Latest / DISGRACELAND / Jeff Buckley: Dreaming of Music, Drowning, and Eternal Life

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Jeff Buckley: Dreaming of Music, Drowning, and Eternal Life · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:19
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley are insane. He was just thirty years old
0:24
Speaker 1: when he disappeared. Six days later, his body was found
0:28
Speaker 1: floating in the water near Beale Street in Memphis. He
0:32
Speaker 1: released only one studio album in his lifetime, yet he's
0:35
Speaker 1: achieved near icon status. His father, Tim Buckley, a singer
0:41
Speaker 1: songwriter of his own, also died tragically and at the
0:44
Speaker 1: age of twenty eight, but Jeff Buckley never knew his father.
0:50
Speaker 1: Jeff wanted to create his own legacy, so that's what
0:53
Speaker 1: he did, and in doing so, Jeff Buckley made great music.
0:59
Speaker 1: He made the greatest debut records of all time. Unlike
1:03
Speaker 1: that music I played for few at the top of
1:05
Speaker 1: the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset
1:09
Speaker 1: loop from my mellotron called Snips and Snails and Puppy
1:13
Speaker 1: dog Tails MK. Two. I played you that loop because
1:18
Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights to mbop by Hanson. And
1:22
Speaker 1: why would I play you that specific slice of flaxen
1:25
Speaker 1: haired Brotherly Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
1:30
Speaker 1: the number one song in America On May twenty ninth,
1:33
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, and that was the day that Jeff
1:37
Speaker 1: Buckley waded into a river in Memphis and never returned
1:40
Speaker 1: safely to shore. On this episode Flirters Beale Street A
1:47
Speaker 1: great debut, two Tragic Deaths and Jeff Buckley. I'm Jake
1:52
Speaker 1: Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Nus Rahut Fata Ali Khan
2:31
Speaker 1: was dreaming of music. The sound of hands clapping in rhythm, tabla, harmonium,
2:37
Speaker 1: Kuvali singers entering a trance like state, pure ecstasy, their
2:41
Speaker 1: throats stretching and vibrating like rubber bands. Music was constant,
2:48
Speaker 1: Music was endless, Music didn't stop when he fell asleep.
2:53
Speaker 1: But Nusrat Fata Ali Khan wasn't just dreaming of music.
2:57
Speaker 1: He was dreaming of his father, the great Kuval. Nusrat's
3:02
Speaker 1: father never wanted a son to follow in his footsteps,
3:05
Speaker 1: but things change. Ten days earlier, Musat's father had died,
3:10
Speaker 1: and now he was here. The Nusrat's dream so real,
3:14
Speaker 1: as real as in music, the pulse throughout Pakistan. He
3:18
Speaker 1: had one request. He asked his son to sing. Father.
3:23
Speaker 1: Musrat replied, I cannot sing. You must try, his father said,
3:28
Speaker 1: and then he put his hand on Nusrat's throat. Nusroat
3:32
Speaker 1: felt a tremor. It percolated there, just beneath the skin
3:35
Speaker 1: of his neck. He felt something bubble up from his gut.
3:39
Speaker 1: It coursed through the blood in his veins. His father's
3:42
Speaker 1: warm hand guided the vibration through Nusrat's entire body. Nuswrod
3:47
Speaker 1: opened his mouth, and then he shot up in bed,
3:50
Speaker 1: his eyes wide open. His dream stayed a distant memory,
3:53
Speaker 1: and he was doing something he'd never done before. He
3:57
Speaker 1: was singing. Over thirty years later, on May twenty ninth,
4:04
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, Jeff Buckley was singing as he waded
4:07
Speaker 1: into the Wolf River in Memphis, Tennessee. He was wearing
4:11
Speaker 1: black jeans, black boots, and a T shirt with the
4:14
Speaker 1: word Altamont written on it, a nod to the infamous
4:18
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones concert from three decades prior. But he wasn't
4:22
Speaker 1: singing a Rolling Stone song as he waited in deeper.
4:25
Speaker 1: He wasn't singing a song by Newsfraut Fatali Khan either.
4:28
Speaker 1: Even though Neusrat was it for Jeff Buckley, Nousrat was
4:32
Speaker 1: his guy, his elvis. Nousrot was always in Jeff's voice,
4:37
Speaker 1: whether he was screaming like a heavy metal banshee, cooing
4:40
Speaker 1: like as he once described himself as shan touse with
4:43
Speaker 1: a penis, or scatting like a jazz singer, venturing in
4:47
Speaker 1: the slipstream. Right now, by the light of the blue
4:50
Speaker 1: moon hanging in the Memphis sky, Jeff was singing a
4:53
Speaker 1: song by his other idol, Robert Plant, specifically led Zeppelin's
4:59
Speaker 1: Whole Lot of Las. From the shore, Keith Fody called
5:03
Speaker 1: out to Jeff, who is now a knee deep. What
5:06
Speaker 1: are you doing man? Keith, the musician and hairstylist, made
5:09
Speaker 1: the trek from Jeff's adopted home New York City with
5:12
Speaker 1: Jeff's tour manager all the way to Memphis, where Jeff
5:15
Speaker 1: was busy recording his second album. Now he found himself
5:19
Speaker 1: here down by the water. After he and Jeff drove
5:22
Speaker 1: around town for what seemed like an hour in search
5:24
Speaker 1: of Jeff's rented rehearsal space to go bash on some
5:27
Speaker 1: instruments they had time to kill. Jeff's band members weren't
5:31
Speaker 1: due back in town till later that night, but their
5:34
Speaker 1: search for the studio turned into a boondoggle. Jeff and
5:38
Speaker 1: Keith didn't know Memphis saw that well, this was the nineties.
5:41
Speaker 1: There were no smartphones, no standard issue GPS. In the van.
5:44
Speaker 1: Navigation was analog, and that means it was a bitch
5:48
Speaker 1: fuck it. They'd find the rehearsal space later. Jeff had
5:51
Speaker 1: a better idea, a spur of the moment idea. Those
5:55
Speaker 1: were the best kind. Let's go down to the river,
5:58
Speaker 1: he told Keith. He brought his guitar and a boombox
6:01
Speaker 1: from the van. Jeff, of course, had something else in mind.
6:05
Speaker 1: Now he was swimming out farther into the wolf while
6:08
Speaker 1: Keith yelled at him to come back to shore. It
6:11
Speaker 1: made no difference because no one told Jeff Buckley what
6:15
Speaker 1: to do. He did his own thing, followed his own muse.
6:20
Speaker 1: His label, Columbia Records, legally couldn't tell him what to do.
6:25
Speaker 1: The contract Jeff signed with Columbia back in nineteen ninety
6:27
Speaker 1: two gave him complete control of his music. It also
6:31
Speaker 1: gave him space and time to develop. But nearly three
6:34
Speaker 1: years had passed since the release of his debut album, Grace.
6:38
Speaker 1: It was obvious that Jeff had too much space and
6:41
Speaker 1: too much time. With no real deadline, he procrastinated. He
6:46
Speaker 1: couldn't get the new songs right. He couldn't get the
6:49
Speaker 1: sound right. Tom Verlaine tried. Jeff hired the legendary television
6:54
Speaker 1: guitarist to produce, but the new songs weren't finished. Verlaine
6:58
Speaker 1: wasn't a mind reader. They moved the sessions from New
7:01
Speaker 1: York to Memphis and hopes that a change of scenery
7:03
Speaker 1: would lead to inspiration. It only led to Verlaine's patience
7:07
Speaker 1: running out. Same for the money. Verlaine went back to
7:10
Speaker 1: New York. Jeff stayed in Memphis. He played unassuming solo
7:14
Speaker 1: gigs at a small place called Barristers, as if he
7:17
Speaker 1: wasn't a major artist on Columbia Records, as if he
7:19
Speaker 1: was starting all over again. Who knew what would happen next.
7:24
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd buy the small house in Memphis that he
7:26
Speaker 1: was staying. Maybe he'd get married, Maybe get a job
7:30
Speaker 1: working with butterflies at the Memphis Zoo, which no shit
7:33
Speaker 1: is something he actually applied to do. Jeff Buckley was spontaneous.
7:37
Speaker 1: He was passionate about moments in life and about opportunities
7:40
Speaker 1: that needed seizing. He made impulsive decisions like wading out
7:45
Speaker 1: into a river in Memphis at nine o'clock in the evening,
7:48
Speaker 1: fully closed. He inherited that trade from his father, just
7:52
Speaker 1: like his five and a half octave vocal range. But
7:56
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley didn't talk about his father. Tim Buckley wasn't
7:59
Speaker 1: he in a memory. He was a dream, just like
8:02
Speaker 1: his songs. All songs were dreams. Some dreams could be songs.
8:08
Speaker 1: Music was everywhere. It was endless news. Fat to Ali
8:13
Speaker 1: Khan knew this, and Jeff Buckley knew it too. People
8:16
Speaker 1: were divine and eternal. People were here even if they
8:20
Speaker 1: were gone. That last one rang all too true every
8:24
Speaker 1: time someone wanted to talk to Jeff about his dad.
8:27
Speaker 1: Tim Buckley was dead, but his memory wouldn't leave Jeff
8:31
Speaker 1: Buckley alone. Tim was one of the so called New
8:36
Speaker 1: Dylans of the nineteen seventies, which was a ridiculous albatross
8:40
Speaker 1: the press slung over any decent singer songwriter for like
8:43
Speaker 1: a decade. But Jeff Buckley didn't want the albatross of
8:46
Speaker 1: his father on his shoulders. Tim wasn't even there when
8:49
Speaker 1: Jeff was born. Tim was barely there at all. In
8:53
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, when Jeff was eight years old, he
8:56
Speaker 1: spent a few days with his dad, the only days
8:59
Speaker 1: they ever s spent together. Just a few months after that,
9:02
Speaker 1: Tim Buckley, ever impulsive and impetuous, was dead from a
9:07
Speaker 1: heroin overdose. And although Tim's obituary made no mention of
9:11
Speaker 1: Jeff's existence, Jeff still had his father's legacy to contend
9:15
Speaker 1: with privately. My blood is cursed, he told his girlfriend.
9:20
Speaker 1: He knew he'd wind up like his father, so he
9:22
Speaker 1: was surprised when he turned twenty eight, the age at
9:25
Speaker 1: which Tim Buckley died, and Jeff still found himself alive.
9:28
Speaker 1: And then he even outlived his father, and now he
9:32
Speaker 1: was thirty years old. But he still couldn't shake that feeling.
9:36
Speaker 1: It never went away, you know. He confided to his girlfriend,
9:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die young, and maybe the Wolf River would
9:44
Speaker 1: get him out of his own head aqua therapy or
9:47
Speaker 1: carpe dm therapy or some shit. Jeff was still doing
9:51
Speaker 1: his best Robert Plant impersonation while swimming the backstroke. Heading
9:54
Speaker 1: farther away from shore, Keith Fotey tried to get his attention.
9:58
Speaker 1: Get out of the fucking wall. Jeff was about one
10:01
Speaker 1: hundred feet from the shore. Now he couldn't see many
10:04
Speaker 1: stars up in the Memphis sky, but he knew they
10:07
Speaker 1: were there. All the same, Keith kept yelling Jeff, man,
10:11
Speaker 1: there's a boat coming. Locals used to call this part
10:14
Speaker 1: of the river the Shoot because it carries the flow
10:17
Speaker 1: of the Wolf right into its convergence with the mighty
10:19
Speaker 1: Mississippi River. On the opposite side of the shore where
10:22
Speaker 1: Keith Foty stood across the Wolf River was a naturally
10:26
Speaker 1: formed sandbar called Mud Island, and it was at the
10:29
Speaker 1: tip of Mud Island that the Wolf met the Mississippi
10:32
Speaker 1: and whirlpooling eddies that were a lot stronger than they appeared.
10:36
Speaker 1: Jeff turned around to see that Keith was right. There's
10:38
Speaker 1: a tugboat heading straight in his direction. Jeff didn't have
10:41
Speaker 1: much time to react. Instead of heading back towards the shore,
10:45
Speaker 1: he began to swim toward Mud Island, where so it
10:48
Speaker 1: seemed from Keith's perspective. Jeff moved just in time, safely
10:52
Speaker 1: out of harm's way, and the tugboat sailed on by.
10:56
Speaker 1: But then in the near distance another boat appeared. This
11:00
Speaker 1: was even bigger. Once again, it was headed straight forward Jeff,
11:04
Speaker 1: and Jeff kept swimming, managing to get himself clear from
11:07
Speaker 1: the approaching vessel. Two close calls in a matter of minutes.
11:11
Speaker 1: As the bigger boat passed, however, it kicked up a
11:14
Speaker 1: much bigger wake, and the waves swelled all the way
11:17
Speaker 1: to the shore where Keith Foty stood. He picked up
11:20
Speaker 1: his boombox so that it wouldn't get soaked by the water.
11:23
Speaker 1: He put it down safely away from the shoreline, and
11:25
Speaker 1: then turned back around to face the river. He looked out.
11:30
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley was gone. Keith Foty saw nothing but water
11:34
Speaker 1: rising and falling like the chest of a deep sleeper,
11:38
Speaker 1: like it had all been a dream. No gunshots rang
12:10
Speaker 1: out from the back of the reggae club. They overpowered
12:12
Speaker 1: the sound of sky music coming from the stage. They
12:15
Speaker 1: snapped like pop balloons, loud as fuck. The crowd panicked
12:19
Speaker 1: and the band stopped playing. More shots rang out. Jeff
12:23
Speaker 1: Buckley clung to his guitar and looked for a place
12:25
Speaker 1: to take shelter. Fuck, it's really worth this late night
12:30
Speaker 1: gunshots were nothing new to a guy living in a
12:32
Speaker 1: shitty apartment on Hawthorne Avenue, directly across from Hollywood High
12:37
Speaker 1: Jeff heard the La Gang's fire off rounds in the
12:39
Speaker 1: football field from his bedroom, but to have it happened
12:42
Speaker 1: here inside While he was working where innocent bystanders were
12:47
Speaker 1: like fish in a barrel that was fucked up. La
12:50
Speaker 1: was fucked up, and if random gunfire didn't get you,
12:54
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip eventually would. As the nineteen eighties came
12:59
Speaker 1: to a close, the strip was oversaturated tony bands, too
13:03
Speaker 1: many girls, girls, girls, and it wasn't about talent anymore.
13:07
Speaker 1: It was all about money, money talked, and no money
13:10
Speaker 1: having talent fucking walked. You want to play the strip,
13:13
Speaker 1: you pay to play the strip. You want to get
13:15
Speaker 1: on stage, fucking demo tape. You need a wallet as
13:18
Speaker 1: thick as the bulch in Tommy Lee's pants. You got cash,
13:21
Speaker 1: and you're in, and you better fucking look the part too.
13:24
Speaker 1: Again See Tommy Lee's bulch for details. The strip was
13:28
Speaker 1: leather and hairspray and stilettos and cocaine. It was Motley,
13:32
Speaker 1: Crue and G and R. It was a jungle baby,
13:35
Speaker 1: and Jeff Buckley, barely into his twenties in a little
13:38
Speaker 1: over an hour north from where he grew up in Anaheim,
13:40
Speaker 1: was welcomed into that jungle. Like so many other musicians
13:43
Speaker 1: before and after him, nobody fucking cared. He had a
13:47
Speaker 1: vocational certificate from a local music school called the Musicians Institute,
13:51
Speaker 1: which in theory made him feel like Aldmola or John
13:54
Speaker 1: McLoughlin or insert your favorite esoteric jazz future guitarist here.
13:58
Speaker 1: But in practice it was just another piece of paper.
14:02
Speaker 1: Everyone chasing a dream in La had a piece of paper. Paperman. Shit,
14:06
Speaker 1: Oh you went to school, good student. Fuck you take
14:10
Speaker 1: a number, Get in line. Now listen. This Jeff Buckley,
14:16
Speaker 1: the one I'm talking about circa nineteen ninety, is not
14:19
Speaker 1: the same one you're currently envisioning. Not the guy with
14:22
Speaker 1: the white V neck T shirt and the young button
14:24
Speaker 1: flannel and the Fender telecaster slung halfway down his body.
14:28
Speaker 1: Not the sublime vocalist with crazy range and acrobatic flair
14:31
Speaker 1: who covered songs by some of the greatest artists of
14:34
Speaker 1: all time and made them his own. This is Prague.
14:37
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley, hesher Jeff Buckley, the guy who worshiped at
14:40
Speaker 1: the altar of Genesis, Yes and Rush, the guy who
14:44
Speaker 1: eked it out as a journeyman in metal, pop and
14:46
Speaker 1: SKA bands with names like Group Therapy. Sometimes he didn't
14:50
Speaker 1: even go by Jeff Buckley. Sometimes he was Scott moorehead
14:55
Speaker 1: Scott being his middle name, the one he was called
14:57
Speaker 1: as a child, and Morehead being the last name of
15:00
Speaker 1: the stepfather who raised him in his biological father's absence,
15:04
Speaker 1: the same stepfather who introduced him to all those staples
15:06
Speaker 1: of classic rock like Grand Funk, Railroad Chicago, Crosby Stills
15:11
Speaker 1: in Nash and of course, Led fucking Zeppelin. Sometimes he
15:15
Speaker 1: wasn't even Jeff or Scott during his tenure in the
15:18
Speaker 1: AKB Band. He was Scalp Cutta. That's Cutta a nickname here,
15:24
Speaker 1: and due to the razor sharp reggae rists he chopped
15:26
Speaker 1: on his electric guitar. If that sounds a little ridiculous,
15:30
Speaker 1: well it is, but so was Los Angeles and Jeff
15:33
Speaker 1: Buckley's eyes. La had become a creative and inspirational wasteland
15:37
Speaker 1: long before he got there, and if he hung around
15:40
Speaker 1: too much longer, he'd rot from the inside out. Right now,
15:44
Speaker 1: though at this little reggae club, Jeff Buckley was simply
15:46
Speaker 1: trying to not get shot. He kept himself safe behind
15:49
Speaker 1: the stage, far away from wherever the commotion was happening.
15:53
Speaker 1: People were still screaming and clamoring for the exits. Whoever
15:56
Speaker 1: had pulled the trigger was either still inside or maybe
15:59
Speaker 1: they bounced. It was hard to tell, but it was
16:01
Speaker 1: easy to feel that sinking feeling and hear that voice
16:03
Speaker 1: in the back of your head. It's no good here,
16:06
Speaker 1: It's time to move on. It's difficult to know for
16:09
Speaker 1: sure if the shooting at the AKB Band gig was
16:12
Speaker 1: the thing that finally convinced Jeff Buckley to leave LA.
16:16
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just another of his impulsive decisions. But
16:19
Speaker 1: in early nineteen ninety he packed what few things he
16:21
Speaker 1: had and moved to New York City. He worked the
16:24
Speaker 1: guitar for hire, angles some more. He auditioned for an
16:27
Speaker 1: eclectic range of groups. He didn't really fit in with anyone.
16:31
Speaker 1: Nothing was clicking when Jeff's Harlem roommate played him some
16:35
Speaker 1: News Fata Ali Concassetts, though, something did click, and it
16:39
Speaker 1: clicked hard. Jeff locked in the trance like state of
16:46
Speaker 1: the music. It took him somewhere else, somewhere outside his
16:50
Speaker 1: own body. Listening to that shit was a physical experience,
16:54
Speaker 1: and he listened to it all the time. I felt
16:57
Speaker 1: a rush of adrenaline in my chest, he later said,
17:00
Speaker 1: like it was on the edge of a cliff, Wondering
17:02
Speaker 1: when it would jump, and how well the ocean would
17:04
Speaker 1: catch me. Van Morrison's Astra Weeks was next. It had
17:09
Speaker 1: the same effect. It was cliff jumping music, equally risky
17:14
Speaker 1: and rewarding. It awakened something deep inside of him in
17:17
Speaker 1: a way only music can. Music is primal. It taps
17:21
Speaker 1: deep into your psyche. It reminds you of smells and tastes,
17:25
Speaker 1: of memories that may or may not even be real.
17:27
Speaker 1: And if you give yourself over to the music can
17:30
Speaker 1: change you. It takes you on a journey where the
17:33
Speaker 1: u you once knew dies and the new you is born.
17:38
Speaker 1: The music transformed Jeff from the inside out, walked him
17:41
Speaker 1: to the edge and took his breath away noose rout
17:44
Speaker 1: and Van held his hand and led him there. Robert too,
17:49
Speaker 1: both Roberts, actually Plant and Johnson. They all took him
17:54
Speaker 1: to that place where jagged cliffs slice into the horizon,
17:58
Speaker 1: where the wind blows up from an abit below and
18:01
Speaker 1: carries with it not just those smells and tastes and
18:03
Speaker 1: memories that live inside of you, but a song. The
18:07
Speaker 1: wind smacked him in the face, The song smothered him.
18:11
Speaker 1: There were hands on Jeff's throat, sing The hands told
18:14
Speaker 1: him they were in his father's hands, not Tim. Fuck
18:18
Speaker 1: that guy, which is precisely what Jeff first said when
18:22
Speaker 1: Herb Cohen called fuck that guy. Herb Cohen was Tim
18:26
Speaker 1: Buckley's former manager, and he wanted to help Jeff's budding career.
18:30
Speaker 1: Jeff suspected Cohen just wanted him to carry his father's torch,
18:34
Speaker 1: but Jeff didn't carry shit. Look, Jeff Buckley didn't hate
18:38
Speaker 1: his father all the time, but when it came to
18:40
Speaker 1: his own career and his worth as an artist in
18:42
Speaker 1: his own right, well, that was one of those times.
18:45
Speaker 1: So fuck that guy. That was also his initial response
18:49
Speaker 1: when the producers behind Greetings from Tim Buckley, a tribute
18:52
Speaker 1: concert held at Saint Anne's in Brooklyn Heights, approached and
18:54
Speaker 1: to form some of his father's songs. After they discovered
18:57
Speaker 1: that not only did Tim Buckley have a son, but
18:59
Speaker 1: that he living right under their noses in New York,
19:02
Speaker 1: Jeff knew he had to swallow his pride. These were opportunities,
19:07
Speaker 1: opportunities that needed seizing. With Cohen's help, he made a
19:11
Speaker 1: demo tape, a tape for him, for Jeff, not for
19:15
Speaker 1: anyone else. That was all. It was a tape and
19:19
Speaker 1: with the greetings from Tim Buckley concert, he convinced himself
19:22
Speaker 1: that he was simply saying goodbye to the father he
19:24
Speaker 1: never knew. But as the buzz grew around his New
19:27
Speaker 1: York debut, Jeff remained resolute and wanted to distance himself
19:31
Speaker 1: from being known solely as Tim Buckley's kid. I'd really
19:34
Speaker 1: rather let people not think about me as a face
19:36
Speaker 1: or a name or a body, he said, and just
19:39
Speaker 1: come and listen. Plus, he had his own journey to make,
19:43
Speaker 1: and he had shit to do. There was a cliff
19:45
Speaker 1: to walk to, an abyss to marvel at, and somewhere
19:49
Speaker 1: down there, way down below, an ocean to jump into.
19:58
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're We're. We're at Shane,
20:07
Speaker 1: a little cafe in the East Village. The coffee was
20:10
Speaker 1: strong and the rolling rock was cheap. Shane was geographically
20:15
Speaker 1: and ideologically far from La. Jeff Buckley didn't pay to play,
20:20
Speaker 1: the audience didn't pay to watch. In La, you walk
20:23
Speaker 1: into a place with nothing but a white telecaster you
20:25
Speaker 1: borrow from a friend and a demo tape, and you
20:27
Speaker 1: get laughed right out the fucking door. Or not here.
20:31
Speaker 1: Shane's Irish expat owner didn't even listen to Jess tape,
20:35
Speaker 1: just say shit up against the back wall and give
20:37
Speaker 1: him a hell kit. Monday nights were best. There was
20:40
Speaker 1: no pressure on Mondays, no expectations. Monday was who the
20:44
Speaker 1: fuck is this guy? Night? It was no, I am
20:47
Speaker 1: not the son of a somewhat famous songwriter from the seventies. Night,
20:50
Speaker 1: Starting in the spring of nineteen ninety two, on every
20:53
Speaker 1: Monday night, Jeff Buckley cast aside the weight of Tim
20:56
Speaker 1: Buckley and walked to that cliff. He felt the wind kick,
21:00
Speaker 1: he felt the hands touch his throat. He could do anything,
21:03
Speaker 1: He could be anyone. His hand started to hammer out
21:06
Speaker 1: a rhythm on his reverb, So Telly, Edith pf OUI
21:11
Speaker 1: Jeff could do, Edith, Jeff could do, Edith tre Vien.
21:15
Speaker 1: He picked up speed and volume on his telly. He
21:17
Speaker 1: vamped on one note, then in an entire chord. How
21:21
Speaker 1: about some Zeppelin. He let his voice spiral upwards into
21:24
Speaker 1: another register, like it had grown wings. It morphed easily
21:28
Speaker 1: into Robert Plant and then Neustra and then van and
21:30
Speaker 1: then it dropped the O and the N and added
21:32
Speaker 1: an E and a Y, and he was Morrissey and
21:34
Speaker 1: then suddenly back to plan again. His right hand kept
21:37
Speaker 1: scraping against the telly strings, the reverb bouncing like a
21:40
Speaker 1: springboard old scalp cut of rides again, and then with
21:44
Speaker 1: a dramatic chop of his right hand, he stopped strumming,
21:48
Speaker 1: but the music was endless. It didn't stop. He was
21:52
Speaker 1: now stomping his foot on the floor, accented the rhythm
21:55
Speaker 1: by clapping his hands together. He started singing again, this
21:59
Speaker 1: time Nina Simone, this time with nothing accompanying him but
22:02
Speaker 1: the rhythms of his own body. At Shane, Jeff Buckley was,
22:06
Speaker 1: as author Daphney Brooks put it, Spotify before Spotify, which
22:11
Speaker 1: reminds me, let's all agree there should be a moratorium
22:14
Speaker 1: on performing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah because Jeff Buckley recorded the
22:17
Speaker 1: definitive version, a version that has not only been marked
22:19
Speaker 1: for preservation by the Library of Congress, but, as Jeff
22:22
Speaker 1: himself explained, was meant not as some sad ass tearjur
22:25
Speaker 1: could be played during some heartbreaking scene in a stupid movie,
22:28
Speaker 1: but it owed to, you know, the Hallelujah of an orgasm.
22:31
Speaker 1: But I digress. At Shane, Jeff didn't just play covers.
22:35
Speaker 1: He workshopped his own songs, Eternal Life, Mojo, Pinn Lover,
22:40
Speaker 1: You should have come over, words spread fast. This guy
22:43
Speaker 1: at Shane, he sounds like everyone and no one. He's
22:46
Speaker 1: an anomaly, a true original and dig it. You can
22:48
Speaker 1: watch him evolve on stage every week at this tiny
22:50
Speaker 1: coffee shop in Saint Mark's Place. The audience has got bigger.
22:55
Speaker 1: Soon everybody there wanted him, including reps from all of
22:57
Speaker 1: the major labels, and by the audio of nineteen ninety two,
23:01
Speaker 1: Jeff was signed to Columbia Records. Almost two years later,
23:07
Speaker 1: in August of nineteen ninety four, he released his debut
23:10
Speaker 1: LP Grace. It was the height of grund rock, just
23:14
Speaker 1: months after the death of Kurt Komaine. But it sounded
23:17
Speaker 1: like neither grunge nor Kurt. It sounded like nothing else
23:21
Speaker 1: out there. It defied categorization. Some songs were cerebral and complex,
23:26
Speaker 1: straight up art rock. Others were slick pop confections. But
23:30
Speaker 1: whether it was that untouchable cover of Halleluja or original
23:33
Speaker 1: songs that ran the gamut from pissed off punk to
23:35
Speaker 1: Eastern influenced meditation, the constant was Jeff's voice. It was
23:40
Speaker 1: a voice that could do anything, anything, but find a
23:45
Speaker 1: mass audience, it seemed. It took nine months before Grace
23:48
Speaker 1: even cracked the Billboard Top two hundred. But just like
23:51
Speaker 1: Jeff's contract, the record had time and space to find
23:55
Speaker 1: that audience. Columbia worked on finding Jeff Buckley's audience without
24:00
Speaker 1: dragging Tim Buckley into it. They never mentioned Jeff's father
24:03
Speaker 1: once in their pr blitz. Jeff even had a rider
24:06
Speaker 1: in his tour contract that restricted venues from using Tim's
24:09
Speaker 1: name in their advertisements, and if they did, he could
24:12
Speaker 1: legally refuse to perform. But the more Jeff gave the
24:15
Speaker 1: memory of his father the silent treatment, the more it
24:18
Speaker 1: was all anyone wanted to talk about. Jesus Christ. Kid,
24:21
Speaker 1: You look just like them, You sound like them too.
24:25
Speaker 1: Your song dream brother? Is that a direct response to
24:28
Speaker 1: Tim's song dream letter? Did you ever play his songs?
24:31
Speaker 1: Why not? Why don't you play one of his songs
24:33
Speaker 1: for us? Right now? Tonight? On tour in Denver, the
24:37
Speaker 1: constant barrage of requests finally got to him. Against his
24:40
Speaker 1: better judgment, Jeff rambled his way through one of his
24:43
Speaker 1: dad's old songs, Are you satisfied Now? He asked the
24:46
Speaker 1: crowd when he was finished, Are you really now shut
24:49
Speaker 1: the fuck up for the rest of the night? Loving
24:52
Speaker 1: kisses from the living one. Jeff Buckley the state. He
24:59
Speaker 1: told him to get out of it the car. He
25:01
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he pulled over Jeff Buckley. He didn't
25:03
Speaker 1: know who Jeff Buckley was. This was New Jersey, after all,
25:06
Speaker 1: are you Frank Sinatra? No, and get the fuck out
25:09
Speaker 1: of the fucking car. Jeff did as he was told.
25:12
Speaker 1: In the CoP's eyes, he was just another slacker with
25:14
Speaker 1: long hair, a good will wardrobe, and a sorry excuse.
25:18
Speaker 1: And when he came to excuses, he could say whatever
25:20
Speaker 1: he wanted. Didn't matter. The cops saw him take a
25:23
Speaker 1: swig from the beer bottle as the car he was
25:25
Speaker 1: riding in blew pass where the police cruiser sat, saw
25:28
Speaker 1: him with his own two eyes. And where there was smoke,
25:31
Speaker 1: there was always fire. The cop told him to empty
25:34
Speaker 1: his pockets. Jeff did. The plastic bag was tiny, just
25:39
Speaker 1: enough weed for one joint, just enough to put him
25:41
Speaker 1: in cuffs and head down to the station. At the station, however,
25:46
Speaker 1: all it took were a few words from Jef's friend
25:48
Speaker 1: for the police to change their toomb. Hey, man, you
25:52
Speaker 1: want me to call your manager? Hold up his manager?
25:56
Speaker 1: Who was this kid? A recording artist, a star? Hang on,
26:00
Speaker 1: loosen those cusps a little bit. What do you need, kid,
26:03
Speaker 1: Something to drink, something to eat. Maybe we've been a
26:06
Speaker 1: little too hard on you. Jesus Christ. This shit was
26:10
Speaker 1: even worse than getting arrested. The idea that Just's level
26:13
Speaker 1: of fame, which all things considered was moderate at best,
26:16
Speaker 1: meant that he'd get treated differently than the next guy.
26:19
Speaker 1: It was tough enough navigating whatever the hell his life was,
26:22
Speaker 1: his skins, flesh, his bones, But to navigate being famous
26:26
Speaker 1: on top of all of that, it's a total mind fuck.
26:32
Speaker 1: So were the rumors that were set in motion when
26:34
Speaker 1: word of Jeff's brush with New Jersey's finest hit the press,
26:38
Speaker 1: Rumors that it wasn't weed in Jeff's pocket but heroin.
26:41
Speaker 1: It was the same shit he had to read about
26:43
Speaker 1: when Courtney Love invited him to catch a production of
26:45
Speaker 1: Hamlet on Broadway. Kurt had been dead a little over
26:48
Speaker 1: a year. Jeff gladly accepted they were just friends. The
26:52
Speaker 1: tabloids said, otherwise, they must be lovers, at least drug buddies.
26:57
Speaker 1: Jeff was hanging out with Courtney. Thus Jeff must be
27:00
Speaker 1: another Kurt Cobain, another Tim Buckley, another genius turned attict
27:04
Speaker 1: on his road to tragedy, another story that sold their
27:07
Speaker 1: fucking papers. And while it's true, based on the accounts
27:11
Speaker 1: of his bandmates and other musicians, that Jeff dabbled very
27:13
Speaker 1: occasionally in snorting heroin, he was no junkie. He had
27:18
Speaker 1: plenty of other things to worry about. There was that
27:22
Speaker 1: second album, the one he couldn't finish some days, couldn't
27:26
Speaker 1: even start it. And there was that pretty boy bullshit
27:29
Speaker 1: from the last Goodbye video gaining traction on MTV. He
27:33
Speaker 1: wasn't pretty, it wasn't soft. He wanted the next record
27:36
Speaker 1: to rock hard, and he was nobody's puppet to really
27:40
Speaker 1: drive that last point home. He turned down The Gap
27:42
Speaker 1: when they asked him to model their clothing. He turned
27:45
Speaker 1: down Saturday and Alive, and he turned down David Letterman too. Columbia, though,
27:50
Speaker 1: was getting impatient. Not only was Jeff rejecting all his
27:53
Speaker 1: media attention, he was way past deadline and financially in
27:57
Speaker 1: the hole. Grace had cost the label two point two
28:00
Speaker 1: million dollars between recording fees, tour support and promotional expenses,
28:05
Speaker 1: and of that one point eight million was recoupable, meaning
28:09
Speaker 1: that one of Jeff's royalties were going directly to pay
28:12
Speaker 1: back that deficit. There would be more sales and thus
28:15
Speaker 1: more royalties, if only he'd say yes to the goddamn gap.
28:20
Speaker 1: But Jeff Buckley didn't do things the way that someone
28:22
Speaker 1: else wanted. He did what he wanted, even when the
28:26
Speaker 1: signs told him not to do. It wasn't a notion,
28:53
Speaker 1: and you didn't have to jump off a cliff to
28:55
Speaker 1: dive into it. But the Wolf River called out to
28:58
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley all the same. It was something about the
29:01
Speaker 1: water on this night, in this moment. It was impossible
29:05
Speaker 1: to explain, so he didn't try to. Just went in first.
29:10
Speaker 1: He waded into the water. Before long he was swimming.
29:14
Speaker 1: He ignored his friend shouting at him, just like he
29:17
Speaker 1: ignored the nose swimming signs. Back on the shore, he
29:20
Speaker 1: sang Zeppelin and heard his voice float into the sky.
29:24
Speaker 1: The sky was a landfill of dreams and songs, and
29:27
Speaker 1: just like dreams, and just like songs, the sky was endless.
29:32
Speaker 1: This moment felt like a dream, the kind of dream
29:35
Speaker 1: he could smell, the kind of dream he could taste
29:38
Speaker 1: before long, just like nus Fat Ali Khan when he
29:42
Speaker 1: dreamt of his father coming to him, touching his throat,
29:44
Speaker 1: telling him to sing. Jeff felt something touch his own throat,
29:48
Speaker 1: but it wasn't someone's hands, and no one was telling
29:51
Speaker 1: him to do anything. It was a rush of water
29:54
Speaker 1: kicked up by a boat's wake, and he wanted more
29:57
Speaker 1: than his throat wanted to swallow him. Keith Fody was running.
30:04
Speaker 1: He stopped when at last he found a payphone. Like
30:07
Speaker 1: many things in Memphis, it wasn't all that far from
30:09
Speaker 1: a statue of Elvis. He grabbed the receiver and dialed
30:13
Speaker 1: nine to one one told the operator on the other
30:15
Speaker 1: end of the line that his friend had disappeared. Jeff
30:18
Speaker 1: Buckley was somewhere in the Wolf River. It was just
30:20
Speaker 1: about nine thirty pm. Memphis PD sent helicopters. They launched boats,
30:26
Speaker 1: and they combed the shoreline. They lit up the pitch
30:28
Speaker 1: Black Wolf like a Christmas tree. Jeff's band, meanwhile, went
30:32
Speaker 1: back to the small house he was renting. Up in
30:34
Speaker 1: the attic, they found skull candles and notebooks full of
30:37
Speaker 1: Jeff's handwriting. One particular entry was all about quote transition
30:41
Speaker 1: and reincarnation and becoming molecules in rain unquote. The next day,
30:47
Speaker 1: Memphis was dry. The clouds were wispy, far away, but
30:51
Speaker 1: so close, so real. The clouds moved quickly against a
30:55
Speaker 1: backdrop of deep blue, blown from one spot in the
30:58
Speaker 1: sky to the next. It was hard not to look
31:01
Speaker 1: up that sky. And since that, Jeff Buckley too had
31:04
Speaker 1: moved on, which isn't the same as saying he was gone.
31:09
Speaker 1: People like music, like dreams, are divine and eternal. People
31:14
Speaker 1: are here, even if you can no longer see them
31:17
Speaker 1: with the naked eye. They're in the mind's eye, in
31:20
Speaker 1: the mine's ear, and their songs drift along with the
31:23
Speaker 1: clouds in the sky, and their melodies tumble under earth
31:26
Speaker 1: in between raindrops. Their voices echo from the river's edge,
31:31
Speaker 1: and each day those voices rise with the sun. On
31:35
Speaker 1: June fourth, nineteen ninety seven, six days after Jeff Buckley disappeared,
31:41
Speaker 1: just hours after his band members and friends left Memphis,
31:44
Speaker 1: a passenger on board the American Queen Riverboat spotted his
31:48
Speaker 1: body stuck in an eddy of branches near Mud Island,
31:51
Speaker 1: where the Wolf River meets the Mississippi. There were no
31:54
Speaker 1: drugs in his system, and just enough alcohol for one
31:57
Speaker 1: glass of beer or wine. Victual cause of death was
32:01
Speaker 1: accidental drowning. Unlike Jeff Buckley's short life, the music he
32:07
Speaker 1: left behind is endless. It is everywhere. We can take
32:10
Speaker 1: you on a journey and change you. It awakens something
32:13
Speaker 1: deep inside you. It is cliff jumping music. Listening to
32:17
Speaker 1: it now remains a pathway to a trance like state,
32:21
Speaker 1: a state of ecstasy, a state of eternal life, a
32:24
Speaker 1: state of grace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland.
32:44
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
32:47
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
32:51
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