Buckley's burden

 The Age: February 23, 1996

  For those who saw him late last year, the waiting is over. But can Jeff Buckley, the man who whose talent enraptured Melbourne audiences, do it again? He spoke with Dugald Jellie.

  THERE IS a certain precedent wth Jeff Buckley. The precedent of last year's whistlestop tour, in which the New York-based singer-songwriter mesmerized those who saw his shows and heard those aching, soulful vocals. His three Melbourne performances were rightly lauded by the music press, with tags such as "gig of the year" tossed about freely.

  In Buckley, audiences across Australia were seeing something new-a story that was being told for the first time. His visceral voice, his hymnal tunes, his haunting elegance, all captured on his 1994 album Grace, struck a deep and resonant chord.

  And then there is the precedent of his father. Jeff Buckley is the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley, who possessed one of the most distinctive and lyrical voices of his generation. His live performances were such that the rock music critic Lillian Roxon once wrote: "There is no name yet for the places that he and his voice can go."

  The story of father and son is tragically short. Jeff Buckley only met his father once, when aged 8, before he died of a heroin overdose. He was to spend most of his childhood singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around the white trash settlements of Southern California.

  Perhaps because of the legacy, the burden, of his father, Buckley, 28, baulks at any discussion of his bloodlines. It is a connection riddled with mystique and, yet so important, with his vocal style echoing that of his father's, albeit with other strongly original elements. "I've accepted that this is my life," he whispers. "I wouldn't change it. Lots of bad things have happened and lots of irreparable damage has been done. It's the agony of learning all over again."

  It's a heritage that has given Buckley so much strength and inspiration. He personifies the maxim that those who bleed the deepest give the most love and joy through their art.

  His days at school, for instance, were unhappy, and much of his youth was spent on the road. "I always felt I was born into an environment that had no use for me until I moved some place I chose, like New York. I was born into circumstances, either surrounded by the Disneyland Nazi youth of Anaheim, California, or being moved around, dealing with whatever."

  The past is history, with Buckley embarking on yet another tour of the Antipodes, presumably still on the strength of Grace, the hype surrounding his shows late last year, and possibly even the resurgent interest in the music of his father. Melbourne's Shock Records has recently released a back catalog of five Tim Buckkley CDs, including the live recordings Honeyman and Dream Letter.

  But for those who saw him in September, here's the rub: the man has no new material since he last played, or given any indication where his writings in New York are taking him. "No direction really. It just sounds like the music sounds now," was his only suggestion. If that's the case, expect more of the poetry of Leonard Cohen and Allen Ginsberg and the politics of Noam Chomsky and Bob Dylan.

  His recent shows in Sydney, by all reports, suffered because the material sounded stale, the voice tired. Only rarely did his famed voice soar and swirl and dive. Was it the awful acoustics of the venue, or just that you can only sustain vitality for so long when playing the same core of eight songs?

  So for those who saw him first time around, how can the second coming be any better, especially when the sound is likely to be lost in a bigger venue? "Even if we play a song again it will be a very different experience," he says. "If you put your all into it's kinda hard not to get people's attentions."

  Hopefully, that will be the case, and Buckley will be back with all the raw passion of his performances last year. He will, he promises, put on a solid show.

  "I don't want people to love me," he says. "I don't want them to fall in love with me. I don't want them to adore me. What I wish, is for them to be free to enjoy that weird thing that happens to people when they're in a room hearing a story for the first time that they'll never hear again.

  "There's a love, a mutual appreciation, that happens. But it has nothing to do with my name, or my body, it's just a real essential human thing. That's what I hope to happen."

Jeff Buckley plays the Palais Theatre, 27 February with the Dambuilders; 28 February with the Grifters; and the Palace, 29 February, with the Grifters and Crow.