Credit: Far Out / Roy Tee

A lifelong inspiration: The first record Jeff Buckley owned

Wed 27 March 2024 18:30, UK

You never forget the first album you owned. The first time you walked those now-familiar aisles of your local record store, dragging your finger along the spines of countless collections of music before landing on just one. While some people come to shun the music taste of their youth, others are shaped by it, building upon that first record purchase far into their adult lives. Jeff Buckley was an example of the latter, a magical musician who was forever inspired by the first record he purchased.

Before Buckley became one of the most beloved artists of all time, and before his only album found its way into the heart of Brad Pitt and onto countless “best of” lists, the budding songwriter discovered his love for music through the guitar stylings of Led Zeppelin. Courtesy of his stepfather, Buckley was introduced to the hard rockers at a young age, just in time for 1975’s Physical Graffiti to take the title for the first album he ever owned.

With four self-titled records and Houses of the Holy behind them, Led Zeppelin had firmly secured their status as rock aficionados by the time they put out Physical Graffiti. The record only further proved their right to that claim, perhaps most notably spawning the iconic and epic ‘Kashmir’, a collage of strings with unparalleled gravitas.

Though his own output would stray far from the progressive rock stylings of Led Zeppelin and of Physical Graffiti, Buckley’s songwriting contained its own weight and wonder as he continued to admire and channel the work of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant into his adulthood and his artistry. He spent the 1990s carving out his own guitar-driven sound that blended his love of harmonies and hard rock.

Between his haunting cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, the lyrical longing of ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’, and the glorious strums of ‘Last Goodbye’, he won over critics who would laud Grace for years to come. He even managed to win over his hero in Page, who mirrored Buckley’s own emotion and enthusiasm when they encountered one another.

Chris Dowd once recalled how both Buckley and Page cried when they first met during a conversation with Uncut. “Jimmy heard himself in Jeff, and Jeff was meeting his idol,” he explained, “Jimmy Page was the godfather of Jeff’s music. A lot of people thought Tim was the influence on Jeff, but it was really Zeppelin.”

Buckley had harnessed the influence of the first record he ever bought and channelled it into a sound that was uniquely his own, earning the admiration of his idol in turn. It’s a trajectory few of us could ever hope to attain, to turn fandom into friendship, but Buckley was always leaps and bounds ahead of the rest.

The first record you buy doesn’t always shape you, but it certainly did for Buckley. Page led to Buckley, and Physical Graffiti led to Grace. The legacy he would hone and the impact he would have on so many others spawned from that very first album he owned in his youth. Now, in turn, his record has had the same impact on so many others, from the equally dramatic Lana Del Rey to Muse frontman Matt Bellamy.

Listen to Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, the first album Jeff Buckley ever owned, below.