I've had a long, off-and-on relationship with the album Grace by Jeff Buckley. It has come through for me when I have felt completely lost and don't know where else to look. It's true; I have gone long periods of months or years without it, but what keeps me inevitably coming back to it is Buckley's voice. If I had the pipes he had, I would gladly opt to never speak a word again. I would sing when spoken to. Modern rock singers with a commanding voice like his are incredibly rare.
When I was 14, I used to listen to the album while playing video games. When I was 18, I spent my mornings in community college classes, and my afternoons working by myself at a dry cleaner. Instead of tagging and hanging up blazers and skirts, I slacked off in the break room with an acoustic guitar, learning each song on the album, one by one. And most recently, at age 23, Grace has helped me through a long, painful series of break-ups with my ex-girlfriend.
Like all great albums, it comes through for me in many different ways.
I admit to sharing with the world an odd affinity for musicians who died prematurely. Suicide, homicide, bus accident, ski accident, spontaneous combustion... I guess I just love a good dead musician story.
Jeff Buckley drowned on the night of May 29, 1997. He went out for a swim in the Wolf River Harbor with all of his clothes on. (The Wolf River is a stream in Tennessee which flows directly into the Mississippi River. Coast Guard Petty Officer H.C. Kilpatrick says of the harbor, "We used to call it 'the chute.'") His roadie, Keith Foti, called out to him from the shore, "You can't swim in that water." Jeff turned around and grinned back at him, and didn't speak his response, he sang it. He reclined his head back, and belted the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin as he backstroked farther into the channel. Suddenly, a couple of tugboats approached the area where Buckley was. Foti yelled for him to get away, and he did. But the larger of the two tugboats created a wake which reached the shoreline. Yoti scrambled to move a boombox that was sitting on a rock near the water. When he looked back up, he didn't see Jeff anywhere. Buckley wasn't found until six days later, when his body was spotted by a passenger aboard a riverboat. Otherwise unrecognizable, he was identified by his navel ring and green toenail polish.
During Jeff Buckley's all too short career, he tried but couldn't avoid constant comparison to his father, folk artist Tim Buckley. He had only met his father once when he was 8. Shortly after the meeting, his father died of an overdose by combining heroin, morphine and alcohol.
I admit to sharing with the world an odd affinity for musicians who died prematurely. Suicide, homicide, bus accident, ski accident, spontaneous combustion... I guess I just love a good dead musician story.
Jeff Buckley drowned on the night of May 29, 1997. He went out for a swim in the Wolf River Harbor with all of his clothes on. (The Wolf River is a stream in Tennessee which flows directly into the Mississippi River. Coast Guard Petty Officer H.C. Kilpatrick says of the harbor, "We used to call it 'the chute.'") His roadie, Keith Foti, called out to him from the shore, "You can't swim in that water." Jeff turned around and grinned back at him, and didn't speak his response, he sang it. He reclined his head back, and belted the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin as he backstroked farther into the channel. Suddenly, a couple of tugboats approached the area where Buckley was. Foti yelled for him to get away, and he did. But the larger of the two tugboats created a wake which reached the shoreline. Yoti scrambled to move a boombox that was sitting on a rock near the water. When he looked back up, he didn't see Jeff anywhere. Buckley wasn't found until six days later, when his body was spotted by a passenger aboard a riverboat. Otherwise unrecognizable, he was identified by his navel ring and green toenail polish.
During Jeff Buckley's all too short career, he tried but couldn't avoid constant comparison to his father, folk artist Tim Buckley. He had only met his father once when he was 8. Shortly after the meeting, his father died of an overdose by combining heroin, morphine and alcohol.
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