"And the rain is falling and I believe my time has come."
August 24, 2024 10:23 AM   Subscribe

It's Not Too Late: A Lifetime Measured by Jeff Buckley's "Grace." August 15th, 1994 marked the debut of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley's only full studio album. 30 years on, Olivia Abercrombie talks of the influence of that album on her life.

Speaking for myself, and only myself, Jeff Buckley's death was my Significant Alternative Music Death. His passing came on the heels of a femicide my sister was involved in and this haunting album is entwined with that incident.

Grace was a beautiful gorgeous messy but perfect record. It still brings me to tears. He will always be missed.

videos from this album

Grace

Last Goodbye

Hallelujah

So Real
posted by Kitteh (6 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jeff Buckley had familial ties in Memphis and had gotten into the habit of coming and hanging out with musicians there he admired, particularly some friends of mine, 90's indie rockers The Grifters. (The dissonant sounds that were drifting into My Sweetheart the Drunk seem much less random if you know this connection.)

The Grifters were on tour when Jeff was last in Memphis, and were looking forward to jamming with him when they got home. They got word just before they went on stage and didn't think about their set list.

The ended up on stage playing "Fireflies" the chorus of which is "You know how to swim/but you can't keep from drowning." I can't imagine how that felt.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:41 AM on August 24 [11 favorites]


Wow, I remember seeing him at a Tower Records in-store performance in Austin, and he was just enormous. They had him and his guitar perched up on a counter overlooking the aisles of CD's, and I've still never heard a voice fill a space like that. What a force of nature.
posted by swift at 10:46 AM on August 24 [4 favorites]


I saw him in NYC at Arts at St. Ann's (the predecessor to St. Ann's Warehouse) around the time that Grace was released, and was an instant fan (the same with Richard Thompson when I saw him at the same venue), and saw him a second and last time in Memphis when he moved there to work on his next album; the gig was on Ash Wednesday, and one of his band commented on the ashes on my forehead (I was giving Catholicism another go) when I ran into him in the bathroom in Barrister's. It devastated me when I heard of his drowning. I think that I don't listen to Grace more often than I do because I'm afraid of wearing it out.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:46 AM on August 24 [4 favorites]


It's really a shame, as many friends as Jeff Buckley had in Memphis, that no one was there to tell him what a dangerous idea it is to try to swim in the Wolf River, which has a vicious undercurrent. The water moving just a few feet below the surface can move two to three times faster.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:17 PM on August 24 [1 favorite]


After years of coming across folks like Chris Cornell, Robert Plant, and Thom Yorke singing the praises of Grace, I finally picked up a copy two days ago. Nice timing, Kitteh!

The album is quite impressive for its distinctive sound, intensity, and range. I can't really think of any other rock musicians who've managed to be quite so influential despite having released only one proper album.
posted by epimorph at 4:19 PM on August 24


Strong Songs podcast has a great episode on “Last Goodbye,” which amazing as it is is maybe #4 on the album
posted by gottabefunky at 5:01 PM on August 24


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