Jeff Buckley - Grace

Grace is the only complete studio album by American singer-songwriter and guitarist Jeff Buckley, originally released in August 1994 via Columbia Records.

Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley (1966 – 1997), raised as Scott "Scottie" Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and musician. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing much interest from record labels, he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994.

Over the following two years, the band toured widely to promote the album. In 1996, they stopped touring and made sporadic attempts to record Buckley's second album in New York City.

In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-track demos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. On May 29, 1997, while awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim, fully clothed, in the Mississippi River when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat; his body was found on June 4.

Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material. Chart success also came posthumously: with his cover of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah". Buckley and his work remain popular and are regularly featured in "greatest" lists in the music press. Rolling Stone considers him one of the greatest singers of all time.

While Grace has achieved over two million sales worldwide since its mid-90s release, its impact at the time was far from impressive. And that’s from both critical and commercial perspectives, as although today it’s regularly held in high regard come top-albums lists, a mixed reception greeted it on its initial emergence.

Listening today, it’s easy to hear why reviewers weren’t universally moved by Grace. Its best-known track isn’t even one penned by Buckley, “Hallelujah” being a cover of Leonard Cohen’s haunting masterpiece. Nor is “Corpus Christi Carol” an original, Buckley interpreting the work of celebrated British composer Benjamin Britten via opera singer Janet Baker. One could argue that Buckley makes these pieces his own - and they certainly fit with the elegiac tone of what surrounds them.

The posthumous aspect of Grace’s continuing appeal is of key importance - if he hadn’t died, aged 30, in 1997, the chances are that Buckley would have taken the incredible promise showcased here and transformed it into material to place these efforts in the shade. Resultantly, Grace exists in a vacuum, with no material of particular note to trouble it as its maker’s definitive musical statement. Instrumentally, little is remarkable, but his vocal is mesmerising, and it’s this element of Buckley’s performance which has best stood the test of time. It is unique amongst artists, from the rock and pop spectrum and well beyond, defying prosaic pigeonholing. Hear it once, and it will stay with the listener forever.

Grace was a remarkable first step - inconsistent certainly, but blessed with moments of arresting, beguiling beauty. It takes most of its compositional cues from fairly classic rock sources (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd), but Buckley’s vocals - committed, sincere, stop-you-in-your-tracks intense - marked him as an artist to follow intently.

What a tragedy that he was never able to develop further the epic potential of this worthy debut.

This album is a 2023 repress on 180 gram black vinyl housed in a single pocket sleeve with printed insert, pressed in Europe via Columbia Records.