I wrote a poem for our persona poem assignment about Jeff Buckley (as most of you should already know). Due to this I found out a lot of you don’t know who Jeff Buckley is, so I am deciding to write a bit more about him in this blog post.
Jeff Buckley was born in 1966 and died at the age of 30 in 1997. His father was also a musician, but they only met once. Jeffs’ dad, Tim Buckley, died when he was eight. Jeff Buckley resented his dad and wished to have nothing to do with him. He wanted to make his own name, and he did. He was raised by his mother, Mary Guilbert, and stepfather, Ron Moorhead. He went to school and graduated high school as well as attending the Musicians Institute in Hollywood for a one-year course. He often said he found it a waste of time, but he did say that he appreciated studying music theory.
Jeff Buckleys public career started in the late 90’s. He stared as a session guitarist, but his singing publicly debuted at his father’s tribute concert in 1991. He started out playing guitar for different bands and studios, playing jazz, reggae, and heavy metal. He then, in the early 90s, joined the band Gods and Monsters after moving to New York. Jeff and the founder of the band, Gary Lucus co-wrote Jeffs songs “Grace” and “Mojo pin”, which appear in his first and only studio album “Grace”.
The album was released in 1994. He left the band in 1991 to peruse a solo career. At this point in his life, he gained a following by preforming in coffee houses and clubs. His first commercial record was an EP live at the sin-e. Jeff Buckley did many interviews, and you can find a few videos of these on YouTube.
Jeff Buckley had many diverse inspirations for his work. Buckley drew inspiration from legendary artists like Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, The Smiths, Patti Smith, Billie holiday, Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Dylan, The Cocteau Twins, and the classical Indian singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Jeff was also inspired by a deeper influence. He drew inspiration from emotional artistic concepts like love, anger, joy, dreams, and the power of literary and musical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. Jeff Buckleys music challenged conventional ideas about genres and sound inspiring many people like Tom Yorke of Radiohead and Matt Bellamy from Muse. He broke the barrier between genres and inspired many to think and feel deeply. He inspired a deeper emotional connection to the music and lyrics being made.
So, what happened to him? Well in 1997 on May 29th he died. His cause of death was an accidental drowning in the Wolf River in Memphis, Tennessee. His body was found six days later, and they did an autopsy report on his body. No drugs were found in his system. He was found fully clothed.
The story is that he was in Memphis to record his second album and went swimming in the river with his friend Keith Foti. Keith said that Jeff swam into the water singing the chorus of “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zepplin. Keith looked away and Buckly disappeared in wake of a passing boat, which is a “common occurrence” for the river. I however find this story odd. It just doesn’t seem right to me. I honestly couldn’t tell you why, but I just don’t think this is the real story. It’s just an intuition thing. Why would he have all his clothes while swimming, including his shoes? He was carefree and seemed to just go with the flow, but I highly doubt he would just swim fully clothed with jeans, a shirt, and a pair of combat boots, due to how excited he was for his second album and how much common sense he seemed to have.
After his death, his mother now handles his posthumous legacy due to him not having a will. Some support her while others dislike her. Some commend her for her effort to protect his work. I however disagree. I think she has done nothing to protect his work or to abide by his artistic wishes. She published excerpts from his PERSONAL diary in a book to the WHOLE world. She released unfinished work. A year after his death, she released his second album he was working on before he died, “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk”. This album consists of demos and raw sessions he had scrapped and wished to rerecord in Memphis. He didn’t want any of the raw sessions or demos to be released. She turned down numerous biopics about Jeff due to them being “too personal” or “straying from reality”. Many believe this was her way of preventing an authentic story to be told. It has also been rumored that she asked for money from Jeff after he signed to Columbia Records, and he didn’t want anything to do with her after that. I however don’t know what my opinion is of her, and it doesn’t really matter, but I definitely think she has commercialized her son’s life for her own gain.
So why did I decide to write a persona poem about him? Well, I wanted to write about someone who I look up to. I also figured it would be nice to write during the time that I did due to a movie being released in movie theatres. Yes, they finally released a documentary about him after 28 years. I won’t rant about that, but I will say how can we have documentaries about some of the more mainstream people come out the day after their death but for Jeff we had to wait 28 years, it just doesn’t seem right. But I will be watching it when it comes out and I will definitely write a blog about it.
Anyways thanks for reading my blog.
I enjoy your take on Jeff’s life as I am very excited to see the biopic that will come this year. I do feel that Sketches was a album that fans deserved but the timing was off maybe if it was years later after the thousands of his fans stopped mourning him maybe. But the posthumous work of any artist will always be poorly timed and in a horrid amount of poor taste. It’s sad to see that demos that well made were considered by Jeff unfinished at the time.
I really enjoyed this, when I read your poem, I personally did not know who he was so being able to read about it and get to know about him and his life is awesome! I can’t believe he died at 30 he had such a life to live out.
TIM BUCKLEYS HIS DAD? Ironic how Tim has a song “song to the siren” and it says “swim to me” over and over. Anyways I really love how you portray Jeff Buckley. This is awesome.