Comments on: New contest: Jeff Buckley goodness

By: browneheather

browneheather — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:53:19 +0000

Contest closed! Thank you so much for all the thoughtful entries. Adrian won the Grace Around The World set. Woot!

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:05:31 +0000

I like that Jeff was a goofball but when it came to the music he was transcendent. But, in particular, in October 1992 he played on 91.1 WFMU’s ‘The Music Faucet’. He was in a quiet, mellow mood, singing and playing great, both his own and covers. Then three songs: Unforgiven, which would of course would become Last Goodbye, and covers of Elton John/Bernie Taupins “We All Fall In Love Sometimes” and “Curtains”. Now they are already fabulous songs off an amazing album, but to play his own classic song and follow up with an inspiring and beautiful interpretation of these twinned tracks just knocks me off my feet every time. The humility of this guy! The respect he pours into every song – you ever hear Buckley do the same song EXACTLY the same way twice? Sadly the same cannot be said of Sony and the Buckley Estate, they are just churning out another cash cow (Buckley is always great but are these really the best performances they could come up with? And I guess What Will You Say is a lot more palatable than Benjamin Britten’s Corpus Christi Carol – also nicely done at the WFMU gig!). Get some nice Buckley torrents and share them with your friends, fueled or regular…

By: Bevon Freeman

Bevon Freeman — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:59:21 +0000

I love that everytime he played, his songs always seemed so different. It’s kind of like you never knew where his mood was going to take the music…and that to me is beautiful.

“He’s the tear that hangs inside our souls forever”

By: amber

amber — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:31:21 +0000

I was so excited to see that you were giving this away…
I’ve loved and adored Jeff’s music for years and years. I love his smile, they way it turns his eyes into little half moons. I love his laugh, it makes me smile every time I hear it. I love how he was so calm and soft spoken, but his voice was so soulful when he sang. One of my favorite lyrics, is at the end of Morning Theft, off of the Sketches album. When he sort of calls out passionately “I miss my beautiful friend…” that lyric always touches my heart, I can feel the yearning in his voice when he sings it. He left that feelings with all of the people who adored his music before and after this death…

An artist friend of mine custom painted a pair of shes for me with Jeffs face on them and a lyric from Lover, You Should’ve Come Over. if you want to see pictures, feel free to email me (shevilkenevil1 at aol dot com)

I’m just thankful we had him for 30 years on this earth…and his music forever.

By: Termeh Mazhari

Termeh Mazhari — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:49:02 +0000

Jeff Buckley is my #1 favorite musician. I’ve been a fan since the year he died (RIP). I think my favorite thing about him is his quirky sense of humor. I’ve heard so many live performance recordings and they’re always punctuated with little bursts of his off-beat humor. His music may have exposed a ‘tortured soul,’ but he always seemed just so giddy and excited during his performances. What a loss….

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:35:29 +0000

Despite having grown up on the New Jersey shore and having lived in DC close to 23 years now, I’ve always been an Anglophile. I’d much sooner grab a NME or Melody Maker off of the newsstand before a Rolling Stone or Spin. And in about 1992 or so, the ‘Maker was reveling in a Tim Buckley live set called “Dream Letter” capturing Tim in all his hippyfolkyglory in London in ‘68. The review was so compelling that I went out and purchased the thing (double cassette, no less) and quickly fell under it’s spell. Tim had, as has been widely observed, a magnificent voice. So, it was with some interest when I noted that his son was not only making music himself, but was performing at DC’s then somewhat new Black Cat at its first location steps away from my home. So, this February evening, needing a pint and some live music, I slipped around the corner to the Cat and opened the concert door where Jeff Buckley was playing on the tiny back stage, solo. As in many of the pictures from that time, Jeff had the close-cropped hair, the v-neck white t-shirt on (odd for a snowy, blustery, February night) and well, the voice of an angel. I was a little bit late to the proceedings and all of the chairs close to the small stage had been filled – yet there really wasn’t a CROWD per se, maybe 35 – 4o people? I was made to sit at the only available space, a big round table toward the back which was decidedly empty then. A few minutes into the set, jaw firmly on the ground, a girl walked in and gestured as if to say, “are any of these seats taken?” I waved “no” and she joined the table with an empty chair between us. Jeff’s spiraling through octaves and odd tunings to an enrapt audience and then between songs he sees the lass who has joined my table and invites her up onto the stage. Seems that they had met sometime during the day, discovered some musical kinship, and they were off on a duet which, even if rehearsed, couldn’t have sounded any more in sync and lovely. The duet comes to an end and she retakes her seat at the table and I whisper to her how great that was–amazing, etc. Three or four tunes later, Jeff finishes the set to hay-uge applause and only knowing one friendly face in the room, his duet partner, he adjourns to my table and takes the seat between me and her. Now, he wasn’t JEFF BUCKLEY at this point, just a quiet, almost shy guy who didn’t seem all that thrilled or accustomed to the attention he was suddenly receiving–seemingly in general and for sure right then in that room. I recall some older, hippie-type in his Hawaiian shirt and straw hat saying to Jeff how much he worshipped his father to which Jeff simply replied, “I never knew my father.” (Geezer goes silent.) I ended up just shooting the shit there with Jeff for just shy of an hour. I bought him a pint and he returned the favor. I was playing drums at the time and asked if he was looking for a band and he said that he had one–”Grace” was in the can already and at this point Jeff was just picking up gigs here and there. Now, with so much having been said about the guy, what I’m left with from that very brief encounter can only underscore what many others have offered–that he was indeed that sweet, unassuming, yet wildly talented artist we all had the pleasure to watch come into his own, albeit for a shockingly brief time. And Jeff played that room a few more times over the next few years and I was there for every one of them and the scene was quite different…almost a hysteria as he DID ultimately become JEFF BUCKLEY. Yet, I’d prefer to recall the guy who threw on an old overcoat over a sweaty t-shirt, packed up his own guitar, and walked out into that cold, blustery, wintry night alone.

By: kristan

kristan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:07:54 +0000

I’ve spent so many hours listening to Jeff Buckley. I don’t mean just playing his music, but more like crawling into an intimate embrace and having him whisper in my ear! Ha, i know… I’m not the only one.
I honestly listened to nothing but Jeff for years, nothing else was ever as good, or soul soothing, or devastatingly familiar. I have his poetry on my back, ‘just like the ocean always in love with the moon’.
Jeff was what bought me to your blog in the first place Heather, years ago now and I still come back.
I don’t need to win this, just wanted to share that I love him too.

By: Chris Quartly

Chris Quartly — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:58:46 +0000

Jeff’s music was truly mindblowing, Grace was an odd listen to me, when I first heard the album I thought it was good, but not great, and I listened to it once in a while, but one day it just suddenly clicked, for no apparent reason, and it’s the closest I will probably ever have to some kind of epiphany.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:25:12 +0000

I’m going to try honesty here and hope that it works, because I just saw this and I have to go and I can’t think of a single best Jeff Buckley moment right now!

I’ll just say that what really rips into my soul is when I watch videos of him performing – it’s the way he seemed to soar, absolutely soar, with those ups and downs and pitches and rolls that his voice does. His whole self is moving with the music. You can tell that, yes, he was naturally gifted and could easily create a beautiful song and outperform with it, too – but he didn’t just make it easy for himself. It’s like he gripped the pain he had known and pulled it from his throat, as though every time he sang it he was feeling it fully. I believe him when he sings.

I know that may seem dramatic but I really see that when I watch him.

*I also want to say that I have never wanted to win anything more than this. That is all.*

By: James

James — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:12:56 +0000

Thanks for all of the personal reflections folks, a lovely read!
The obvious would be that glorious voice, just like his father, stops you dead in your tracks the first time you hear it. Jeff was quite the chameleon onstage and in interviews. You never knew what was going to fly off his lips next. I always admired his lack of fashion sense and how he made the plain white v-neck t-shirt look so gad-dammed sexy!