A Singer With a Voice Beyond His Years

By Peter Watrous
The New York Times, March 16, 1992 
Submitted by Gabby

  Precociousness  is a strange thing, and it made its appearance at a concert by Gods and Monsters, a new group led by the guitarist Gary Lucas and the singer Jeff Buckley. Mr. Buckley, 25 years old but looking closer to 18, is almost surreally gifted. When he sings, it's as if his voice, and the melodies that come with it, were emanating from a far older person, somebody who has had the time to do all the studying it takes to learn as much has he has. Mr. Buckley was the focus of Friday night's show at the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights, partly because he is immensely charismatic and partly because of his ability. The band, made up of B-team musical celebrities, including the bassist Tony Maimone and the drummer Anton Fier, didn't have much to work with. The group's songs, short on melody and barely arranged, with absolutely no dynamics, were plain rock, as gray as yesterday's potatoes.
  The show really began when the rhythm section trundled offstage, leaving  Mr. Buckley and Mr. Lucas up there alone. Mr. Buckley is oddly clumsy onstage, and between songs he alternatley hanged himself and showed his talents.   Introducing a reggae song, Mr. Buckley spoke in a Jamaican patois; it was embarrassing at best. And when introducing a song by Edith Piaf, he mixed the sound of Piaf (coming from a record player, tinny and thin), and a human beat box, exposing a real gift for mimicry.
  That mimicry showed up in a gospel tune he sang alone, accompanying himself on guitar. Singing in a pure falsetto, his voice surged and arched over the guitar, passion in the form of idiomatically correct gospel singing. At other times, he fluttered his voice as if he had been studying ethnographic recordings; sometimes his voice bounced off bad notes, as if it were a drunk sliding off a sidewalk.
  When he and Mr. Lucas worked together, they gathered some real momentum, with Mr. Lucas's finger-picking driving them on, while Mr. Buckley's voice etched strange melodies against the harmonies. They played blues tunes and other pieces, and Mr. Buckley let himself be vulnerable, not  only in the traditional sense of singing about love from the wrong end (on the reggae tune he sang "How long will it take me to be your man  again?" until it seemed like the most profound lament ever written), but also by the sort of emotional exposure that comes from taking a chance.

Critics Notebook Review

New York Times, September 9, 1994
By Stephen Holden

In the most impressive album debut by a singer and songwriter since Tracy Chapman's first record, the 27-year-old Jeff Buckley reveals a voice of astonishing emotional fire. Two of the most compelling cuts are revelatory interpretations of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and of  "Lilac Wine," the jazz standard made famous by Helen Merrill. If Mr. Buckley's original songs aren't as arresting, they express the same burning mysticism, and his voice, which shades from an ethereal soprano of heart-rending delicacy into a transported yowl worthy of Robert Plant, makes them indelible. The settings, which feature Mr. Buckley on guitar, harmonium, organ and dulcimer, strikingly underscore the songs' intense spiritual aura. 

Love Songs Reflecting Maturity

The New York Times, September 26, 1994
By Jon Pareles

"I'm not afraid to love you," Jeff Buckley whispered from the stage of the Supper Club on Saturday night, and he meant it. At a time when many rock songwriters (and fans) are gingerly about love, Mr. Buckley's songs plunge into it like a kayak heading for the rapids, riding every surge and whirlpool. Folky guitar licks drift toward hard-rock stomps, which melt away; the words find more longing than bliss.

Mr. Buckley's riveting voice reveals every shade of pain and euphoria, of yearning and shame. He started his set with a display of bravado, volatility and tenderness, singing without words against a hovering guitar chord. A sustained "oh" glided into earshot, holds steady, quavered with the microtonal turns of Indian raga, moved into a blues curlicue and then changed to a liquid, feminine croon.

Mr. Buckley has inherited the protean, androgynous vocal instrument of his father, the songwriter Tim Buckley, although he has also been listening to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and others. He's not shy about his virtuosity; he unfurls swooping lines that curlicue upward, then loop down with qusai-operatic inflections. Like a soul singer, he also lavishes ornamentation on repeated words, like "baby," or hushes the band so he can sing unaccompanied. He ended his set singing "Hallelujah" (from a Leonard Cohen song) without a microphone. Yet for all its power and control, Mr. Buckley's voice never sounds overbearing; instead, it seems almost humbled by the emotion that pours through it.

There are rhythm-and-blues singers who can match Mr. Buckley's technique, but most of them use their skills to portray love as a realm of simple, escapist sweetness. Mr. Buckley finds turbulence instead; in "Last Goodbye," his determination to break up crumbles when memories and passion overwhelm him, even though he knows better: "It makes me so angry, because I know that in time I'll only make you cry."

Like the Smashing Pumpkins, Mr. Buckley is reinventing psychedelia, this time as a reflection of inner conflict rather than transformed reality. And with his voice, a world of tumult and obsession becomes almost seductive.

The Geraldine Fibbers, who opened Mr. Buckley's C.M.J. Music Marathon showcase, are a Los Angeles band featuring Carla Bozulich, who used to sing with the band Ethyl Meatplow. Her low, sultry voice is perfect for borrowed country songs about distraught characters, and for the band's own material about infatuation and revenge, with songs that build from country and folk-rock to the explosiveness of the Who.

Tindersticks, whose members wore jackets and ties, were more conventional rock romantics, somewhere between Bryan Ferry and the folk-rock side of the American Music Club. Following Mr. Buckley, they sounded overly methodical.

The Unmade Star

The New York Times, October 24, 1993 by David Browne.

Jeff Buckley has a compelling voice and a cult following, as did his father. But he's not sure he wants to be famous.

Strange things happen when Jeff Buckley opens his mouth to sing. One moment he's a white bluesman with a sound straight out of the Mississippi Delta; the next, a jazz singer whose acrobatic voice swoops and glides through a haze of cigarettes and pained memories. The last thing he sounds like is his age -- only 26.

Even odder, his singing makes otherwise jaded clubgoers and music-business executives rave with none of their usual cynicism. They will talk of catching Mr. Buckley at East Village hangouts like Sin-é and the FEZ, where they have heard him sing anything from "I Loves You Porgy" to a Sufi chant, an obscure Elton John oldie or one of Mr. Buckley's own unconventional songs. And they will talk about his new contract with Sony Records and how Buckley is a name to watch.

The one person who doesn't care for the talk is the source of it all. "The music business is the most childish business in the world," Mr. Buckley said one morning last month at a downtown bistro, "Nobody knows what they're selling or why, but they sell it if it works."

Mr. Buckley, whose hair is cut in a short, modestly spikey buzz, pauses and shoots an intense stare out the window. "There was a woman outside who was talking to someone, and I was trying to guess from her eyes what she sounded like," he said softly. "You can tell everything from the eyes."

You can tell a lot from Mr. Buckley's eyes, too. He's the son of the late Tim Buckley, who helped disassemble the barriers between folk, jazz and improvisational music before a fatal overdose of heroin, morphine and alcohol in 1975. Not only does Jeff Buckley have the same winding, sensual, octave-stretching voice as his father, but his waiflike looks recall the face on the covers of Tim Buckley albums like Goodbye and Hello, a cult classic from 1967.

Jeffrey Scott Buckley was born in 1966, the same year his father released his first album and also parted ways with his first wife, Mary Guibert. "I never knew him," Jeff Buckley said flatly. "I met him once, when I was 8. We went to visit him, and he was working in his room, so I didn't even get to talk to him. And that was it."

Mr. Buckley grew up with his mother and stepfather, mostly in Southern California, and learned about his father from old friends. "His life was hell." his son said.

Curiously, it was his father's music that made people notice Jeff Buckley. In 1991, he flew to New York to appear at a Tim Buckley tribute concert. "Everyone was there to celebrate the music of Tim Buckley, and here was someone who looked like him, sounded like him and had the same vocal range," said Nicholas Hill, who was at the concert and has since presented Mr. Buckley on his live music show on WFMU-FM. "It was very spooky, but impressive. The buzz was pretty immediate after that.

Mr. Buckley played briefly in a rock band, Gods and Monsters, but departed in the spring of 1992. As his main solo base, Mr. Buckley chose Sin-é (Gaelic for "that's it"; pronounced shin-AY), a coffeehouse where the occasional baby mouse scurries across the wooden floor. The stage, such as it is, is a cleared-away area against a wall.

"I figured if I played in the no-man's land of intimacy, I would learn to be a performer," Mr. Buckley said. Gradually, he did; he also paid the rent on his East Village apartment with money he'd collect from the plastic pitchers passed around at Sin-é.

Shane Doyle, Sin-é's owner, said : "He'll stop by to sing at 2 in the morning, and it doesn't matter if only a handful of people are there. He's definitely unusual in that way." Mr. Buckley often helps wash the dishes, too.

Mr. Buckley's apprenticeship didn't last long. Even though he has no manager -- just a lawyer -- word spread through the music business about the raw talent downtown. Soon, record executives like Clive Davis of Arista were spotted wedged behind Sin-é's chessboard-sized tables. Late last year, Mr. Buckley was signed by Sony, which will release an EP, Live at Sin-é in mid-November, followed by a full album next year.

With any luck, that EP, recorded this past summer, will make listeners feel as if they're in that 50-person space during one of Mr. Buckley's eccentric shows. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he often starts by casually telling a story about, say, attending a heavy-metal festival, complete with all the mimicry and timing of a stand-up comic. Then, accompanied by his own electric guitar, he starts singing, and suddenly the pale, thin, wise-cracking kid is transformed into a kid possessed.

Singing an a Capella version of the traditional gospel/blues song "Be Your Husband," he dips and gyrates, slapping his palm against his chest for a beat. Even his guitar playing is unpredictable, swerving from a metal riff with clear links to Led Zeppelin to complex, jazz-influenced chord changes, sometimes during the same song.

Tim Buckley had only a cult following and bounced from label to label. Not surprisingly, his son is apprehensive about entering the big-time music business. "I'm convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am," he said with a sigh. "And it makes me sad."

Sony executives declined to comment, saying it was "too early" to discuss Mr. Buckley. But Mr. Doyle said : "He gets nervous when the record company limos pull up outside. Those are never his best gigs.

When asked which musicians have influenced his work, Mr. Buckley cites figures that predate his father. Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong and Judy Garland records taught him about phrasing, for example. And "there was a time when I wanted to be Miles Davis," he said.

"A lot of time I feel like I don't belong here" he added, quickly turning forlorn. "Here" meaning where? "Here," he replied, as if the question was downright silly.

One moment Mr. Buckley will gush about a Led Zeppelin bootleg or will cockily say, "There are no precedents for what I'm doing." Then he will turn near-suicidal : "I'm sick of the world. I'm trying to stay alive."

Although Mr. Hill has booked Mr. Buckley on his WFMU show several times, he still doesn't know what to make of him. "He's very enigmatic and mysterious," he said. "It adds to his mystique." 

What no one doubts, it seems, is Mr. Buckley's charisma. Just before he left, for Woodstock, N.Y,, last month to record his first album, Mr. Buckley gave one more show at Sin-é. It was near midnight on a Sunday night; yet, the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk. Afterward, a dark-haired woman approached him. "You are like a sieve for music," she gushed. "Your soul is beautiful."

Mr. Buckley thanked her and began stuffing his guitar into its canvas case. "I'll never stop playing places like this," he said after she left. "You know when someone puts out an album, and then they start only playing big places? I hope I never end up like that. I love it here."

©1993 by New York Times. All rights reserved