey Scott Buckley |
| Born |
November 17 1966(1966--) |
| Origin |
Anaheim, California,
U.S. |
| Died |
May 29 1997 (aged 30)
Memphis, Tennessee, USA |
| Genre(s) |
Alternative rock, Hard rock, Folk rock, Blues |
| Occupation(s) |
Singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) |
Vocals, Guitar, Bass guitar, Harmonium, Organ,
Drums, Dulcimer, Tabla,
Sitar, Harmonica, |
| Years active |
1991 – 1997 |
| Label(s) |
Columbia |
Associated
acts |
Tim Buckley, Gary Lucas, Inger Lorre, John Zorn, Rebecca
Moore, Shinehead, Chris Cornell |
| Website |
www.jeffbuckley.com |
Jeff Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), born Jeffrey Scott Buckley and raised as Scotty
Moorhead,[1] was an
American singer-songwriter and guitarist.
Known for his ethereal singing voice, Buckley was considered by critics to be one of the most promising artists of his
generation after the release of his critically acclaimed 1994 debut album Grace. At
the height of his popularity, Buckley drowned during an evening swim in 1997.[2] His work and style continue to be highly regarded by critics
and fellow musicians.
Biography
Early life
Born in Anaheim, California,[1] Jeff Buckley was the only son of Mary Guibert and Tim
Buckley. His mother was a Panama Canal Zonian of mixed Greek, French, American and Panamanian
descent,[3] while his father was the descendant of
Irish immigrants from Cork.[4] His father was also a
singer-songwriter who released a series of highly acclaimed folk and jazz albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s. About his father Buckley said,
"I never knew him... I met him once, when I was 8."[5] Tim Buckley died of a drug overdose in
1975.[6]
Jeff Buckley was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ron Moorhead, in Southern California, and had a half-brother Corey Moorhead.[7] Buckley moved many times in and around Orange County while growing up with a single mother, an
upbringing Buckley called "rootless trailer trash".[8] As a child, Jeff Buckley was known as Scott "Scotty" Moorhead based on his middle
name and his stepfather's surname.[1] After his father died, he chose to go by Buckley and his real first
name which he found on a birth certificate.[9] To members
of his family he remained "Scotty".[10]
Buckley was brought up around music. His mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist.[11] His stepfather introduced him to
Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Pink Floyd at an early age.[12] Buckley grew up singing around the house and singing in
harmony with his mother.[13] "Everybody in my family sang,"[14] Buckley said. He found an acoustic guitar in his grandmother's closet that he started playing with
at the age of 6.[11] Led
Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was the first album
he ever owned.[15] The
hard rock band Kiss was also an early favorite.[16] At the age of 12, he decided to become a musician.[15] He received his first electric
guitar, an imitation black Gibson Les Paul, at the age of 13.[17] By high school, Buckley had developed an
affinity for progressive rock bands such as Rush,
Genesis, and Yes, as well as jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.[18] Buckley played in the school jazz band.[19]
In 1984, Buckley graduated from high school and moved north to Hollywood to attend the Musicians
Institute.[20] He graduated from the one-year
course at the age of 18.[21] "It was the biggest waste of
time,"[15] Buckley once
stated about the school. However, Buckley did appreciate studying music theory there
saying, "I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartók."[22] "He had some of the
most interesting chords and chord progressions
of my generation,"[23] musician Ben Harper said about Buckley years later.
Buckley spent the next 6 years working in a hotel and playing guitar in various struggling bands, spanning a diverse range of
styles from jazz, reggae, and roots
rock to heavy metal;[24] he also played the occasional funk and R&B studio session, collaborating with fledgling producer, Michael J.
Clouse to form X-Factor Productions. [25] and
toured with the dancehall reggae artist Shinehead.[26] All the time, Buckley limited his singing only to
backing vocals.
Early career
Jeff Buckley moved to New York City in February 1990,[27] but found few opportunities to work as a musician.[28] He was introduced to Qawwali, the
devotional music of India and Pakistan, and to
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of its most well-known singers.[29] Buckley was an impassioned fan of Khan [30], and during his cafe days Buckley had often covered his songs. He interviewed
Khan for Interview magazine and wrote liner notes for Khan's The Supreme
Collection compilation. Buckley also became interested in blues-legend Robert
Johnson and hardcore punk during this time.[11] 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.[31] Buckley completed Babylon Dungeon Sessions, a four
song cassette that included the songs "Eternal
Life" and "Unforgiven" (later titled "Last Goodbye", as well as the unreleased
"Strawberry Street" and punk screamer "Radio".[32]).[33] Cohen and Buckley
hoped to attract attention from the music industry with the demo tape.[34]
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".[35] The event, produced by show business veteran Hal
Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991.[35] Jeff Buckley chose simply to pay his
respects to his father saying, "This is not a springboard, this is something very personal."[36] He performed "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote
about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother, accompanied by experimental rock guitarist Gary
Lucas.[37] 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.[37] "He blew the whole place away,"[38] Willner recalled. When questioned about that particular performance
Buckley said, "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."[15] The concert proved to be his first step into the music industry
that had eluded him for years.[39]
On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991, Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas resulting in the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin",[40] and by late 1991 he began performing with Lucas' band Gods and Monsters around New York City.[41] After being offered a development deal with Gods and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved back
to New York to the Lower East Side at the end of 1991.[42] The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted in March
1992, Buckley decided to leave the band.[43]
Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés around Lower Manhattan,[44] but Sin-é in the
East Village became his main venue.[12] Buckley first appeared at the small Irish café in April 1992,[45] and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot
there.[46] 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.[47] Singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland became his teachers.[47] Buckley performed favorites from Led Zeppelin,
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bob Dylan,
Elton John, The Smiths, The Creatures[48],
Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, Édith Piaf, Robert Johnson, and Sly Stone as well.[47][46][49][32] "I became a
human jukebox,"[15] Buckley
said. Included were his original songs from Babylon Dungeon Sessions, and the songs he'd written with Gary Lucas.[47] He performed solo, accompanying himself on a borrowed Fender
Telecaster.[45] "I figured if I played in
the no-man's land of intimacy, I would learn to be a performer,"[5] Buckley said.
Over the next few months, Buckley attracted admiring crowds and attention from record
label executives.[50] Industry maven
Clive Davis even dropped by to see him.[5] By the summer of 1992, limos from executives eager to sign the singer
lined the street outside Sin-é.[51] Buckley signed with
Columbia Records, home of Bob Dylan and
Bruce Springsteen,[52] for a three-album, essentially million-dollar[53] deal in October 1992.[54]
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".[55] Live at Sin-é was released on November 23, 1993, documenting this period of Buckley's life.[56]
Grace
In the summer of 1993, Jeff Buckley began working on his first album with record
producer Andy Wallace,[57] who had mixed Nirvana's multi-platinum album Nevermind.[58] Buckley assembled a
band, composed of bassist Mick Grondahl and
drummer Matt Johnson,[59] and spent several weeks rehearsing.[60] In September, the trio headed to
Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New
York to spend 6 weeks recording basic tracks for what would become Grace.[61] 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.[62] 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.[63]
In January 1994, Buckley left to go on his first solo North American tour to support
Live at Sin-é.[64] It was followed by a quick 10 day European tour in
March.[65] Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made
in-store appearances.[64] After
returning, Buckley invited guitarist Michael Tighe to join the band.[66] Buckley co-wrote "So
Real" with Tighe, recorded as a late addition to the album.[67] In June, Buckley began his first full band tour called the "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" that lasted
into August.[68]
Pretender Chrissie Hynde,[69] Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and The Edge from U2[70] were among
the attendees of these early shows.
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,[47] "Corpus
Christi Carol", from Benjamin Britten's A Boy Was Born, Op.3, a
composition based on a 15th century hymn that Buckley was introduced to in high
school,[71] and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your
Fan.[47] Buckley's rendition of
"Hallelujah" has been called "Buckley's best" and "one of the great songs"[72] by Time magazine and is included on
Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[73]
While sales were slow and the album garnered little radio airplay, it quickly received critical acclaim.[74] The UK's Melody Maker called it, "a massive, gorgeous record,"[75] while The Sydney Morning Herald
proclaimed it, "almost impossibly beautiful."[76] The
album did go gold in France and Australia over the next two
years,[68] eventually
achieving gold status in the U.S. in 2002.[77] Grace has now sold over 2 million albums worldwide[78] and has gone platinum in Australia over six times.
Grace won appreciation from a host of revered musicians, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led
Zeppelin.[79] Jimmy
Page considered Grace close to being his "favorite album of the decade."Ali Gay, a renowned contempary dance artist
used Jeff Buckley's music to create such masterpieces as "Blue Still and Magnum" which feature regularly in music film clips of
the modern area. [80] Robert Plant was also complimentary.[81] Other of Buckley's influences[82] lauded him: Bob Dylan named Buckley "one of the great
songwriters of this decade,"[81]
David Bowie called Grace "one of the 10 albums he'd bring with him to a desert
island."[83] Lou Reed expressed interest in working with him after seeing him perform.[83] Paul McCartney,[84] Thom Yorke,
Matthew Bellamy, Chris Cornell, Neil Peart, U2 and Elton
John were among others who have held Buckley's work in high esteem.
Concert tours
Buckley spent much of the next year and a half touring to promote Grace. From the
album's release, he played in numerous countries, from Australia, to the UK (Glastonbury Festival and the Meltdown Festival at the
invitation of Elvis Costello[85]). In 1995 Buckley played a concert at the Paris Olympia, a
venue made famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf, that he considered the finest
performance of his career. Sony has since released a live recording of that performance.
Buckley 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.[86] By way of justification, Buckley posted a note on the Internet 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.
Much of the material from the tours of 1995 and 1996 was recorded, and has been released posthumously on albums such as
Mystery White Boy (a reference to Buckley not using his real name) and Live a l'Olympia.
Death
After completing touring in 1996, Buckley started to write for a new album to be called My Sweetheart the Drunk. In
February 1997, he recorded a spoken word reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem,
"Ulalume", for the album Closed on Account of
Rabies.[87] This would be Buckley's last
recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he rented
a shotgun house of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of
buying it.[88] Buckley started recording demos on his own 4-track recorder. He went into the studio again, recruited a band, and plans for the new
album looked hopeful.
On May 29, 1997, as the band's plane touched down on the runway
to join him in his Memphis studio, Buckley went swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a
tributary of the Mississippi River, while wearing
steel-toed boots, all of his clothing, and singing along to a radio playing Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". A roadie of Buckley's band, Keith Foti, remained ashore. After moving the radio and
a guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti
looked up to see that Buckley was gone. Despite a determined rescue effort that night, Buckley remained missing, and the search
was called off the following day due to heavy rain. It is likely Buckley was sucked under the water by a strong under-current and
fell into unconsciousness due to the sudden force pulling him under. Three days later, his body was spotted by a tourist on a
riverboat marina and was brought ashore.
The night before his death, Buckley excitedly told his girlfriend Joan Wasser that he
believed he had found the cause of his dramatic moods, namely bipolar disorder. The
autopsy confirmed that Buckley had taken no illegal drugs before his swim, and a
drug overdose was ruled out as the cause of death. He was thirty years old.
A recent statement from the Buckley estate insists:
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.[89]
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, band members and old friend Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. 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.
Director Brian Jun has announced plans to make a film biography of Buckley, in cooperation
with his mother. It is to be called Mystery White Boy, and is scheduled for release in 2008. As of yet, no one has been
cast in the role of Buckley. A separate project involving the book Dream Brother was allegedly canceled.[90]
Discography
Albums
| Year |
Title |
Release Date |
| 1993 |
Live at Sin-é [EP] |
November 23, 1993 |
| 1994 |
Grace |
August 23, 1994 |
| 1995 |
Live from the Bataclan [EP] |
October 1995 |
| 1998 |
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk |
May 26, 1998 |
| 2000 |
Mystery White Boy |
May 9, 2000 |
| 2001 |
Live a L'Olympia |
July 3, 2001 |
| 2002 |
Songs to No One 1991-1992 |
October 15, 2002 |
| 2002 |
The Grace EPs |
November 26, 2002 |
| 2003 |
Live at Sin-é (Legacy Edition) |
September 2, 2003 |
| 2004 |
Grace (Legacy Edition) |
August 24, 2004 |
| 2007 |
So Real: Songs from Jeff Buckley |
May 22, 2007 |
Video
Singles
- Grace (edit) / Tongue / Kanga-Roo / Grace
- Last Goodbye (edit) / Last Goodbye / So Real (live and acoustic in Japan) / Dream Brother (live in Hamburg)
- So Real / Lost Highway / Tongue
- Eternal Life / Eternal Life (road version) / Last Goodbye (live and acoustic in Japan) / Lover, You Should've Come Over (live
and acoustic in Japan)
- Everybody Here Wants You / Thousand Fold / Eternal Life (road version) / Hallelujah (live from the Bataclan) / Last Goodbye
(live from Sydney)
- Forget Her (edit) / Forget Her / Grace (live from Sheperd's Bush)
- Hallelujah / I Know It's Over
Awards and nominations
Samples
Documentaries
Tribute songs
