Jeff Buckley came from a musical family. His mother was a classically trained musician and his father was a psychedelic folk singer named Tim Buckley, who died at age 28 of a drug overdose. Jeff was only 8 years old at the time of his father’s death, but he didn’t have a close relationship with him, having only met his father once, several months before his death.
“I never knew him. I met him once, when I was 8. We went to visit him, and he was working in his room, so I didn’t even get to talk to him.” – Jeff Buckley
Buckley would tell the New York Times in 1993, “I never knew him. I met him once, when I was 8. We went to visit him, and he was working in his room, so I didn’t even get to talk to him. And that was it.”
Throughout his years in high school, Buckley played in a series of cover bands and soon after graduation, he attended the Los Angeles Musicians Institute. He revealed to Rolling Stone magazine in 1994 that while the institute did teach him a lot about music theory, specifically harmonies, overall, he felt the experience was a waste of time.
Buckley spent the next half a decade in LA playing as a session guitarist in a wide variety of bands covering a range of styles including jazz, reggae, and heavy metal.
In 1990, growing tired of the LA music scene, Buckley moved to New York City where he initially didn’t have a lot of success working as a musician. He split time between LA and New York from 1990 to 1991, during which he recorded a demo tape.
Buckley made his solo debut at a tribute show to his father in 1991 at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn. Obituaries for his father failed to mention him having a son and those closest to him were shocked to learn he had a child. It was his father’s former manager who knew about Jeff, and invited him at the last minute to partake in the tribute.
“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.” – Jeff Buckley
Jeff was unsure whether to attend, but deciding it would help him have closure, he chose to do so, telling Rolling Stone, “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.”
Jeff Buckley performed a cover of his father’s song, “I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain”, which was penned by his Dad as a send-off to the family he was abandoning.
“…I was next to him playing guitar but I was really just watching the audience, who were really turned on by it. It was electric.” – Gary Lucas
For Jeff, it took on a whole new meaning. Guitarist Gary Lucas performed with Buckley on stage that night and remembered to NME magazine in 1998, “Here was this skinny kid with this unearthly voice, just wailing. I was next to him playing guitar but I was really just watching the audience, who were really turned on by it. It was electric.”
Buckley performed several more songs that night and that performance changed his life forever. Soon, everyone wanted to do business with Jeff Buckley.
“In a way, I sacrificed my anonymity for my father, whereas he sacrificed me for fame.” – Jeff Buckley
Following that performance, Jeff wasn’t sure about his newfound path to stardom, telling The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1994, “In a way, I sacrificed my anonymity for my father, whereas he sacrificed me for fame. So, I guess I made a mistake.”
Buckley found a musical retreat in an East Village cafe called the Shin-E where he became a mainstay. When he wasn’t performing at the venue he was in the back, washing dishes.
As Buckley put on more shows, word soon started to spread about his incredible talent and record labels started sniffing around. Major label executives came all the way from Midtown, all hoping to sign the future rockstar.
One night in particular saw major industry players in attendance including Clive Davis & Seymour Stein.
Jeff Buckley Signs with Columbia Records
In late 1992, Buckley signed to Sony’s Columbia Records with promises of artistic freedom. A year later, Columbia Records issued his first commercial recording, the four-song EP Live at Sin-é. By early 1994, Buckley hit the road for his first solo tour in small venues to support the live album.
The following summer of that year, Jeff looked to release his debut studio album Grace. Buckley was excited at the prospect of working with a band, revealing in the press kit for Grace, “As soon as the EP came out, I was dying to be with a band. I was dying for the relationship, for the chemistry, the people, the warm bodies. Male or female. Bass, drums, tuba, anything. Any way that band would work out.”
Sessions for Grace began in September of 1993 and while the label had a lot riding on his first studio recording, many of the suits at Columbia started to worry as Buckley hadn’t yet assembled a band, weeks prior to hitting the studio.
Buckley told Juice in 1996, “Rather than have anybody pick my band, I decided to stall until I found the right people. So I stalled and I lied. Nothing was really happening, because I hadn’t found anybody.”
“They would start a riff that would turn into a jam, eventually abandoning the riff, and it would go on for ten minutes. – Andy Wallace
Eventually Buckley found his band. Producer Andy Wallace remembered the anxiety that set in, revealing what the first rehearsals were like, “They would start a riff that would turn into a jam, eventually abandoning the riff, and it would go on for ten minutes. It was interesting, but my first impression was, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you guys were learning songs. We’ve got studio time booked.’”
“The nature of recording is excruciating. It’s obsessive because you’re dealing with ultimate things.” – Jeff Buckley
As the band entered the studio, the recording sessions for Grace were excruciating. Buckley’s perfectionism saw him experiment with endless arrangements for each song. Buckley admitted his obsessiveness with making the perfect record while promoting the album, “The nature of recording is excruciating. It’s obsessive because you’re dealing with ultimate things. It’s not like a live show where you play it and it just disappears into the air like smoke.”
Throughout the recording process, Buckley seemed to clash with record executives. One song that was slated for the album was titled “Forget Her”, a vitriolic and personal song about Buckley’s messy break up with his then girlfriend, Rebecca Moore.
The label execs heard a huge hit, but at the last minute, Buckley pulled the song. The suits at Columbia Records were so desperate for the song, they took Buckley out to an Italian restaurant to plead their case but it fell on deaf ears.
“The whole world is so anti-life, especially a world ruled by men who don’t want to sit, listen and understand what life is all about.” – Jeff Buckley
Grace would explore the themes of love, death and pain. Buckley would tell an interviewer in 1994, “The whole world is so anti-life, especially a world ruled by men who don’t want to sit, listen and understand what life is all about. There’s so many countless details to just being alive, that just knowing what love is or what pain is or what the reason is or all this amazing wonder and really hard, hard lessons that you’ve really got to be serious about.”
It would take a long time for the public to catch on to the album, but Buckley quickly won over some high profile fans including Bob Dylan, who described him as “One of the great songwriters of this decade.”
The album took almost 8 months to make its mark when in May of 1995, the single “Last Goodbye” got a lot of attention being put into rotation on both MTV and VH1. The album entered the Billboard charts the same month at No. 174 and peaked at No. 149.
Grace Album Sells Over 2 Million Copies
By 2007, Grace sold over 2 million copies, just in the U.S.
By the summer of 1996, Buckley had begun recording demos for his second album, which he intended to call My Sweetheart, The Drunk. The recording sessions were held across New York City and Memphis, Tennessee, where Buckley had recently relocated.
On the night of May 29, 1997, the band had just arrived from New York to record the final studio tracks. Buckley and his friend stopped by the Wolf River. Buckley, who was clothed, decided to go for a swim.
Jeff Buckley Disappears Into the River
According to a Rolling Stone Magazine article published shortly after his disappearance, it claimed that Buckley was with a friend and they were both sitting on the bank of the river listening to a radio. The singer went into the river clothed, even though his friend called out to him and warned that it could be dangerous.
Buckley floated back and began to sing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. At that point, a boat came by, creating large waves. Fearing the radio would get wet, the companion got up to move it and when he returned, Buckley had disappeared, according to the police.
After searching for about 10 minutes, the friend called the Memphis police who searched the area by helicopter until darkness interrupted their efforts.
Six days passed before his body was found by a passing riverboat passenger. His body was tangled with some tree branches on the shore.
The medical examiner at the University of Tennessee concluded that there were no drugs in Buckley’s system and that his blood alcohol level was 0.04 milligrams—the equivalent of a glass of wine.
Jeff Buckley Dies of Accidental Drowning
The official cause of death was accidental drowning. He was 30 years old.
Jeff Buckley’s friends had mixed reactions to his death. Some refused to believe he had drowned. He was known to disappear for days at a time and some thought he was hiding to escape the pressures of his follow-up record.
To others, his death didn’t seem like a surprise. Buckley’s girlfriend, Joan Wasser remembered, “Not too long after we met, he said, ‘You know, I’m going to die young.’”
Buckley’s former manager, Dave Lory opened up to NPR Radio about Jeff’s final weeks, claiming he was “acting erratic”, “He was trying to buy a house that wasn’t for sale. He was trying to buy a car that wasn’t for sale. He proposed to Joan. He even applied for a job to be a butterfly keeper at Memphis Zoo – a lot of weird stuff that was uncharacteristic for him. I think it was a yearning to settle down. He wanted a normal life.”
“He would often say that he wanted to make music that would scare people.” – Michael Tighe
Despite these concerns, his bandmates believed that Buckley was excited about his follow-up album to Grace. Michael Tighe said, “He definitely wanted to make a much grittier album than Grace. He would often say that he wanted to make music that would scare people. And he was into the idea of dividing his audience. He knew that a lot of his audience wouldn’t like this album and he was energized and excited by that.”
Buckley’s manager would reveal how he learned of his client’s death, “It was 5:58 – I’ll never forget the time — in the morning. I was in Dublin, so that meant it must have been almost 1am in New York and midnight in Memphis. I just froze. I thought I was having a dream. I dropped the phone and you don’t know what to do. Thank God there was no internet because it would have been tweeted off the banks. You just go numb. I was totally numb, with no emotion.”
Jeff Buckley’s Manager Visits a Psychic With a Message
Buckley’s manager recounted a bizarre experience he had with a psychic outside of London, six years after the singer’s death. He claimed the psychic told him, “A Jeff or a John is trying to get a hold of you. It has something to do with water.”
He would go on to say, “She told me things only Jeff and I knew,” explaining that he had given the psychic a bracelet of Buckley’s to hold onto. “Towards the end, she said, ‘Is this his bracelet?’ and I said, ‘Yes’. She said, ‘Well, I don’t know if this makes sense, but he didn’t mean for it to happen, but he didn’t fight it. It’s not your fault. It’s okay to let go.”
Immediately following Buckley’s death, Columbia Records called a hastily organized meeting, not to mourn the singer, but to talk about posthumous releases which angered his manager. He remembered, “I had absolutely no faith in Sony to do the right thing by Jeff. I was furious that this meeting about posthumous releases had been called so soon. I’d had a ton of calls from distressed Sony employees who also thought it was insensitive. I went around as many desks as I could to support those who were in bits over Jeff’s death.”
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
In the years that followed his death, Jeff Buckley’s mother worked with Sony to put out unreleased tracks including 1998’s double disc set Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.
During a 2002 interview with The Guardian, his mother spoke about managing 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 kinda have to set aside. That’s why I get 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.”
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