There is an incredible artist that is one of my all-time favorites. He not only has an incredibly gifted voice, but he also has the gift of being able to give everything to each and every ounce of a note that he sings. He infuses it with an incredible story that just touches me and so many others so deeply. His name is Jeff Buckley.
Jeff died when he was just making it big in the music industry at the age of 29. He had just started working on his 2nd album. For those of us who are really in to his craft, we relish in all the music that we can get from his short-lived career. His one and only studio album, Grace, is one of my favorite albums of all time.
Jeff had an amazing vocal range, at times both mystically haunting and gorgeously operatic. His influences ranged from Led Zeppelin to Nina Simone,
to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the world famous Qawwali singer of Pakistan. The great Elton John said Grace was "Like an album made by someone from another planet", and cited it as one of his top two favorite records of all time.
"The album that I've been listening to for the last 18 months is Grace by Jeff Buckley. He is a great, great singer. He has such an emotional range...such technique and command. When the Page/Plant tour hit Australia, we saw them and we were knocked out. He quite clearly had his feet on the ground and he said his imagination was flying, flying way, way out there, beyond, beyond. Jeff Buckley was one of the greatest losses of all." -Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
Here is a really beautiful rendition of Hallelujah, an older Leonard Cohen song that Jeff re-did. Jeff made this song. It is very interesting how people can take a song that has already been written and been out there in the world, and then they sing it and own it as their own, and the song ends up touching more people. Jeff is in the story of the song, and he tells it so well, that it is so believable that we go on the journey with him. That is the gold, right there.....that kind of experience when someone sings. When the singer becomes the song and gets played by the True Musician.
Enjoy the videos and then please share your thoughts and comments below!
