Recommendations of the Editorial team
In the summer of 1994 I went to a tiny basement club in Hamburg, Knust. Jeff Buckley performed. His debut album, Grace, had just been released. I knew him from his EP “Live At Sin-é,” a recording from a café in New York where he worked as a barista and waiter. Sometimes he sang songs like “The Way Young Lovers Do” by Van Morrison. Sin-é became Brooklyn’s most popular café.
One man, one guitar. It was the best concert I’ve ever experienced. Jeff was asked if he would perform at a tribute to his father, Tim Buckley, at a church in New York. Tim had left Mary Guibert when she was pregnant. His son had seen him for about a week of his life before Tim Buckley died in 1975. Jeff performed on the condition that nothing would be recorded. He left the church with 60 business cards from record company people.
At Columbia Records he saw photos of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Nina Simone and Miles Davis in the foyer. He wanted to be on this label. He signed what was said to be the most lucrative contract of all time for a debut album. That’s what Amy Berg’s documentary “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” tells it. Mother Mary Guibert speaks and Jeff’s last lover, Joan Wasser, who we know as Joan As Police Woman. The musicians from his band speak. And producer Andy Wallace, who has set up albums for Slayer, Sepultura, System Of A Down and Nirvana’s “Nevermind”: “I’m known for that one record.”
Jeff Buckley admired Dylan and Morrissey, Judy Garland and Nina Simone, and most of all he loved Led Zeppelin. He described the Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan as “my Elvis”. Buckley beamed like an oil idol when he was able to meet the Qawwali master in New York.
“Jeff, you don’t need sex, you need love”
“Grace” was a huge success – in Australia and France. Ranked 148th in the USA. Buckley’s most beautiful song, “Forget Her”, was added later. It’s also the most beautiful video, shaky impressions of Paris, the city
of love. In his uncertainty, Buckley wrote to songwriter Aimee Mann. She says in the film: “He wanted to be seductive. But I found him too fluid. I said, ‘Jeff, you don’t need sex, you need love.'”
The songwriter Joan Wasser gave him love. At a French festival, Buckley performed in front of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Ben Harper remembers looking for Buckley before Page and Plant’s performance. He didn’t find him. During the concert, he saw a man climbing the side scaffolding to feel the electricity. After the performance, Robert Plant said to Buckley, “You’re the best new singer.”
Jeff Buckley disappeared for two days. After “Grace,” he owed Columbia the second record. He said to Joan Wasser: “I won’t last long.” Buckley rented a house in Memphis and recorded demos on headphones. Once
he said on a friend’s answering machine: “I think I’m close to ‘Grace’.” The songs on the posthumously released “Sketches For ‘My Sweetheart The Drunk'” are as good as the songs of his friend Chris Cornell. But
they’re not as good as “Grace,” which David Bowie said was “the best record ever recorded.”
On the evening of May 29, 1997, Jeff Buckley was walking with his guitar tech. Then he jumped fully clothed into the Wolf River in Memphis. The current pulled him under the water. The last song he heard was “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin.
