Son of '60s folk legend curses genetics

News Record: May 18, 1995

By Rex Rutkoski

  He may be the son of the late '60s folk legend Tim Buckley, but Jeff Buckley very quickly lets you know he's his own man.

  In fact, the record company biography for his critically-acclaimed full-length debut album, "Grace," does not mention his famous father.

  Buckley performs his own music Sunday at Metropol in the Strip district on a bill headlined by Juliana Hatfield.

  Tim Buckley died in 1975 at 28, Jeff's current age. He only met his father once, when he was 8. He was raised by his mother, a classical pianist, and his stepfather.

  Buckley did perform his dad's song, "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain," which mentions Jeff and hus mom, at a memorial tribute in Brooklyn. But Buckley suggests there are unfair expectations placed on what he calls " '60s offspring."

  "I can't tell you how little he had to do with my music," he says of his father. "Genetics be damned, I have completely different musical choices."

  As one national magazine opined, "Buckley is aiming for a higher plane, musically and spiritually, than any other singer-songwriter right now, he succeeds enough to matter."

  Talking with Buckley, it's easy to understand that he clearly is struggling with distractions such as attending to the business side of music that take him away from what matters most to him-making music the way he wants to make it.

  He was in no hurry to be signed by a record company. "You only really fall from integrity with yourself if you just lose your way, if you get too tired, too disillusioned," Buckley says.

  While it's not easy to play the game, "it's an excruciating talent you must develop," he says. "The whole machine is not set up for art. It's set up for commerce. It doesn't recognize it. It's like a visitor from a beautiful foreign country who has no knowledge of the customs."

  Buckley tries to create a special place with his music and then transport the listener there. "I love that experience of being transported. That's the best effect of music," he says.

  Life motivates him. "Not always the pain of life, but also the amazing, blinding joy that's also hard to take, and there is a lot of it," he says. "And there is a lot of difficulty in taking it in."