Let’s go back in time a little, to the early 90’s when in a small club known as the Sin-e played host to an all but unknown performer. He was bound to have some skills, being the son of the famous folk artist Tim Buckley, so some 25 people turned up and paid the $3 to see him. The performance he then gave over the next 3 hours was deemed good enough to be released unedited, unaltered and purely as it was first recorded on the single track PA system Jeff used. This was a guy who had never released a record before, and struggled to cope with the highs and lows of song writing and performing due to his bipolar syndrome. Despite this, his lack of direction led him to play a string of radically different covers showcasing just what an unbelievable talent this guy was. When placed alongside Jeff’s original compositions and plenty of banter, the 25 strangers who had walked into the bar 3 hours earlier left in the firm belief that Jeff would one day make it big. They were not wrong. That performance is something of a classic, and shows one of the only performances of Jeff that was recorded where he was completely at ease with the audience and himself, and his personality shone through to make his set even more breathtaking.
I consider Jeff Buckley to be one of the greatest Singer/Songwriter/Performers of all time. He simply had everything. He is widely considered to be the best singer technically since the days of the Rat Pack, and his guitar work is varied but progressive. He didn’t knock up a song in a matter of minutes; his works were more compositions with no note out of place, steadily evolving lyrically and musically as Jeff’s ideas and ideals changed.
The sum of all these factors culminated into my favourite album of all time, “Grace”. Here Jeff showcased every ounce of his talent, in a somewhat unprecedented studio performance, with passion dripping from every note he trilled his way through a series of his own songs, with three cover versions also thrown into the mix. Jeff’s cover of the extremely popular song “Hallelujah” originally written by Leonard Cohen is breathtaking, and his surprising cover of the Medieval hymn, “Corpus Christi Carol” was a true indication of Jeff’s versatility as a performer, and his own compositions we full to brim of gorgeous embellishment. Outside of his core band, Jeff brought in a gospel choir to help him on several tracks most evident on “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” and the added depth and power brought on by this was a masterstroke, breathing yet more passion into the already powerful lyrics.
Jeff was more than a performer. He was a composer and a poet. This album was testament to this. Sadly, Jeff drowned whilst swimming in the Mississippi after a rainstorm up river, and his talent was washed away. Maybe its true the old saying, “Only the good die young…”
For a sample of Jeff’s Talent, simply look here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnxmkOAj88
