Great artists dying before their time is not new to rock music. But there have been few whose brief career has been such a mystery as Jeff Buckley's -- certainly not in recent history. Maybe the recent release of Elliott Smith's posthumous From a Basement on the Hill will catapult him into the realm of the departed famous. But for now, it is the anti-hero Jeff Buckley who bears the full weight of having his career and its unrealized potential debated by the bored critic everywhere.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of his debut album Grace, Columbia Records released a three-disc set, including the original album, 12 outtakes, and a DVD that includes a documentary on the making of Grace and five videos.
The DVD is certainly interesting, and provides a nice look into the world that Andy Wallace and Jeff Buckley created at Bearsville Studios. Andy Wallace speaks about the recording process with more depth than most producers. It enables a closer look into Jeff Buckley's personality and provides some insight into the dynamic psyche that Buckley used to give birth to the now gigantic songs. Watching the Jeff Buckley interviews are interesting but at the same time disquieting. The entire documentary and all five videos seem permeated by the specter of Jeff Buckley.
It is not, however, the DVD that raises the most questions about Jeff Buckley's career, but rather the one new track on the disc of outtakes, the bluesy, soulful "Forget Her." The song was ultimately scrapped at the last minute for the ethereal "So Real". That "Forget Her" has eluded release for as long as it has is surprising. It fully embodies, the feel of Grace, and would have sat nicely on the album. Jeff Buckley's voice and guitar is powerful and heartfelt. Listening to it (over and over) begs the question, "Why did he decide not to release it as part of the album?" In the stunningly packaged liner notes, Mary Guibert, offers the lucid explanation: "It was for personal reasons that Jeff had removed it from the album." And herein lies the mystery that will always surround Jeff Buckley.
"Forget Her" casts more shadows on his career than has already surrounded it. While it sounds at home on Grace, it seems to fit just as well in the body of songs he had begun work for what may or may not have been Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. So, what was it going to be? Were we going to see a commercial follow up to Grace? Was it going to be the dark and gnarled guitar of "Nightmares By the Sea"? It is likely the only answer given (if one were given it all) would be, "Jeff didn't discuss it for personal reasons." Often this comment can be interpreted to mean the artist is cracking up or battling with drugs. With the mercurial Jeff Buckley it means only that he wasn't telling because he was likely going to change his mind.
The shroud over his career is also a result of such a limited body of work. Jeff Buckley was not a prolific songwriter like many of his idols. Or, if he was, he wasn't telling anyone. It is unfortunate, not because fans jealously hang on every note he sings, but because the Legacy Edition is limited in its ability to truly capture his fragile genius.
Also contained here are stirring renditions of "Lost Highway" by Bob Dylan and Nina Simone's "The Other Woman". More impressive is the soulful track "I Want Someone Badly", which Buckley performs with the band, Shudder to Think. The cut finds him in '60s R&B territory, and his voice doesn't disappoint.
Some of the tracks contained on the Legacy Edition are culled from previous compilations and EPs; so many buyers will already have them. However, the intimate lost track "Forget Her" and the documentary are worth the purchase alone. Jeff Buckley brought a depth to his music and the world he lived in that is uncommon, to say the least. Colombia has sought to capture it, and does a reasonably good job, even if they fail to shed any new light on the enigma of Jeff Buckley's legacy.
— David Brecheisen
Jeff Buckley's tragically early death surely did something to immortalize his one and only full-length album, but even so, Grace is without doubt a truly musical monument, spanning time and space and perpetually blowing fresh minds round the globe (and quite possibly somewhere beyond).
His voice is multi-textured and he uses notes to dramatic effect - the agony and the ecstasy of it hitting you straight in the gut. His music is so extraordinary, in fact, that it's impossible to put this album on in the background without being drawn into its psyche. Don't just listen - experience, be mesmerized, take a trip.
This re-mastered Legacy edition of Grace includes a second CD of unreleased material and rarities, plus a DVD of promo videos and an expanded version of the original Grace documentary. The question is, is it worth having over the original?
The answer is a definite yes, its main selling point being the fact that the second CD, dare I say it, is practically as good as the first.
It highlights his interest and accomplishment in diverse genres and consolidates his status as a musical pioneer.
Out of the 13 songs, highlights include "Forget Her", a stunningly beautiful song that sends the emotions tearing and tingling out the ends of your fingers. "Kanga Roo" is 14 minutes of abrasive, mind melting insanity, "Parchman Farm Blues" which hears Buckley capturing perfectly the meter and pitch of an old blues sound and the thrash rock-ness of "Eternal Life".
So, 10 years after the original release of this seminal album, the legacy edition is indeed a credit to his name. There is poignancy to watching the man on film and you can't help wondering, as with all artists cut off in their prime, what may have been.
Listen and be purged.
— Stephanie Barrow
Jeff Buckley was a diva. And a particularly fanciful one at that. I remember reading about the late soprano Maria Callas and Buckley fave Edith Piaf, the fragility of their demeanors, and the notion they were more precious, tender than the world around them; that every moment within earshot of their voices was like hearing the song of the most rare and beautiful bird in the world. In fact, Piaf as the "Little Sparrow" was the most obvious blueprint for Buckley's flighty, unabashedly emotional expression; in both cases, whether your reaction was to adore or abhor the often raw (but never adolescent) bouts of melo- and other kinds of drama, no one could say they held their hearts in check. Consequently, they needed lots of maintenance. In Buckley's case, it was a steady stream of collaborators, girls, gigs and an impressive reserve of torch songs from way back when. He really wasn't built for the strand of rock music borne of rebellion or release; he was a songbird, like the kind that used to receive roses and blown kisses from the debutantes in the balcony after performances.
Unlike Callas and Piaf, Buckley grew up in an age when the chanteuse didn't need an orchestra or a symphony hall to get their message across. After having cut his musical teeth in Los Angeles, he came to New York in 1991 and soon hooked up with guitarist Gary Lucas, eventually joining his band Gods & Monsters. Lucas and Buckley established a partnership that produced some very good songs (including "Mojo Pin" and Grace's title track) in a very short time, but before they had a chance to make it out of the city, Buckley quit the band over a disagreement regarding his future loyalty. Afterwards, he played solo gigs, sometimes incorporating friend and bassist Mick Grondhal, and assisted by a growing legion of nighthawk fans, was soon signed by Columbia as a solo artist.
1993's Live at Sin-e EP gives the best idea of what Columbia's A&R; rep must have seen in Buckley at the time. At shows, he was the picture of a high diva: sprawling, boundless and with more than a pinch of self-conscious glitter. However, as he revealed in The Making of Grace, the behind-the-scenes feature that leads off the third disc DVD in Columbia's new "Legacy" edition reissue of his debut full-length, he needed a band. He already had Grondhal, met drummer Matt Johnson through Grace executive producer Steve Berkowitz, and, midway through recording the album, brought in guitarist Michael Tighe (who eventually contributed "So Real", to which Buckley added a chorus and put on the record in place of the bluesy "Forget Her"). Producer Andy Wallace speaks on the documentary about his concerns over how much of the record should reflect Buckley's solo performances, but true to form, the singer wanted it all.
Somehow, despite an overflow of ideas—they needed three different band setups available at all times to accommodate Buckley's various moods—the record got done. And it was released. And thousands of open-heart romantics heard their ship come in. As it happened, Grace was received with mixed feelings from critics who probably thought they were getting the next great alt-rock savior, and instead felt they'd received dinner theater for the moody crowd. They had a point: For all its swells of emotion and midnight dynamics, Grace was not a record to rally the post-grunge alternation. It made a jazz noise where a rock one was expected and a classical one where a pop one might have sold more records. MTV snagged "Last Goodbye", Grace's most radio-friendly song by a considerable margin, but Buckley was predestined for a cult stardom.
Grace's strengths have been well-documented over the years: The flawless choice of cover songs, including the definitive reading of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" (that we learn on the documentary was actually chosen based on John Cale's 1991 version from the Cohen tribute I'm Your Fan); the mystic, blue textures of "Mojo Pin", "So Real" and "Dream Brother" that seemed as related to Led Zeppelin as to Scott Walker as to Buckley's father; Wallace's sympathetic, intimate production and the band's equally sensitive following of Buckley's lead. And of course, he sang the hell out of those songs. His voice turned upward songs that naturally leaned inward; his reading of Nina Simone's "Lilac Wine" transformed from misty cocktail lament into transcendental experience, and the unlikely recasting of English composer Benjamin Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol" into ambient lullaby.
And, as this reissue proves, for every bit of lightning trapped in a jar, Buckley was willing to try his hand at many songs with which he held a weaker grasp. Firstly, he fancied himself a rock star, and the second disc of this set includes endearing, but ultimately inessential readings of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", a pretty silly Screamin' Jay Hawkins impersonation on Leiber & Stoller's "Alligator Wine", and a speed-metal take on "Eternal Life". His version of Big Star's "Kanga-Roo" nails its weary grandeur, but goes overboard on the ensuing 11-minute jam session, effectively transforming it from intimidating wall of drone into a meandering, albeit unfinished and tentative giant. He sounds best interpreting songs like Bukka White's "Parchman Farm Blues", Simone's "The Other Woman", and Bob Dylan's "Mama, You Been On My Mind", though his own take on the blues—the previously unreleased "Forget Her"—sounds comparatively pedestrian.
So, the question becomes how frustrated you are willing to be with Buckley. His posthumous releases suggest what Grace did: that he was one of the most talented musicians of his generation, while also being one of the most impulsive and, often, maddeningly inconsistent. Is he really being served by the uncovering of outtakes, B-sides and live performances? Fans certainly think so, but I won't cop to listening very beyond his lone completed record these days. And it bears emphasizing that its rewards have lost nothing in 10 years. Grace remains one of the most engaging, inspired records ever made, and its 10 original songs serve as the best possible portrait of Buckley as a diva, songwriter and artist.
— Dominique Leone, Pitchfork