Ah, Jeff Buckley. Tragic troubadour of troubled youth, dies again next Monday. The release of The Grace Lecagy Edition on the 23rd of August brings to mind my days as a hormonal teenager, desperately trying to learn how to play his songs on the guitar, and spending hours on Napster (on a 56k connection) attempting to squeeze every single bootleg I could possibly lay my hands out of my fellow mourners.
Grace, the album, as it is, and as it was released in 1994, is so close to perfection in many ways. A string of almost half-finished sounding original pieces, tied together with some well picked, but obscure, cover versions, giving Grace a unique appeal. Indeed, listening to some of the live recordings I have of Jeff Buckley, you can tell that the album as it exists is but a mere starting point to what he wanted to achieve. His dissatisfaction, and displeasure with the release of this album is well-documented. Wrangles with Colombia music, the need for more time, and need for perfection were in his mind at the time of release. The fact that the majority of what made up his second posthumous album, Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk, was ready to be consigned to the scrapheap compounds the notion that it was never meant to be released.
Anyone who wants a swift relay of the issues surrounding the release of Sketches would be advised to read the well-researched biography of Buckley and his father Dream Brother by David Brown. The displeasure of Buckley’s temporarily estranged bandmates at the time of release is documented, alongside his also temporarily estranged mother’s insistence at the release going ahead. Mary Guibert (Jeff’s mother and sole executor of his estate) has fought hard to preserve Jeff’s memory in the way she believes he would have wanted to be remembered. Guibert was alongside Metallica and Eminem at the time of the first Napster court orders which banned certain search strings, trying desperately hard to stem the flow of badly recorded bootlegs that were floating about on the network.
I personally, even before starting to get a view of the issues surrounding the release of Sketches, felt uncomfortable by the album. It seemed so categorically different to Grace, despite feeling drawn to the new material, it felt wrong. Surely Jeff’s well-documented insistent perfectionism would have never allowed these tracks to be heard publicly. And so, when Mystery White Boy was announced in 2000, I felt a little better. A live performance album, with a couple of unreleased tracks, would surely be a more fitting tribute, then the, at times, painfully tacked together sound of Sketches.
At this time I was a subscriber and regular reader of the Jeff Buckley International Newsletter (put together by Guibert and Michael Tighe - Jeff’s guitarist). When news of the album arrived through this publication Guibert swore this album was to signify laying the ghost to rest. I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that anymore releases of half-written songs and badly recorded demos or live tracks would almost constitute something close to grave-robbing. Mystery White Boy was here, a new way to hear the songs I knew line for line. I was happy.
That was until the next year, 2001. Along comes the announcement of the release of Live a L’Olympia. At this point my subsciption to the Jeff Buckley International Newsletter ends. I start to get wary of the estate’s intentions. In 2000, we were told no more, and in 2001 there was more, Guibert claiming she was pushed into this because of the incessant downloading of poor quality tracks that was still taking place across the internet. So another live album, it’s good, maybe forgivable.
My interest in the Buckley phenomena waned. But everytime I dusted down my CDs I could never resist having a quick listen of what I would term auditory porn. Distilled forever, locked in time, Grace, is the album I go back to, listen to, just a glimpse of what may have been and what never was.
Recently, whilst trawling the music press’ websites I came upon some sketchy details for a Grace Legacy Edition CD. Not being imminent in release I didn’t really look into the details. Until today, that is. The other half was looking at the iTunes Music Store, when he brought to my attention the big banner stating a new unreleased Jeff Buckley track. I looked over to find out it was none other than the song Forget Her. A much sought after and widely available track for Buckley aficionados. It was replaced, at the last minute, with So Real at the time of Grace’s release. Buckley apparently insisted he never wanted the track to be heard, despite the fact the song has “big hit” all over it like a neon sign. More instantly accessible than the other tracks on Grace, his record label could smell the money in this song. So now ten years after Grace it appears Columbia have decided to rake over Buckley’s bones one more time. Written in the wake of an acrimonious break up Buckley didn’t want to share the sentiments in this song with millions of people. However, now it seems it’s fair game. The song is currently available as a preview to the main album re-release on the iTunes Music Store. I am sure I have read Guibert saying in interviews that this track would never be released. But sure enough, as of next Monday profits from the re-release will be lining Columbia Records’ and Guibert’s designer pockets.
Now an admission. I am, or at least was, just as bad as the Columbia and the executors of Buckley’s estate. I have and have had for some time two different copies of the above track hiding on an old CDR somewhere, as I have copies of many badly recorded covers Buckley performed on various tours. I have his Meltdown Festival 1994 set, his set at his father’s memorial at St Ann’s in New York. I have had for a long time all the much touted previously unreleased tracks that have appeared on the various live albums and re-released singles that have cropped up since Buckley’s untimely death. Surely, myself and the other fans who have at one time or another maniacally collected these masterpieces are to blame. I feel bad, I do. But then again, all the stuff I have has lousy sound quality, it’s like listening to only a snatch of the song. There is a sort of ghoulish voyeurism that surrounds the idea of collecting fragments of the life of a dead person. I don’t remember how I acquired all the tracks, but I have them, I must have been some sort of sick freak to want them at some point in time. I never put a penny towards buying these tracks. Despite the fact that it was a painstaking process five years ago, it’s relatively easy now to acquire rarities. I still feel that they aren’t necessarily in the public domain. All the late night Napster sessions of my youth seemed, in some silly way, to account towards payment for the music I was acquiring. A daft, unrealistic, sentimental notion.
Am I curious? Of course. I did spend years in awe of Jeff Buckley, trying to glimpse just a little bit further by listening to scratchy recording of covers he performed on tour. Every time I got something new it was like opening a fresh box of chocolates. But for me, that ended a long time ago. I can agree with the release of the live albums, they complement Grace well. The difference between the live sound and studio sound in all of Buckley’s recordings is tangible, hence why I believe Grace can never be considered complete. I know I’ll want to own the Grace Legacy Edition. But I don’t know if I can. That scratchy live copy of Forget Her really is the only one I want to hear. I can’t agree with the release of a song that was explicitly never meant to be sold. It would appear that for now at least, for Jeff, it really is never over.
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