Jeff Buckley, who was born on November 17, 1966, sang with such soul, coming up with unimaginable lyrics had a life like no other. Sadly, following in his father, Tim Buckley’s footsteps, he passed away at a young age by drowning, gone too soon.
Jeff Buckley, unlike many artists, defied genre and gender conventions with his music. He had gained a major following in the 1990’s after performing in Manhattan’s East Village. Although his following continued to grow, he only released one studio album, Grace, which was a major hit and continues to thrive to this day.
The album Grace was released August 23, 1994 on Columbia Records. The album includes 11 songs and continues on for 51 minutes and 48 seconds. The songs include, Mojo Pin, Last Goodbye, Lilac Wine, So Real, Hallelujah, Lover, You Should’ve Come Over, Corpus Christi Carol, Eternal Life, Dream Brother, Forget Her and of course, Grace.
Unlike many other artists, especially male at this time, Jeff Buckley had art flowing freely from his mind. He even describes the album Grace as “life, growth, tragedy, pain, love, and death.” He was ahead of his time with emotion, not many knew it then but now, he floods the mainstream world with new listeners everyday.
Buckley’s childhood and a majority of his life was less than glamorous, as he lived humbly with his mother, step father and half brother in the depths of Orange County, California. All of the adult figures in his life being musicians and musically influenced provided him for his upbringing and intrigued him to start his music career. After performing in a handful of cover bands throughout high school, Buckley attended the Los Angeles Musicians Institute after he graduated high school. Over the next few years, he played various gigs and wrote songs, looking for any kind of direction.
In 1990 he packed up his belongings and moved to New York City. He found his home away from home in a tiny East Village café called Sin-é. Some of his performances were captured on a four-song EP titled Live at Sin-é, which was released in 1993. By the summer of 1996, Buckley had begun recording demos for his second album, which he planned to call My Sweetheart the Drunk. The recordings began in New York City but later moved to Memphis, Tennessee where Buckley had recently relocated. Shortly after this, one of these nights he decided to take a swim in a part of the Mississippi river called Wolf River channel. The wake of a passing boat sucked Buckley under, and he drowned. His body was recovered six days later, after it was seen by a riverboat passenger. Although there was high speculation, drugs were not traced in his body.
After the tragedy of his death, his mother Mary Guibert began to work with Columbia records on any posthumous releases he had. The first of which became Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1998), a double-disc set featuring unfinished songs that Buckley had recently recorded. In a 2002 interview with The Guardian, his mother was able to discuss directing her son’s legacy, “I have to compartmentalize myself quite a bit. There’s the musician side of me, and the businesswoman side – and the mother side of me which never turns off. But the emotions are things I have to kinda set aside. That’s why I take good counsel. I’ve always involved people from Jeff’s band. It makes it a lot easier, especially if there are any critical blows. But the work we’ve done so far has been well received.”
So no, not everyone can live with and be a part of their fame. But their family can live the legacy on with support and love in seeing what he has done for those now. As Jeff Buckley says in one of his most popular songs today, Lover, You Should’ve Come Over, “It’s never over.”