Jeff Buckley (1966 – 1997)
Also known as "Scotty Moorhead", was an American singer-songwriter.
Dr. Drew: What will you remember most about the '90's?
Sebastian Bach: The album Grace by Jeff Buckley. Unless you've heard it, you wouldn't know why.
Dr. Drew: What's your favorite album for a night of steamy monkey love?
Sebastian Bach: Jeff Buckley's Grace is the most romantic, sensual album I've heard in my life.
He could have literally been doing anything, musically, that he wanted to do. And I would think of it like I would think of it like Jimi Hendrix, where there's no real way to predict it, because he could have done anything. He had a way of playing the most beautiful songs you've ever heard and singing them, and still with the way that he sang, create a bit of an uncomfortable edge to it if he felt like it. And he did that mostly with his voice.
The last few records that I bought that I really enjoyed... Jeff Buckley. It wailed me. I was, like, walking around in tears, just so grateful that I discovered this record.
Q:What are you listening to on your Walkman?
A: I listen to Jeff Buckley. He's my favorite singer. We actually cover a Jeff Buckley tune called "Eternal Life" in our set. When he died it really hit me, because he was an incredible singer who only did one album, Grace, and his voice was so beautiful that I couldn't believe it when he died. Since he's not around to sing songs anymore, we decided we'd give it a shot.
That’s what I wanted to do. You know, 2 hours. It’s like long-distance running or playing in a football game when you totally run out of steam and the moves you make after you run out of steam, because you’re totally unselfconscious, you’re not even thinking about the mechanics anymore. The moves you make then are incredible.
On the subject of dedication to a craft in addition talent, I was and especially the singing, were so original, so powerful, and so accomplished, that the tragedy of his loss, after making only the one record (though a flood of demos and live recordings was released in his wake), seemed ever more poignant. It was clear to me that Jeff Buckley had been one of the few Great Ones, a one-in-a-billion talent, a true voice of his generation, and at thirty, he had hardly begun. Whatever is left behind in the passing of a rare talent, so much is always lost.
Why do they always show Christ up there bleeding and dying on the cross? We don't remember John Lennon lying there with a bullet hole in his head. I'm against the arbitrary organization of 'God' as a concept. We should all experience it all individually and purely. I don't agree with the separation of God and the body, I don't believe that we aren't a part of 'it', I don't agree that it's a man. In most religions there's no place for women. There aren't any women in the Holy Trinity and I need that. I love women, I came from a woman.
Certain people compared us, I've been mourning the fact that it would have been great to sing a duet.
Technically he was the best singer that appeared, that had appeared, probably, I'm not being too liberal about this if I say in two decades. I started to play Grace constantly, constantly and the more, the more I listened to the album, the more, the more I heard -- the more I appreciated of Jeff and Jeff's talents and Jeff's total ability to which he was just a wizard and it was close to being my favorite album of the decade. We actually made a point of going to hear him play and seeing and it was absolutely scary. One of the things is a little frightening was that I was convinced that he probably did things in tunings and he didn't. He was doing things in standard tuning. I thought, oh gee he really is clever isn't he ? He quite clearly had his feet on the ground and he said his imagination was flying, flying way, way out there, beyond, beyond. Jeff Buckley was one of the greatest losses of all.
I saw my favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine ten years ago also Jeff Buckley in '94 so as well i learned a lot about music through coming to this festival so it means lot to me to taking chance to headlining here.
It was the kind of collaboration I dream about actually. His voice sounded, you know, like an angel. Like a gift from God.
I just wanted to pay tribute to him and talk about the situation." When asked if it was a conscious thing to give an eastern flavor to the song, Sheik says "Definitely... I know that he was, like, a big fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and he was listening to a lot of that kind of music. There's also just a really mournful quality to that kind of string playing." Sheik says, "I wanted to send him off and say a few things about how much his music moved me and other people.
Kurt was fairly quiet and introverted most of the time. Jeff was the opposite. He was very much full of life and had a lot to say. He was somebody in love with experiencing everything. Within a very short time, he had all these famous old rock stars coming to his shows, which put a lot of pressure on him. People talked about his concerts the way they used to talk about Hendrix. They'd sit there, wide-eyed, telling you stories about him. He definitely had an aura. It's impossible to say what it is exactly a guy like that has, that is so attractive to other people. But he had more of it than anyone I had ever met.
The album that I've been listening to for the last 18 months is Grace by Jeff Buckley. He is a great, great singer. He has such an emotional range, doing songs by Benjamin Britten and Leonard Cohen as well as his own - such technique and command. When the Page/Plant tour hit Australia, we saw them and we were knocked out. It was very moving. Someone heckled him from the audience - 'Stop playing that heavy stuff!' - but he made the perfect reply: 'Music should be like making love - sometimes you want it soft and tender, other times you want it hard and aggressive.' I felt he paid us a great compliment with his music in that style.
Jeff was somebody who would have been one of those people that influenced other singers. He was an amazing singer. I had an idea of what his music meant to people, because he did this amazing thing in such a short period of time. He's going to be the most important artist to so many people throughout their lives. We were really good friends, and as an individual he was different from any other friend I've had. I was looking forward to a long friendship with him. As an artist he was one of the few people, that really inspired me. I was counting on him, to be one of the persons, who would pressure me to move my limits, in many years to come. It's very important to have this kind of challenge, someone, who inspires you to grow with the challenge. That push, to get you to do new things, is very healthy, and Jeff was one of those people, who inspired you to expand your way of thinking, about yourself and music.
Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith, all dark, all romantic. When I say "romantic," I mean a sensibility that sees everything, and has to express everything, and still doesn't know what the fuck it is, it hurts that bad. It just madly tries to speak whatever it feels, and that can mean vast things. That sort of mentality can turn a sun-kissed orange into a flaming meteorite, and make it sound like that in a song.
People my age all flocked to see Jeff, you know. Because we were so, just to hear that voice again. He would have been so pissed off with it by now. All these old toothless hags hanging around the stage door you know. He was just shit hot, I gotta say.
I wanted to fuse together my favorite elements of rock and soul singers into something I could call my own. The inflections of Stevie Wonder with the soaring qualities of someone like Buckley. It was his emotional intensity that inspired me more than anything. Also, Jeff came along at a time most singers weren’t using their upper register. His approach helped me embrace the fact that I was a tenor. I owe that guy a lot.
Both songs are beautiful (Lilac Wine, James Shelton, and Corpus Christi Carol by Benjamin Britten). It's my tribute to Jeff. The record he has left is very emotional, very beautiful. An intriguing work, challenging. Using only his voice, he reaches regions (of) unimaginable feeling. But, while recording the songs he chose for himself, I am not stealing it because they are two very different visions. I think he would approve. I have the impression that Jeff Buckley, although he had a very brief passage through life, has become something like Jimi Hendrix, whose presence remains forever.
Even if he didn't sell a huge amount of records in the U.S., he had a lot of impact...
On writing "Grace":
I just had faith that whatever he did would be good...I was stunned -- it was so beautiful and perfect...It surpassed anything that I thought he was going to do...I remember thinking, man, this music will shake the world. I was just scared by it.