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Jeff Buckley biography
JEFF BUCKLEY BIOGRAPHY
Adding his name to the all-too-long list of stellar talents to have died before their time, Jeff Buckley waded into the waters of the Wolf River Marina, Memphis, on a warm May evening in 1997, and was pulled under the surface by the undercurrent from a passing boat. By the time his body had been found by rescuers, days later, the world had already come to terms with losing one of the greatest singers of his generation, and no amount of candle-lit vigils could bring him back.
Tragedy barely begins to cover it - when he died, Buckley had only released one full album, Grace (1994) and the 4-song EP Live at Sin-é (1993), and yet his following even then branched far beyond 'cult'. His soaring multi-octave vocals, ranging from beautifully tender to a screaming howl reminiscent of Robert Plant in full flow (sometimes in the space of a breath), and incredibly moving songs marked him out as a unique talent, but one that had only scratched the surface of its potential by the time of his death.
No subsequent obituary-writer or biographer of Buckley could resist touching upon parallels with his late father Tim - himself an extraordinary singer-songwriter, and also another on the list of those who died too young - albeit in his case from heroin (reportedly from mistaking the drug for cocaine, snorting it, and dying from the resultant overdose). However, Jeff had hardly known his father - Tim had left Jeff's mother, the Panama-born Mary Guibert, when Jeff was a mere six months old, marking the beginning of his itinerant and disjointed childhood, travelling around a succession of southern California towns as his mother sought out the next dead-end job.
At the age of eight, he met his father briefly one Easter, but this was to be their only meeting - Tim died two months later, and in later interviews Jeff never hid his bitterness at the abandonment of his mother: 'We were born with the same parts, that's all. I'm Mary Guibert's son, not his.' And although many made the comparison between Jeff and Tim's vocal abilities and heart-rending lyrics, Jeff pointed out that his mother had been his musical inspiration - a classically trained pianist and cellist, she also sang to Jeff and his younger brother on their car-journeys. However, the pressures of her work meant that Mary often had to leave Jeff to bring up his brother, and the strain soon told on the young Buckley, who said in a 1995 interview: 'I feel I was born old. I don't wake up and feel happy if it's a sunny day. You get happy in five-second bursts, and then you wait for the next five-second burst. I've always felt I know too much to be happy.'
Finding comfort in music, Jeff would write songs as a teenager, and was exposed to his mother and stepfather's broad tastes in music. As well as his mother's piano and cello playing, he would soak up lovingly the sounds of the Beatles, Mahler, Judy Garland, Nina Simone, Bartok, Hendrix, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, 'and I asked a lot of questions. Learning about music seemed effortless. I guess I must have had natural abilities. Looking back it felt like instinct.'
These natural abilities were to get their first airing when, having spent time at the Los Angeles Musicians Institute, and played in various rock and reggae groups, Buckley moved to New York in 1990, hanging out in the Lower East side and playing solo gigs in coffee-house venues in Greenwich Village. Having attracted attention when he played at a New York tribute gig to his late father, Buckley eventually went on to record Live at Sin-é, showcasing his talents, eclectic choice of covers (from Van Morrison to Edith Piaf) and love of dramatically expressive performances, encompassing the best that jazz, folk, rock and classical music genres had to offer. It is perhaps unsurprising that Buckley's talent, as well as his chiselled good looks, should have led to him having been snapped up by Columbia records back in 1992, although in truth he had turned down several offers from other labels prior to deciding to trust Columbia's A&R man, Steve Berkowitz. Furthermore, whilst his unpredictable and broad ranging choices of covers were not entirely 'MTV friendly', this could not have pleased Buckley more, as he loathed anything so false - it was all about the music.
'Grace' was recorded in the autumn of 1993, at the Bearsville Recording studio near Woodstock, and Jeff was allowed to explore his diverse range of musical interests - the album is a rich, dense masterpiece, at times so bittersweet and heartfelt as to be hard to listen to if in any state of emotional fragility. As with his live sets, there were many covers - in addition the wonderfully atmospheric 'Lilac Wine' (also sung by Nina Simone, and more recently by Elkie Brooks), there were versions of Benjamin Britten's 'Corpus Christi Carol' and Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' - the latter an immensely powerful demonstration of Buckley's vocal prowess, featuring as it does just himself and his guitar, and yet having enough power, drama and dynamic range to fill the biggest rock venue. The critics were falling over themselves to heap praise upon Grace, and likewise Buckley's musical peers (and his own musical heroes, such as Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Bob Dylan). Two years of world touring followed, reaching as far as Australia, and taking in the Glastonbury Festival and numerous European gigs. Notably, in 1995 he played a concert at the Paris Olympia venue, a haunt of Edith Piaf's in her day, and charmed his adoring French fans by bantering in French and performing his version of the Piaf standard, 'Je N'en Connais Pas le Fin' - this set was later to be released as Jeff Buckley live a l'Olympia (2001).
The touring, and subsequent adulation, however, were taking their toll on Buckley - in 1996 he posted a message on the internet outlining how he missed the intimacy and anonymity of his early one-man coffee-house gigs - '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'. This followed, and to a great extent explained, a sequence of solo gigs Buckley had played in the Northeast US, appearing under various aliases such as 'The Halfspeeds', 'Crit-Club' and 'A Puppet Show Named Julio'.
He could not avoid the limelight for ever - Buckley started writing and recording demo material for the second album, to be titled 'My Sweetheart the Drunk'. He moved to Memphis, where the album was to be recorded in 1997, and was so fond of the shotgun shack he was renting there that he wanted to buy it. On the night of May 29, he and his friend Keith Foti went to the marina to relax, play guitar and listen to the radio.
Buckley waded, fully clothed, into the water, and when Foti turned to protect the stereo from the wake of a passing tugboat, and then turned back, Buckley had gone under. Rescue efforts in the ensuing 24 hours were hampered by heavy rain, making it hard for police divers to see the body, and it was not until a week later that a passing tourist spotted Buckley's body at a nearby marina.
Rumours of suicide, depression and substance problems abounded, but Mary Guibert pointed out recently that her son'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.'
A succession of posthumous releases have ensued since 1997 - not least a two-disc collection of those Memphis demos entitled 'Sketches (for My Sweetheart the Drunk)' - and the director Brian Jun is producing a documentary of his life. And despite the debate over how and why he met his death - was it suicide, caused by drugs, or depression because of his lack of a father, or bipolar disorder? - one concrete and unquestionable legacy remains - his music.
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