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Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician. Buckley gained popularity in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, and he gradually focused more on his own material. After much interest from record labels he signed with Columbia and, after recruiting a band, recorded what would be his first and only studio album, Grace.
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Quotations
Sensitivity isn't being wimpy. It's about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom.
The thing is, I never went and pursued a record deal—ever. It's too funny to even talk about. It's like playing craps in Vegas. You know the odds belong to the house. You'll always lose. If that's why you're up there doing it, forget it. You're already fucked.
The only goal is in the process. The process is the thing…with little flashes of light here and there. Those are the gigs, those are the live shows. But its the life in between—thats all I got.
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician. Buckley gained popularity in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, and he gradually focused more on his own material. After much interest from record labels he signed with Columbia and, after recruiting a band, recorded what would be his first and only studio album, Grace. His vocal range was from A2 to E6.
Over the following two years, the band toured widely to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. In 1997, he stopped touring and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to experiment with new material for a second album, recording many four-track demos and completing his third recording session for his new album with his band, with Tom Verlaine as producer. While awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during an evening swim in the Wolf River. His body was found on June 4, 1997.
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk and expansions of debut album Grace and his Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously; with "Hallelujah" he attained his first #1 on Billboards Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart at Christmas 2008. Buckley and his work continue to remain popular and regularly featured in 'greatest' lists in the music press.
Biography
Early life
Born in Anaheim, California, 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, while his father was the descendant of Irish immigrants from Cork. Buckley was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ron Moorhead, in Southern California, and had a half-brother, Corey Moorhead. Buckley moved many times in and around Orange County while growing up with a single mother, an upbringing Buckley called "rootless trailer trash". As a child, Buckley was known as Scott "Scotty" Moorhead based on his middle name and his stepfather's surname. His biological father, Tim Buckley, was a singer-songwriter who released a series of highly acclaimed folk and jazz albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, Buckley said he only met him once at the age of eight years old. After his father died of a drug overdose in 1975, he chose to go by Buckley and his real first name which he found on his birth certificate. To members of his family he remained "Scotty".
Buckley was brought up around music. His mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist. His stepfather introduced him to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Pink Floyd at an early age. Buckley grew up singing around the house and in harmony with his mother, later noting that all his family sang. Buckley began playing guitar at the age of five after discovering an acoustic guitar in his grandmother's closet. Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was the first album he ever owned; the hard rock band Kiss was also an early favorite. At the age of 12, he decided to become a musician, and received his first electric guitar—a black imitation Gibson Les Paul—at the age of 13. He attended Loara High School, and played in the school's jazz band. During this time, he developed an affinity for progressive rock bands such as Rush, Genesis, and Yes, as well as jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.
After high school graduation he moved north to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute, completing the one-year course at the age of 18. Buckley later told Rolling Stone magazine the school was "the biggest waste of time", but noted in an interview with Double Take Magazine that he appreciated studying music theory there, saying, "I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartók." Musician Ben Harper later lauded Buckley for his imaginative chords and chord progressions.
Early career
Buckley spent the next six years working in a hotel and playing guitar in various struggling bands playing in styles from jazz, reggae, and roots rock to heavy metal. He toured with the dancehall reggae artist Shinehead and also played the occasional funk and R&B studio session, collaborating with fledgling producer, Michael J. Clouse to form X-Factor Productions. Throughout this period, Buckley limited his singing to backing vocals.
He moved to New York City in February 1990, but found few opportunities to work as a musician. He was introduced to qawwali, the devotional music of Pakistan, and to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of its best-known singers. Buckley was an impassioned fan of Khan, and during his cafe days, he had often covered Khan's songs. In January 1996, he interviewed Khan for Interview magazine and wrote liner notes for Khan's Supreme Collection, Vol. 1 compilation. Buckley also became interested in blues-legend Robert Johnson and hardcore punk band Bad Brains during this time. 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. Buckley completed Babylon Dungeon Sessions, a four song cassette that included the songs "Eternal Life", "Unforgiven" (later titled "Last Goodbye"), "Strawberry Street" (a different version of which appears on the Grace Legacy Edition), and punk screamer "Radio". Cohen and Buckley hoped to attract attention from the music industry with the demo tape.
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". The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991. Buckley rejected the idea of the concert as a springboard to his career, instead citing personal reasons regarding his decision to sing at the tribute. With accompaniment by experimental rock guitarist Gary Lucas, Jeff performed "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother. 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, due to a snapped guitar string. Willner, the show's organiser, later recalled that Buckley's set closer made a strong impression. Buckley's performance at the concert was counter-intuitive to his desire to distance himself musically from his father. Buckley later explained his reasoning to Rolling Stone: "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." The concert proved to be his first step into the music industry that had eluded him for years.
On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991, Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas resulting in the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", and by late 1991 he began performing with Lucas' band Gods and Monsters around New York City. After being offered a development deal as a member of Gods and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved back to New York to the Lower East Side at the end of 1991. The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted in March 1992, Buckley decided to leave the band.
Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés around Lower Manhattan, but Sin-é in the East Village became his main venue. Buckley first appeared at the small Irish café in April 1992, and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot there. 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. Through their music, singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland became his teachers. Buckley performed an eclectic selection of covers from a range of artists from Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bob Dylan, Édith Piaf, Elton John, The Smiths, Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson and Siouxsie Sioux. Original songs from the Babylon Dungeon Sessions, and the songs he'd written with Gary Lucas were also included in his set lists. He performed solo, accompanying himself on a borrowed Fender Telecaster. Buckley stated that playing to small audiences enabled him to learn how to be a performer.
Over the next few months, Buckley attracted admiring crowds and attention from record label executives. Industry maven Clive Davis even dropped by to see him. By the summer of 1992, limos from executives eager to sign the singer lined the street outside Sin-é. Buckley signed with Columbia Records, home of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, for a three-album, essentially million-dollar deal in October 1992. 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". Live at Sin-é was released on November 23, 1993, documenting this period of Buckley's life.
Grace
In mid 1993, Buckley began working on his first album with record producer Andy Wallace, who had mixed Nirvana's multi-platinum album Nevermind. Buckley assembled a band, composed of bassist Mick Grondahl and drummer Matt Johnson, and spent several weeks rehearsing. In September, the trio headed to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York to spend six weeks recording basic tracks for what would become Grace. 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. 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.
In January 1994, Buckley left to go on his first solo North American tour to support Live at Sin-é. It was followed by a 10-day European tour in March. Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made in-store appearances. After returning, Buckley invited guitarist Michael Tighe to join the band and a collaboration between the two resulted in "So Real", a song which was recorded as a late addition to the album. In June, Buckley began his first full band tour called the "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" that lasted into August. Pretender Chrissie Hynde, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and The Edge from U2 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; "Corpus Christi Carol", from Benjamin Britten's A Boy Was Born, Op.3, a composition that Buckley was introduced to in high school, based on a 15th century hymn; and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your Fan. Buckley's rendition of "Hallelujah" has been called "Buckley's best" and "one of the great songs"by Time magazine, and is included on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Sales of Grace were slow and it garnered little radio airplay, despite critical acclaim. The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed it "a romantic masterpiece" and a "pivotal, defining work". Despite slow initial sales the album went gold in France and Australia over the next two years, achieving gold status in the U.S. in 2002, and selling over six times platinum in Australia in 2006.
Grace won appreciation from a host of revered musicians, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page considered Grace close to being his "favorite album of the decade". Robert Plant was also complimentary. Others who had influenced Buckley's music lauded him: Bob Dylan named Buckley "one of the great songwriters of this decade", and, in an interview with Village Voice, David Bowie named Grace as one of the ten albums he would take with him to a desert island. The album eventually went on to feature in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, appearing at #303.
Concert tours
Buckley spent much of the next year and a half touring internationally 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). Following Buckley's Peyote Radio Theater tour, the band began a European tour on August 23, 1994, starting with performances in the UK and Ireland. The tour continued in Scandinavia and, throughout September, numerous concerts in Germany were played. The tour ended on September 22 with a concert in Paris. A gig on September 24 in New York dovetailed on to the end of the European tour and Buckley and band spent the next month relaxing and rehearsing.
A tour of Canada and the U.S. began on October 19, 1994 at renowned, and now defunct, venue CBGB's. The tour was far reaching with concerts held on both east and west coasts of the U.S., and a number of performances in central and southern states. The tour ended two months later on December 18 at Maxwell's in New Jersey. After another month of rest and rehearsal, the band commenced a second European tour, this time mainly for promotion purposes. The band began the tour in Dublin, Ireland; Buckley has remained particularly popular in Ireland to this day. The short tour largely consisted of promotional work in London and Paris.
In late January, the band did their first tour of Japan, playing concerts and appearing for promotion of the album and newly released Japanese single "Last Goodbye". The band returned to Europe on February 6 and toured various Western European countries before returning to the U.S. on March 6. Amongst the gigs performed during this period, Buckley and his band performed at a 19th century built French venue, the Bataclan, and material from the concert was recorded and later released in October of that year as a four track EP, Live from the Bataclan. Also, songs from a performance on February 25, at the venue Nighttown in Rotterdam, were subsequently released as a promotional-only CD, So Real.
Touring recommenced in April with dates across the U.S. and Canada. During this period Buckley and the band notably played Metro in Chicago, which was recorded on video and later released as Live in Chicago on VHS and later on DVD. In addition, on June 4 they played at Sony Music Studios for the Sony Music radio hour. Following this was a month long European tour between June 20 and July 18 in which they played many summer music festivals. During the tour, Buckley played two concerts at the Paris Olympia, a venue made famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf, that he considered the finest performances of his career. Shortly after this Buckley attended the Festival de la Musique Sacrée (Festival of Sacred Music), also held in France, and performed "What Will You Say" as a duet with Alim Qasimov, an Azerbaijani mugham singer. Sony BMG has since released a live album, 2001's Live a L'Olympia, which has a selection of songs from both Olympia performances and the collaboration with Qasimov.
Buckley's Mystery White Boy tour, playing concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, lasted between August 28 and September 6 and recordings of these performances were compiled and released on the live album Mystery White Boy. Buckley was so well received during these concerts that his album Grace went gold in Australia, selling over 35,000 copies, and taking this into account he decided a longer tour was needed and returned for a tour of New Zealand and Australia in February the following year.
Between the two Oceanian tours Buckley and the band took a break from touring. Buckley played solo in the meantime with concerts at Sin-é and a New Year's Eve concert at Mercury Lounge in New York. After the break, the band spent the majority of February on the Hard Luck Tour in Australia and New Zealand, but tensions had risen between the group and drummer Matt Johnson. The concert on March 1, 1996 was the last gig he played with Buckley and his band.
Much of the material from the tours of 1995 and 1996 was recorded and released on either promotional EPs, such as the Grace EP, or posthumously on albums, such as Mystery White Boy (a reference to Buckley not using his real name) and Live a L'Olympia. Many of the other concerts Buckley played during this period have surfaced on bootleg recordings.
Following Johnson's departure, the band, now without a drummer, was put on hold and did not perform live again until February 12, 1997. Due to the pressure from extensive touring, Buckley spent the majority of the year away from the stage. However, from May 2 to May 5 he played a short stint as bass guitarist with Mind Science of the Mind, with friend Nathan Larson, then guitarist of Shudder to Think. Buckley returned to playing live concerts when he 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. By way of justification, Buckley posted a note on his Internet site stating that he missed the anonymity of playing in cafes and local bars:
My Sweetheart the Drunk
After completing touring in 1996, Buckley started to write for a new album to be called My Sweetheart the Drunk. Buckley worked with Patti Smith on her 1996 album Gone Again and met fellow collaborater Tom Verlaine, an ex-Television member. Buckley asked Verlaine to be producer on the new album and he agreed. In the middle of 1996, Buckley and his band began recording sessions in Manhattan with Verlaine. Eric Eidel played the drums through these sessions as a stop-gap between the dates drummer Matt Johnson left and before Parker Kindred joined as full-time drummer. Around this time Buckley worked on Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness, a Jack Kerouac tribute album, with Nymphs member Inger Lorre. After this collaboration, Buckley struck up a friendship with Lorre and subsequently recorded a cover of The Nymphs' song "Yard of Blonde Girls" with her; this recording later appeared on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Another recording session in Manhattan followed in early 1997, but Buckley and the band were unsatisfied and the album was not considered finished.
On February 4, 1997, Buckley played a live concert at The Knitting Factory featuring a selection of his new songs: "Jewel Box", "Morning Theft", "Everybody Here Wants You", "Sky is a Landfill" and "Yard of Blonde Girls". Lou Reed was there to watch and expressed an interest in working with Buckley. The band played their first gig with Parker Kindred, their new drummer, at Arlene's Grocery in New York on February 9. This set featured much of Buckley's new material that would appear on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk and a recording has become one of Buckley's most widely distributed bootlegs. Later that month, Buckley recorded a spoken word reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Ulalume", for the album Closed on Account of Rabies. This would be his last recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee.
Buckley became interested in recording at Easley McCain Recording in Memphis, at the suggestion of friend Dave Shouse from the Grifters. He rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of buying it. Throughout this period, February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley played at Barristers', a bar located in downtown Memphis underneath a parking garage in an alley off of Jefferson Avenue. He played numerous times in order to work through the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with band and then solo as part of a Monday night residency. In early February, Buckley and the band did a third recording session with Verlaine, in Memphis, but Buckley expressed his dissatisfaction with the sessions and later called Grace producer, Andy Wallace, to step in as Verlaine's replacement. Buckley started recording demos on his own 4-track recorder in preparation for a forthcoming session with Wallace. Some of these demos were sent to his band in New York, who listened to them enthusiastically, and were excited to resume working on the album. These recordings would go on to compose the first disc of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. However Buckley was not entirely happy with the results and he sent his band back to New York while he stayed behind to work on the songs. The band were scheduled to return to Memphis for more recording sessions on May 29.
Death
On the evening of May 29, 1997, Buckley's band flew in intending to join him in his Memphis studio to work on the newly written material. That same evening, Buckley went swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a slackwater channel of the Mississippi River, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of the song "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. 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. On June 4, his body was spotted by a tourist on a riverboat and was brought ashore.
The autopsy to clarify the cause of Buckley's death confirmed Buckley had taken no illegal drugs before his swim and a drug overdose was therefore ruled out as cause of death. In order to clarify the situation of his death, this statement was released from the Buckley estate:
Legacy
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 Guibert, band members and old friend Michael Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. The album achieved gold sales in Australia in 1998. 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.
Since his passing Buckley has been the subject of numerous documentaries: Fall in Light, a 1999 production for French TV, Goodbye and Hello, a program about Buckley and his father produced for Netherlands TV in 2000 and Everybody Here Wants You, a documentary made in 2002 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). An hour long documentary about Buckley called Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley has been shown at various film festivals to critical acclaim. In spite of this the film has yet to be released commercially on DVD due to distribution and copyright issues. 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. Buckley's mother and Michelle Sy are producing the film, but, as of 2008, the project has not progressed beyond the scripting stage and no one has been cast in the role of Buckley. A separate project involving the book Dream Brother was allegedly cancelled.
Buckley's premature death inspired many artists he knew or influenced to write songs in tribute to the late singer. PJ Harvey knew him personally and in the song "Memphis" she takes lines from a song on his unfinished album, "Morning Theft", and in her own words reflects on Buckley's death: "In Memphis...die suddenly, at a wonderful age, we're ready to go". Rufus Wainwright, whose fledgling career had barely started when he met Buckley, wrote "Memphis Skyline" in tribute to him, singing "then came hallelujah sounding like Ophelia, for me in my room living, turn back and you will stay, under the Memphis Skyline". Wainwright has also recorded his own version of "Hallelujah", which appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Shrek. Duncan Sheik also wrote and recorded the song "A Body Goes Down", from his 1998 album Humming, in direct response to Buckley's death.
2007 marked the 10th anniversary of Jeff Buckley's death. His life and music were celebrated globally in May and June of that year with tributes in Australia, Canada, England, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, the Republic of Macedonia, Portugal and the U.S. Many of Buckley's family members attended the various tribute concerts across the globe, some of which they helped organize. There are two annual Jeff Buckley tribute events: the Chicago based Uncommon Ground, featuring a three day concert schedule, and the Australian based Fall In Light. The latter event is run by the Fall In Light Foundation which in addition to the concerts runs a "Guitars for Schools" program. The name of the foundation is taken from the lyrics of Buckley's "New Year's Prayer".
On March 7, 2008, Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah”, went to No. 1 on the iTunes chart, selling 178,000 downloads for the week, after being performed by Jason Castro on the seventh season of the television series American Idol. The song debuted at #1 that week on Billboards Hot Digital Songs chart, giving Buckley his first #1 on any Billboard chart.
In a similar vein, the 2008 UK X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, released a cover of "Hallelujah" with the intent to top the UK Singles Chart as the Christmas number one single. Buckley fans countered this, launching a campaign with the aim of propelling Buckley's version to the number one spot. The campaign picked up support through social network websites and it soon spread to the mainstream media. Buckley's version of the song entered the UK charts at #49 on November 30 and by December 21 it had reached #2; in spite of the fact that it had not been released in a physical format.
Discography
Awards and nominations
- L'Académie Charles Cros awarded Buckley the "Grand Prix International Du Disque" on April 13, 1995 in honor of his debut album Grace.
- MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best New Artist in a Video for "Last Goodbye", 1995.
- Rolling Stone magazine nomination for Best New Artist, 1995.
- Triple J Hottest 100 awarded #14 best song for that year in the world's largest voting competition for "Last Goodbye", 1995.
- Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Everybody Here Wants You", 1998.
- Grace was ranked #303 of the 500 Greatest Albums by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.
- Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" was ranked #259 of the 500 Greatest Songs by Rolling Stone magazine in 2004.
- Rolling Stone magazine ranked Buckley #39 in its 2008 list: The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Further reading
- Brooks, Daphne. Jeff Buckley's Grace. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1635-7
- Buckley, Jeff. Jeff Buckley Collection. Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN 0-6340-2265-2
- Cyr, Merri and Buckley, Jeff. Wished for Song: A Portrait of Jeff Buckley Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN 0-6340-3595-9
External links
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- Official Sony BMG music videos
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