Original print, December, 1992
Submitted by Sai
Translated by Moira de Kok
A young man with a guitar treks from one grimy New York bar to another. His name: Jeff Buckley. His music: intense and idiosyncratic. Achievements: none. His father: the legendary singer/songwriter Tim Buckley who passed away in 1975. And because curiosity is stronger than prejudice: an encounter.
By Martin Aston • translation & editing Erik van den Berg
It turns out to be a small café. I’m late. There’s plenty of room in the back, but there’s an empty seat in the front, too. Once I’m seated, I can almost feel the singer’s breath. Not that he notices; his eyes are closed tight and when they open for a second, they quickly flit back and forth. He’s nervous. So am I; I’m overwhelmed and unable to take notes, so I have to trust my memory. A pure, flexible voice fills the room. A voice that is capable of wrapping itself around a song and make it into heaven. Or, at the very least, guard it from hell. A rendition of Elvis’s Twelfth of Never impresses me deeply. The singer ends his show with something reminiscent of a lullaby. He closes his eyes. So do I. But I can’t relax. When I almost slip into a dream because of his fluid, golden voice, I get chills. Something is happening here. Are there other people who sing like this? Yes, once there was someone. Tim Buckley, who caused a stir with his highly original journeys across folk, jazz, blues and everything in between. He died at 28, apparently because he mistook a cocktail of heroin and morphine for cocaine. His body, free of heroin up until then, could not handle the substance. People say Tim Buckley did for the voice what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar. And well-known American critic Lillian Roxon once said: “His voice goes where no human voice has ever been.” Except for now, here. And the singer on stage is Tim Buckley’s son Jeff…
Before we meet each other, I get told Jeff Buckley does not want to talk about his father. He’s afraid it’s the only reason I’m here. It’s Jeff’s first interview and the subject is clearly sensitive, because after our conversation he lets me know he’d appreciate it if I didn’t mention the name Tim Buckley. I reassure him the connection with his famous father is not relevant at all and that I simply came to New York’s Sine [sic] Café to see Jeff play. At the same time, I realise all too well that his father was my favourite singer. And that it’s impossible not to mention his name. By the way, Jeff is Tim’s mirror image. Let alone their similar, wistful voices and the music’s spiritual power.
Tim Buckley and his first wife split up before Jeff was even born. Thus, it was mostly Jeff’s mother who sang to him. “She was a classically trained pianist and cellist. We sang along to the radio together. When she took me to school by car, there was always a station on with mellow Californian stuff: Joni Mitchell, Chicago, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sly & the Family Stone, James Brown. Later my mom married a car mechanic. He couldn’t sing, but he had an amazing taste in music. He introduced me to Booker T. & The MG’s, Led Zeppelin and Willie Nelson.”
Jeff Buckley’s repertoire contains many curious covers: Sweet Thing by Van Morrison, Boy With The Thorn In His Side by The Smiths, I Against I by Bad Brains, Bitterest Pill by The Jam, Farewell Angelina by [Bob] Dylan, but also traditional blues song Fare Thee Well and a song like Hymn To Love, that became popular thanks to Edith Piaf’s rendition. And, of course, Elvis’s Twelfth of Never. “But more like Nina Simone sang it. I don’t like Elvis all that much; he doesn’t affect me as much as The Beatles. He had a beautiful voice, but I can’t see him as separate from movies like Clam Bake, just like I can’t see Charles Manson as separate from The Beatles. But I love all music.”
Was music Jeff’s first love? “I remember being completely obsessed by my stepfather’s stereo. He was very careful with all his stuff, so he wouldn’t let me handle it most of the time. One time he freaked out when I wanted to play a live-bootleg of Hendrix.”
Jeff’s first shows took place between the sliding doors . “During parties my stepfather would fall asleep drunk sometimes and because it embarrassed my mom to no end, she tried to draw attention away from him. Then she’d let me sing songs. I was thirteen and I knew I wanted to be a singer. My favourite band at the time was Led Zeppelin, later – in the rock era of the early seventies – Kiss. Suddenly rock stars were everywhere: on TV, in books… It became a culture that I felt connected to. And I knew you could make it your job. On the other side I kind of wanted to be an archaeologist, too; I loved dinosaurs. But luckily, I soon realised that wasn’t the field I wanted to be in. Singing, on a stage, felt more natural. I didn’t even think about it.”
Jeff proceeded through the usual high school bands singing and playing guitar, while he went to four different high schools and moved nineteen times (“my mother had gypsy tendencies”). Tired of travelling around he left home at seventeen, to go play in Los Angeles. “Just for the money. I played in a reggae band for a while, which taught me a lot. Especially the dread in the band, Pablo, told me all about the art of leaving things out. We were just a bunch of kids, but eventually we were the backing band of people like U-Roy and Judy Mowatt. I did some studio work for demos on the side, but I actually thought I shouldn’t lower myself to that level. So I got itchy feet; I wanted to go to New York, a city with an energy that I had wanted to feel all my life. That was in 1990. I recorded four songs to tape in LA and left.”
But this was preceded by something, because the direct reason for Jeff’s departure for New York had to do with producer Hal Willner, famous from projects with music legends like Kurt Weill, Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, who planned to organise a tribute to Tim Buckley. He had come across his singer son and flew him to New York. During rehearsals for the event Jeff came into (musical) contact with former Captain Beefheart-guitarist Gary Lucas and they clicked. And once Jeff had found a place in New York, he started doing shows with Lucas under the moniker Gods & Monsters, and a record label offered them a development deal. But to no avail, because their collaboration soon ended. “In the beginning it seemed like an interesting project, and the most part of it was, but it culminated in a failure,” Jeff says now. “Our ideas were too far apart. We put the cart before the horse. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it anymore.
Jeff had been working solo ever since. In New York cafés and folk clubs. In all loneliness and fragility. “If you want to play solo in New York, you end up in the most intimate venues. But you learn from that. Now I know how to fill a space. Because usually those cafés have barely any stage, so the audience can only hear you. I’ve had good responses so far. One girl told me my work made her realise why she loved music again. Someone else told me he’d had a terrible week and he completely cheered up with me. And sometimes we’re all laughing. Or crying.”
What did Jeff feel when he heard his own voice for the first time? “I hated that voice, but now I’m over it. I’m very critical of myself. I believe I realised that first time that it’s impossible to hide your feelings with your voice. You can hear everything. Always. When you hear how some singers try to say something with words only, that’s almost embarrassing. That wat someone builds a wall between himself and expression. At the moment I keep trying to dive deeper into the emotional value of the human voice. I want to learn from every voice I hear.”
Making a record won’t be easy. Jeff thinks he’s not ready for it yet, but record label Columbia offered him a deal enabling him to stay out of the studio for another year. Meanwhile Jeff is keeping his wits about himself. “Several companies have contacted me. Arista even wanted to sign me without having heard even one note! But first I want to do what I think is important and necessary. Record new material, do a lot of covers, form a band. I need a band for the energy I’m striving for.”
The energy that comes off a Jeff Buckley-concert, is indeed immense. Electrifying, gut-wrenching, manic and laced with crazy. Jeff is as unpredictable as his music. His self-written songs bear titles like No-One Must Find You Here, Cruel and No Soul; titles with an unmistakeable feeling for blues. Let alone the exorcistic style he presents everything with.
“Fare Thee Well is a traditional blues song written by a black laundress. Because that’s where the best music comes from: the African people, brought to America by European-American criminals. My favorites are Robert Johnson, Bukka White, The Staple Singers and of course Billie Holiday. I do a cover of her Strange Fruit. Once I understood that I could never meet my heroes, I decided to learn from them by listening to their voices. But don’t let me be misunderstood, it’s not a black-or-white thing; no music is as cool as Johnny Cash’s. And it goes on through Ray Charles, Edith Piaf and the Sex Pistols to Muddy Waters. ”
And Tim Buckley? “Of course I listen to him to try and find stuff out about him, but on the other hand… His music is public domain; everyone can find stuff in it. A couple songs are about me and my mother; sometimes it’s hard to listen to those, but sometimes it isn’t. His style has nothing to do with what I’m doing now, anyway. I am who I am. Sometimes I imitate him by moving my eyebrows towards each other during a show; usually people laugh about that. Furthermore, I can of course sing like he did technically, but our intonation is different. Most importantly the atmosphere is different. He was in another era and was influenced by Dylan and all these folk singers.”
Lyrics-fanatics have a lot t find between the lines. I, also, can’t escape a comparison, regarding the way they both build their compositions, apply a wry sense of humor (especially live) and completely immerse themselves in their songs. Moreover, in both Jeff’s and Tim’s music, musical traditions play a big role, which results in a somewhat naïve, seemingly unshakable signature style. Although, Jeff’s style is unmistakeably his. Just like his ambition, that eventually results in a more dogged form of rock music than his father’s. If you listen to Hymn To Love or Twelfth Of Never, you hear nothing but Jeff Buckley. And nothing but his obsessions. On a cassette tape of one of his shows he introduces his song Grace like so: “I was cleaning my room and I was thinking about my usual obsessions: death, dying. But after a while I got to that point where I didn’t care anymore, because I realised there was someone somewhere who… That there was someone, somewhere.” He tells this story in such an enthralling and multivalent way that no-one in the crowd dared ask anything else. It would break the magic. And, like I pointed out at the beginning of this story: the subject is sensitive.
“I love New York,” Jeff says. “People here respect everything new and original. And a bunch of other emotions. Everyone here has their place. Maybe I romanticize it too much, but so many improbable things happen here and everyone think it’s completely normal. I mean, Lou Reed lives here! In 1976 I heard him for the first time and since then he hasn’t let go of me. A song like Heroin takes hold of you instantly, if you listen attentively, of course, and have the right entourage. That song started everything for me. I was in someone’s car, I felt lonely… Heroin is so beautiful, like a big black kiss. Reed sounds like a punk guy who knows everything, but he’s just not enough of a smart-ass. So erudite.”
What else is there to be said in this early stage, Jeff and I wonder. “As far as my music goes… There are so many musicians I know and love, and whom I learn from a lot, when those people don’t even know me. But I want to create something completely new. Miles Davis once said in 1984 that he could hear exactly which music was a tribute to him. But all of those were a form of pure plagiarism, I feel. To really pay tribute, you should add your own completely new things. I want to find my pure, authentic self. At least, what I think that self is.
“Music is like sign language. It didn’t matter whether people from Iran or from America heard The Beatles, they all went “wow!” at the same time. And then they forgot they were killing each other. Music’s got something, something even more powerful than a speech or a painting has, that awakens the primal creatures in all of us. That’s what I want to find. And then I want to give it my own vibe.”
Mojo Magazine reprint, January 2003
Submitted by Niella
When did music first make an impact on you?
As a child. There was my mother’s breasts and then there was music. It felt like anyother person in the house that floated with me everywhere. All my life, I’ve sung along to the radio, stuff like I Love You More Today Than Yesterday. My mum would drive me to school, playing mellow Californian radio, stuff like Chicago, Crosby Stills & Nash, Blood Sweat & Tears, Sly & The Family Stone, James Brown, The Temptations, everyday! She married a car mechanic, who couldn’t carry a tune, but he had amazing taste, and he turned me on to Booker T, Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell, Hoyt Axton and Willie Nelson. My mum pretty much sung to me – she’s a classically trained pianist and cellist. So it was mainly me and my mum, because my parents split before I was born. I hung around my grandmother too – she’d play me stuff like The Chambers Brothers.
There’s also a Bad Brains cover.
I Against I, yeah, I dig them.
It’s rare to hear someone equally smitten with traditional blues as well as modern blues forms. I’m thinking of your cover of Fare Thee Well
That’s Dink’s Song. It was originally written by a washerwoman. That’s where the best music came from, from old European-American criminals bringing Africans to America. My favourites are Robert Johnson and Bukka White, The Staple Singers, Billie Holliday. I cover Strange Fruit too. The thing I figured is, I wouldn’t be able to meet these people, so I learn from them by hearing them sing. Some of the coolest music is Johnny Cash, which isn’t a black or white thing. I love Mariachi music, Ray Charles, Edith Piaf, The Sex Pistols, Muddy Waters….
Cover versions seem an integral part of what you’re doing
I just saw gifts dangling from them and wanted to take it. I guess I what I want to do is be an archetypal entertainer, an archetypal bard, a minstrel. I guess I have a romantic vision. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson, I want to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories.
What do you love about Twelfth Of Never?
I cover the Nina Simone version. It’s just the way she does it. I can’t get into Elvis’s version, it doesn’t capture my imagination, though he had a beautiful voice. Every time I hear Can’t Help Falling In Love, I cry. I can’t separate Charles Manson from The Beatles or the Clam Bake movie from Elvis, though. But I love all music. I’m the Cocteau Twins’ biggest fan too. They allow their deepest eccentricities to be the music itself, and not just something they want to project. Liz Fraser is one of the only originals. They’re just regular people too. I got to meet her once, she was very shy, which puts a weird curve on music as well. Imagine that sound coming out of her mouth when she’s in the kitchen scrambling eggs. I lose my mind when I’m washing the dishes.
Was music your first true love?
Besides sex? One surrounds the other. I can remember being obsessed with my stepfather’s stereo, getting into trouble for using it. He was really possessive of control over it, like a car. It was really expensive equipment, so I was really careful, then one day, I wanted to list to a live bootleg of Jimi Hendrix, and he went mad. I had a tape player in my room, which I shared it with another kid in the family. You had to stick a hanger in it in order for it to work
How do you feel when you open your mouth and sing?
Like it’s real. I feel like crying..I feel like I am crying! It’s the middle point between laughing and immense joy and crying. I feel the best when I’m singing.
When did you start?
In front of an audience at a family get-together. My stepfather got drunk, and fell asleep, in front of everyone, and my grandmother got really embarrassed, so to direct attention away from him, I sung every Elton John song I knew. I was a huge fan then. They gave me some silver dollars for doing it. I was 13 (laughs). My friend and I started play electric guitars, you know, Stairway To Heaven, for a talent show at junior high school. We lost… We were living in Southern California then. I later had a band in Northern California, in Willetts, called Axxis. It wasn’t my idea. It’s one of the nineteen cities I’ve lived it, I attended four high schools. One I spent two weeks in. My mum was quite a gypsy.
What did you make of your own voice?
I hated it, but I got over it. I’m horribly self-critical. I think that the first time I heard it, I thought no way that I could ever keep anything from anyone, it was all there in the voice. Some ways that people sing, they put it across in language, and it’s almost impossible, because they have a wall between them and the expression. I’m trying to get deeper in the hole, trying to learn things when I heard voices.
Did the concept of singing on stage come easily to you?
It was totally natural, I just did it. It was like going to the beach, like, I’m going into the ocean, the water! I never thought about it. I first sang at a dance in Northern California Methodist Church, to high school kids. When I was thirteen, I already knew what I wanted to do. My all time favourite was Led Zeppelin, and I knew that I wanted to belong to that. In the seventies, there was an overspill of rock life, which becomes coffee table material, with books on Kiss and rock stars on TV. I knew it was possible for some people to do it for a living. I spent hours listening to Magical Mystery Tour. I felt like an archeologist, which is fine, because I liked dinosaurs! But that was the wrong direction…
Give me some more Jeff Buckley archeology.
I left home when I was seventeen, because I was tired of moving around. I played in lots of LA bands, just to make money. There was a reggae band for a while, The AKB Band, a rag-tag motley crew, with one rasta guy. I played guitar. We ended up backing up U-Roy, Shinehead and Judy Moyatt, and at the Bob Marley day at Long Beach. We did cheesy session work for demos too.
What did the experience teach you?
The simplicity. I guess it didn’t teach me much at the time. It’s like your parents telling you what not to do. But Pablo, the rasta, everything he said about playing makes sense now. Forget the next band. I then decided not to spread myself that thin. I didn’t like Southern California, LA especially. Hollywood isn’t a real town, but that’s the reality of it. I’d wanted to see New York since I saw it on TV when I was twelve, to experience the energy, so I took off in 1990. I got a couple of jobs, and went hungry for a long while, before I got an offer to record songs in LA, so I flew back, and recorded four songs. I went back and forth a bit, before I met Gary Lucas at a show in New York, at a tribute show to my father. I thought playing with Gary would be interesting but it turned out to be a disaster. We had two completely different paths…the cart was before the horse. But I learnt to go out and sing, in impossibly intimate settings, when guys are right up against you. You learn how to move a room. The biggest challenge is to put a song across live. The audience shouldn’t see your face, or your body, they should just hear you. People really like it.
Do you enjoy the New York scene?
I dig it. If I was in LA, I wouldn’t be doing anything, but here, there’s a real respect. There’s a lot of other emotions too, but there’s a respect for anything original. Maybe I’m overpoweringly romanticising New York, but so many amazing things happen here on an ordinary level, like Lou Reed lives here, wow! I first heard him in ’76 but he got into my soul, it just takes one time, like Helen Keller.. it’s just the sound of the song. I couldn’t get enough of that song, and it led to everything else. I was in somebody else’s car, feeling lonely. Heroin is so beautiful, like a big black kiss, the way it builds…He sounds like a punk who knows absolutely everything. He’s got such erudition, but he’s not too smart.
You’ve already had extraordinary notices. Have any comments freaked
you out?
One girl said it reminded here of the reason why she loved music. Another had a horrible week and day and came in and she was rejuvenated. Sometimes we all cry, sometimes we all laugh.
What stage do you see yourself at right now?
Always at the beginning. I’d love to make a record. Probably the night you came down to see me, record company people were coming down, and wanting to do something. Clive Davis at Arista wanted to sign me but he hadn’t heard me, it was just on the basis of what his right hand man, the head of A&R, had said. but he has to hear me himself. I plan to start from what matters. In September, I’ll perform all new material, a lot of covers, and I wanna find people to play with. Yeah, a band, just because of the certain feeling I need. An energy.
Can I raise the delicate matter of your dad, Tim?
Sometimes, with people who knew him, they’ve come see me for a nice night out, but they see me, they don’t think about him. They don’t really know him. Those who do, I don’t hang around them. We’re different. The people who knew him, they have apparently a very magic memory, but it’s been a claustrophobic thing all my life, I knew him for a total for nine days. He never wrote, never called.
Do people claim that you’re just your father’s son?
If anyone mentions that, I walk. If I go to a club, and some writer uses that area, then I rip the shit down and say ‘Fuck you, see you later, we can talk about this next time, because I’m on my own’.
Do you listen to his records?
Yeah, mostly to learn about him as a person. It’s there for anybody to take from, pretty much. He wrote a couple of songs are about me and mother, which is sometimes tough, sometimes not. His style had nothing to do with what I do. It’s funny that we were born with the same parts, but when I sing, it’s me. Technically, I can do what he did, but our expression is not the same, it’s a completely different sphere. His was a different time, influenced by Dylan and the folkies. I don’t even talk like him. But I can do a good impersonation of him, knitting up my eyebrows, which makes people laugh.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
As far as music goes, so many people who I know and love, who give me so much, they don’t even know me yet. I want to make something completely new. I was into Miles Davis in 1984, he said he could tell when people were paying tribute to him but it was just copying. The only way to pay tribute is to bring something completely new to the fold. If they could, the whole place would be overflowing with blooms of sound. I want to work so hard that everything of me burns away, like the chemical in the match. Which leaves what really is me, or what I think is me. It can be such a joy. Like The Beatles, they were geniuses, you know? Music’s like a sign language between people, so when a guy from Iran or America hear The Beatles, they go ‘wow!’ They don’t think of killing each other. There’s something about music that hits the cavemen in us, even more than a speech or painting. I just want to achieve my own vibe. I want to go someplace else. There’s more, so much more. More ways of saying ‘I love you’, more ways of saying ‘where the hell do I fit in?’, more ways of saying ‘why doesn’t anyone love me?, why doesn’t somebody just love me, when is somebody going to want to kiss me, I’m sick of waiting, waiting to be understood. And it’s nothing arty, nothing lofty, it’s just fucking different, and I want to leave this world behind a little so that maybe I will see that it’s bigger and I haven’t left it at all. I’m just trying to do my thing.
Submitted by Sai
Translated by Moira de Kok
A young man with a guitar treks from one grimy New York bar to another. His name: Jeff Buckley. His music: intense and idiosyncratic. Achievements: none. His father: the legendary singer/songwriter Tim Buckley who passed away in 1975. And because curiosity is stronger than prejudice: an encounter.
By Martin Aston • translation & editing Erik van den Berg
It turns out to be a small café. I’m late. There’s plenty of room in the back, but there’s an empty seat in the front, too. Once I’m seated, I can almost feel the singer’s breath. Not that he notices; his eyes are closed tight and when they open for a second, they quickly flit back and forth. He’s nervous. So am I; I’m overwhelmed and unable to take notes, so I have to trust my memory. A pure, flexible voice fills the room. A voice that is capable of wrapping itself around a song and make it into heaven. Or, at the very least, guard it from hell. A rendition of Elvis’s Twelfth of Never impresses me deeply. The singer ends his show with something reminiscent of a lullaby. He closes his eyes. So do I. But I can’t relax. When I almost slip into a dream because of his fluid, golden voice, I get chills. Something is happening here. Are there other people who sing like this? Yes, once there was someone. Tim Buckley, who caused a stir with his highly original journeys across folk, jazz, blues and everything in between. He died at 28, apparently because he mistook a cocktail of heroin and morphine for cocaine. His body, free of heroin up until then, could not handle the substance. People say Tim Buckley did for the voice what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar. And well-known American critic Lillian Roxon once said: “His voice goes where no human voice has ever been.” Except for now, here. And the singer on stage is Tim Buckley’s son Jeff…
Before we meet each other, I get told Jeff Buckley does not want to talk about his father. He’s afraid it’s the only reason I’m here. It’s Jeff’s first interview and the subject is clearly sensitive, because after our conversation he lets me know he’d appreciate it if I didn’t mention the name Tim Buckley. I reassure him the connection with his famous father is not relevant at all and that I simply came to New York’s Sine [sic] Café to see Jeff play. At the same time, I realise all too well that his father was my favourite singer. And that it’s impossible not to mention his name. By the way, Jeff is Tim’s mirror image. Let alone their similar, wistful voices and the music’s spiritual power.
Tim Buckley and his first wife split up before Jeff was even born. Thus, it was mostly Jeff’s mother who sang to him. “She was a classically trained pianist and cellist. We sang along to the radio together. When she took me to school by car, there was always a station on with mellow Californian stuff: Joni Mitchell, Chicago, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sly & the Family Stone, James Brown. Later my mom married a car mechanic. He couldn’t sing, but he had an amazing taste in music. He introduced me to Booker T. & The MG’s, Led Zeppelin and Willie Nelson.”
Jeff Buckley’s repertoire contains many curious covers: Sweet Thing by Van Morrison, Boy With The Thorn In His Side by The Smiths, I Against I by Bad Brains, Bitterest Pill by The Jam, Farewell Angelina by [Bob] Dylan, but also traditional blues song Fare Thee Well and a song like Hymn To Love, that became popular thanks to Edith Piaf’s rendition. And, of course, Elvis’s Twelfth of Never. “But more like Nina Simone sang it. I don’t like Elvis all that much; he doesn’t affect me as much as The Beatles. He had a beautiful voice, but I can’t see him as separate from movies like Clam Bake, just like I can’t see Charles Manson as separate from The Beatles. But I love all music.”
Was music Jeff’s first love? “I remember being completely obsessed by my stepfather’s stereo. He was very careful with all his stuff, so he wouldn’t let me handle it most of the time. One time he freaked out when I wanted to play a live-bootleg of Hendrix.”
Jeff’s first shows took place between the sliding doors . “During parties my stepfather would fall asleep drunk sometimes and because it embarrassed my mom to no end, she tried to draw attention away from him. Then she’d let me sing songs. I was thirteen and I knew I wanted to be a singer. My favourite band at the time was Led Zeppelin, later – in the rock era of the early seventies – Kiss. Suddenly rock stars were everywhere: on TV, in books… It became a culture that I felt connected to. And I knew you could make it your job. On the other side I kind of wanted to be an archaeologist, too; I loved dinosaurs. But luckily, I soon realised that wasn’t the field I wanted to be in. Singing, on a stage, felt more natural. I didn’t even think about it.”
Jeff proceeded through the usual high school bands singing and playing guitar, while he went to four different high schools and moved nineteen times (“my mother had gypsy tendencies”). Tired of travelling around he left home at seventeen, to go play in Los Angeles. “Just for the money. I played in a reggae band for a while, which taught me a lot. Especially the dread in the band, Pablo, told me all about the art of leaving things out. We were just a bunch of kids, but eventually we were the backing band of people like U-Roy and Judy Mowatt. I did some studio work for demos on the side, but I actually thought I shouldn’t lower myself to that level. So I got itchy feet; I wanted to go to New York, a city with an energy that I had wanted to feel all my life. That was in 1990. I recorded four songs to tape in LA and left.”
But this was preceded by something, because the direct reason for Jeff’s departure for New York had to do with producer Hal Willner, famous from projects with music legends like Kurt Weill, Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, who planned to organise a tribute to Tim Buckley. He had come across his singer son and flew him to New York. During rehearsals for the event Jeff came into (musical) contact with former Captain Beefheart-guitarist Gary Lucas and they clicked. And once Jeff had found a place in New York, he started doing shows with Lucas under the moniker Gods & Monsters, and a record label offered them a development deal. But to no avail, because their collaboration soon ended. “In the beginning it seemed like an interesting project, and the most part of it was, but it culminated in a failure,” Jeff says now. “Our ideas were too far apart. We put the cart before the horse. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it anymore.
Jeff had been working solo ever since. In New York cafés and folk clubs. In all loneliness and fragility. “If you want to play solo in New York, you end up in the most intimate venues. But you learn from that. Now I know how to fill a space. Because usually those cafés have barely any stage, so the audience can only hear you. I’ve had good responses so far. One girl told me my work made her realise why she loved music again. Someone else told me he’d had a terrible week and he completely cheered up with me. And sometimes we’re all laughing. Or crying.”
What did Jeff feel when he heard his own voice for the first time? “I hated that voice, but now I’m over it. I’m very critical of myself. I believe I realised that first time that it’s impossible to hide your feelings with your voice. You can hear everything. Always. When you hear how some singers try to say something with words only, that’s almost embarrassing. That wat someone builds a wall between himself and expression. At the moment I keep trying to dive deeper into the emotional value of the human voice. I want to learn from every voice I hear.”
Making a record won’t be easy. Jeff thinks he’s not ready for it yet, but record label Columbia offered him a deal enabling him to stay out of the studio for another year. Meanwhile Jeff is keeping his wits about himself. “Several companies have contacted me. Arista even wanted to sign me without having heard even one note! But first I want to do what I think is important and necessary. Record new material, do a lot of covers, form a band. I need a band for the energy I’m striving for.”
The energy that comes off a Jeff Buckley-concert, is indeed immense. Electrifying, gut-wrenching, manic and laced with crazy. Jeff is as unpredictable as his music. His self-written songs bear titles like No-One Must Find You Here, Cruel and No Soul; titles with an unmistakeable feeling for blues. Let alone the exorcistic style he presents everything with.
“Fare Thee Well is a traditional blues song written by a black laundress. Because that’s where the best music comes from: the African people, brought to America by European-American criminals. My favorites are Robert Johnson, Bukka White, The Staple Singers and of course Billie Holiday. I do a cover of her Strange Fruit. Once I understood that I could never meet my heroes, I decided to learn from them by listening to their voices. But don’t let me be misunderstood, it’s not a black-or-white thing; no music is as cool as Johnny Cash’s. And it goes on through Ray Charles, Edith Piaf and the Sex Pistols to Muddy Waters. ”
And Tim Buckley? “Of course I listen to him to try and find stuff out about him, but on the other hand… His music is public domain; everyone can find stuff in it. A couple songs are about me and my mother; sometimes it’s hard to listen to those, but sometimes it isn’t. His style has nothing to do with what I’m doing now, anyway. I am who I am. Sometimes I imitate him by moving my eyebrows towards each other during a show; usually people laugh about that. Furthermore, I can of course sing like he did technically, but our intonation is different. Most importantly the atmosphere is different. He was in another era and was influenced by Dylan and all these folk singers.”
Lyrics-fanatics have a lot t find between the lines. I, also, can’t escape a comparison, regarding the way they both build their compositions, apply a wry sense of humor (especially live) and completely immerse themselves in their songs. Moreover, in both Jeff’s and Tim’s music, musical traditions play a big role, which results in a somewhat naïve, seemingly unshakable signature style. Although, Jeff’s style is unmistakeably his. Just like his ambition, that eventually results in a more dogged form of rock music than his father’s. If you listen to Hymn To Love or Twelfth Of Never, you hear nothing but Jeff Buckley. And nothing but his obsessions. On a cassette tape of one of his shows he introduces his song Grace like so: “I was cleaning my room and I was thinking about my usual obsessions: death, dying. But after a while I got to that point where I didn’t care anymore, because I realised there was someone somewhere who… That there was someone, somewhere.” He tells this story in such an enthralling and multivalent way that no-one in the crowd dared ask anything else. It would break the magic. And, like I pointed out at the beginning of this story: the subject is sensitive.
“I love New York,” Jeff says. “People here respect everything new and original. And a bunch of other emotions. Everyone here has their place. Maybe I romanticize it too much, but so many improbable things happen here and everyone think it’s completely normal. I mean, Lou Reed lives here! In 1976 I heard him for the first time and since then he hasn’t let go of me. A song like Heroin takes hold of you instantly, if you listen attentively, of course, and have the right entourage. That song started everything for me. I was in someone’s car, I felt lonely… Heroin is so beautiful, like a big black kiss. Reed sounds like a punk guy who knows everything, but he’s just not enough of a smart-ass. So erudite.”
What else is there to be said in this early stage, Jeff and I wonder. “As far as my music goes… There are so many musicians I know and love, and whom I learn from a lot, when those people don’t even know me. But I want to create something completely new. Miles Davis once said in 1984 that he could hear exactly which music was a tribute to him. But all of those were a form of pure plagiarism, I feel. To really pay tribute, you should add your own completely new things. I want to find my pure, authentic self. At least, what I think that self is.
“Music is like sign language. It didn’t matter whether people from Iran or from America heard The Beatles, they all went “wow!” at the same time. And then they forgot they were killing each other. Music’s got something, something even more powerful than a speech or a painting has, that awakens the primal creatures in all of us. That’s what I want to find. And then I want to give it my own vibe.”
Submitted by Niella
When did music first make an impact on you?
As a child. There was my mother’s breasts and then there was music. It felt like anyother person in the house that floated with me everywhere. All my life, I’ve sung along to the radio, stuff like I Love You More Today Than Yesterday. My mum would drive me to school, playing mellow Californian radio, stuff like Chicago, Crosby Stills & Nash, Blood Sweat & Tears, Sly & The Family Stone, James Brown, The Temptations, everyday! She married a car mechanic, who couldn’t carry a tune, but he had amazing taste, and he turned me on to Booker T, Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell, Hoyt Axton and Willie Nelson. My mum pretty much sung to me – she’s a classically trained pianist and cellist. So it was mainly me and my mum, because my parents split before I was born. I hung around my grandmother too – she’d play me stuff like The Chambers Brothers.
There’s also a Bad Brains cover.
I Against I, yeah, I dig them.
It’s rare to hear someone equally smitten with traditional blues as well as modern blues forms. I’m thinking of your cover of Fare Thee Well
That’s Dink’s Song. It was originally written by a washerwoman. That’s where the best music came from, from old European-American criminals bringing Africans to America. My favourites are Robert Johnson and Bukka White, The Staple Singers, Billie Holliday. I cover Strange Fruit too. The thing I figured is, I wouldn’t be able to meet these people, so I learn from them by hearing them sing. Some of the coolest music is Johnny Cash, which isn’t a black or white thing. I love Mariachi music, Ray Charles, Edith Piaf, The Sex Pistols, Muddy Waters….
Cover versions seem an integral part of what you’re doing
I just saw gifts dangling from them and wanted to take it. I guess I what I want to do is be an archetypal entertainer, an archetypal bard, a minstrel. I guess I have a romantic vision. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson, I want to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories.
What do you love about Twelfth Of Never?
I cover the Nina Simone version. It’s just the way she does it. I can’t get into Elvis’s version, it doesn’t capture my imagination, though he had a beautiful voice. Every time I hear Can’t Help Falling In Love, I cry. I can’t separate Charles Manson from The Beatles or the Clam Bake movie from Elvis, though. But I love all music. I’m the Cocteau Twins’ biggest fan too. They allow their deepest eccentricities to be the music itself, and not just something they want to project. Liz Fraser is one of the only originals. They’re just regular people too. I got to meet her once, she was very shy, which puts a weird curve on music as well. Imagine that sound coming out of her mouth when she’s in the kitchen scrambling eggs. I lose my mind when I’m washing the dishes.
Was music your first true love?
Besides sex? One surrounds the other. I can remember being obsessed with my stepfather’s stereo, getting into trouble for using it. He was really possessive of control over it, like a car. It was really expensive equipment, so I was really careful, then one day, I wanted to list to a live bootleg of Jimi Hendrix, and he went mad. I had a tape player in my room, which I shared it with another kid in the family. You had to stick a hanger in it in order for it to work
How do you feel when you open your mouth and sing?
Like it’s real. I feel like crying..I feel like I am crying! It’s the middle point between laughing and immense joy and crying. I feel the best when I’m singing.
When did you start?
In front of an audience at a family get-together. My stepfather got drunk, and fell asleep, in front of everyone, and my grandmother got really embarrassed, so to direct attention away from him, I sung every Elton John song I knew. I was a huge fan then. They gave me some silver dollars for doing it. I was 13 (laughs). My friend and I started play electric guitars, you know, Stairway To Heaven, for a talent show at junior high school. We lost… We were living in Southern California then. I later had a band in Northern California, in Willetts, called Axxis. It wasn’t my idea. It’s one of the nineteen cities I’ve lived it, I attended four high schools. One I spent two weeks in. My mum was quite a gypsy.
What did you make of your own voice?
I hated it, but I got over it. I’m horribly self-critical. I think that the first time I heard it, I thought no way that I could ever keep anything from anyone, it was all there in the voice. Some ways that people sing, they put it across in language, and it’s almost impossible, because they have a wall between them and the expression. I’m trying to get deeper in the hole, trying to learn things when I heard voices.
Did the concept of singing on stage come easily to you?
It was totally natural, I just did it. It was like going to the beach, like, I’m going into the ocean, the water! I never thought about it. I first sang at a dance in Northern California Methodist Church, to high school kids. When I was thirteen, I already knew what I wanted to do. My all time favourite was Led Zeppelin, and I knew that I wanted to belong to that. In the seventies, there was an overspill of rock life, which becomes coffee table material, with books on Kiss and rock stars on TV. I knew it was possible for some people to do it for a living. I spent hours listening to Magical Mystery Tour. I felt like an archeologist, which is fine, because I liked dinosaurs! But that was the wrong direction…
Give me some more Jeff Buckley archeology.
I left home when I was seventeen, because I was tired of moving around. I played in lots of LA bands, just to make money. There was a reggae band for a while, The AKB Band, a rag-tag motley crew, with one rasta guy. I played guitar. We ended up backing up U-Roy, Shinehead and Judy Moyatt, and at the Bob Marley day at Long Beach. We did cheesy session work for demos too.
What did the experience teach you?
The simplicity. I guess it didn’t teach me much at the time. It’s like your parents telling you what not to do. But Pablo, the rasta, everything he said about playing makes sense now. Forget the next band. I then decided not to spread myself that thin. I didn’t like Southern California, LA especially. Hollywood isn’t a real town, but that’s the reality of it. I’d wanted to see New York since I saw it on TV when I was twelve, to experience the energy, so I took off in 1990. I got a couple of jobs, and went hungry for a long while, before I got an offer to record songs in LA, so I flew back, and recorded four songs. I went back and forth a bit, before I met Gary Lucas at a show in New York, at a tribute show to my father. I thought playing with Gary would be interesting but it turned out to be a disaster. We had two completely different paths…the cart was before the horse. But I learnt to go out and sing, in impossibly intimate settings, when guys are right up against you. You learn how to move a room. The biggest challenge is to put a song across live. The audience shouldn’t see your face, or your body, they should just hear you. People really like it.
Do you enjoy the New York scene?
I dig it. If I was in LA, I wouldn’t be doing anything, but here, there’s a real respect. There’s a lot of other emotions too, but there’s a respect for anything original. Maybe I’m overpoweringly romanticising New York, but so many amazing things happen here on an ordinary level, like Lou Reed lives here, wow! I first heard him in ’76 but he got into my soul, it just takes one time, like Helen Keller.. it’s just the sound of the song. I couldn’t get enough of that song, and it led to everything else. I was in somebody else’s car, feeling lonely. Heroin is so beautiful, like a big black kiss, the way it builds…He sounds like a punk who knows absolutely everything. He’s got such erudition, but he’s not too smart.
You’ve already had extraordinary notices. Have any comments freaked
you out?
One girl said it reminded here of the reason why she loved music. Another had a horrible week and day and came in and she was rejuvenated. Sometimes we all cry, sometimes we all laugh.
What stage do you see yourself at right now?
Always at the beginning. I’d love to make a record. Probably the night you came down to see me, record company people were coming down, and wanting to do something. Clive Davis at Arista wanted to sign me but he hadn’t heard me, it was just on the basis of what his right hand man, the head of A&R, had said. but he has to hear me himself. I plan to start from what matters. In September, I’ll perform all new material, a lot of covers, and I wanna find people to play with. Yeah, a band, just because of the certain feeling I need. An energy.
Can I raise the delicate matter of your dad, Tim?
Sometimes, with people who knew him, they’ve come see me for a nice night out, but they see me, they don’t think about him. They don’t really know him. Those who do, I don’t hang around them. We’re different. The people who knew him, they have apparently a very magic memory, but it’s been a claustrophobic thing all my life, I knew him for a total for nine days. He never wrote, never called.
Do people claim that you’re just your father’s son?
If anyone mentions that, I walk. If I go to a club, and some writer uses that area, then I rip the shit down and say ‘Fuck you, see you later, we can talk about this next time, because I’m on my own’.
Do you listen to his records?
Yeah, mostly to learn about him as a person. It’s there for anybody to take from, pretty much. He wrote a couple of songs are about me and mother, which is sometimes tough, sometimes not. His style had nothing to do with what I do. It’s funny that we were born with the same parts, but when I sing, it’s me. Technically, I can do what he did, but our expression is not the same, it’s a completely different sphere. His was a different time, influenced by Dylan and the folkies. I don’t even talk like him. But I can do a good impersonation of him, knitting up my eyebrows, which makes people laugh.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
As far as music goes, so many people who I know and love, who give me so much, they don’t even know me yet. I want to make something completely new. I was into Miles Davis in 1984, he said he could tell when people were paying tribute to him but it was just copying. The only way to pay tribute is to bring something completely new to the fold. If they could, the whole place would be overflowing with blooms of sound. I want to work so hard that everything of me burns away, like the chemical in the match. Which leaves what really is me, or what I think is me. It can be such a joy. Like The Beatles, they were geniuses, you know? Music’s like a sign language between people, so when a guy from Iran or America hear The Beatles, they go ‘wow!’ They don’t think of killing each other. There’s something about music that hits the cavemen in us, even more than a speech or painting. I just want to achieve my own vibe. I want to go someplace else. There’s more, so much more. More ways of saying ‘I love you’, more ways of saying ‘where the hell do I fit in?’, more ways of saying ‘why doesn’t anyone love me?, why doesn’t somebody just love me, when is somebody going to want to kiss me, I’m sick of waiting, waiting to be understood. And it’s nothing arty, nothing lofty, it’s just fucking different, and I want to leave this world behind a little so that maybe I will see that it’s bigger and I haven’t left it at all. I’m just trying to do my thing.
