Five artists who influenced Jeff Buckley the most
It has been just over 25 years since Jeff Buckley passed away at 30 years old, a tragic event that occurred when he accidentally drowned while swimming in the Wolf River Harbour of the Mississippi River. During his lifetime, Buckley, the son of respected folk artist Tim Buckley, released one studio album: Grace.
Grace was highly praised upon its release but received very little airplay. However, in the years since Buckley’s death, his debut album has been labelled as one of the best of the 1990s, and furthermore, his cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ shot to number one on the Billboard Charts in 2008, over ten years after his death.
Since Buckley’s passing, multiple posthumous albums have been released that contain demo versions and live performances of his unreleased work. Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk was released in 1998, and in 2015, tapes of a 1993 recording session were discovered and released as You and I. This release contains mainly cover tracks, including a beautiful rendition of The Smiths’ ‘I Know It’s Over.’
Buckley’s introspective and emotive songwriting, paired with his powerful yet tender singing voice, inspired countless musicians, even those who had inspired him. Upon the release of Grace, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, one of Buckley’s biggest influences, called the album his “favourite album of the decade”. Furthermore, David Bowie referred to the album as one of his desert island discs, and Bob Dylan labelled the young musician as “one of the great songwriters of this decade”.
But Buckley wouldn’t have become the legendary artist we remember without the influence of other musicians. Buckley has described the wide range of musicians that have inspired him as teaching him that “music should be free, should be penetrating, should carry you”.
Five artists who influenced Jeff Buckley:
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Buckley cites one of his major influences as the Pakistani Punjabi singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who primarily sang ‘qawwali’, a type of Sufi Islamic devotional music. The American singer called Khan “my Elvis” and frequently performed some of his tracks, such as ‘Yeh jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai’, which can be heard on the Live at Sin-é EP, and ‘Face of Love’, Khan’s collaboration with Eddie Vedder for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.
Recalling the first time Buckley heard Khan’s music, he said: “Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel…his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. Nusrat’s blending of classical improvisations to the art of Qawwali, combined with his out and out daredevil style and his sensitivity, outs him in a category all his own, above all others in his field.”
Buckley would later meet his idol in 1996, a year before he died, and after he passed, Khan dedicated his 1997 album The Supreme Collection Volume 1 to the young musician.
Nina Simone
In typical Buckley fashion, he covered many of Nina Simone’s songs to pay his respects to her music’s influence on him. Although ‘Lilac Wine’, which Buckley covered on Grace, was largely associated with Elsie Brooks, who found success with the song in 1978, Buckley’s version clearly owes its debt to Simone. The same goes for his cover of ‘The Other Woman’, which can be found on the Legacy Edition of Grace.
When Buckley was asked to write his own press bio, he even described himself as “the warped lovechild of Nina Simone and all four members of Led Zeppelin with the fertilized egg transplanted into the womb of [Edith] Piaf out of which he is borne and left on the street to be tortured by the Bad Brains.”
Leonard Cohen
This one should be no secret, considering Buckley’s best-known song is his beautiful cover of Cohen’s 1984 song ‘Hallelujah’. In fact, Buckley’s rendition is widely regarded as one of the best versions of the track, which has been covered countless times, sometimes even regarded as better than the original.
One of Buckley’s close friends, Glen Hansard, described Buckley’s cover by saying, “He gave us the version we hoped Leonard would emote, and he wasn’t afraid to sing it with absolute reverence. Jeff sang it back to Leonard as a love song to what he achieved, and in doing so, Jeff made it his own.”
Bob Dylan
Buckley wrote some beautiful lyrics in his time, such as “she’s the tear that hangs inside my soul forever” (‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’) and “All flowers in time bend towards the sun/ I know you say that there’s no-one for you/ But here is one” (‘All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun’). Despite this, Buckley was often self-conscious about his writing.
One of his biggest inspirations when it came to writing lyrics was folk legend Bob Dylan. A cover of Dylan’s ‘Mama You’ve Been on My Mind’ can be found on the Legacy Edition of Grace, and he also covered various other songs of Dylan’s that can be heard on the Legacy Edition of the Live at Sin-é EP.
Buckley even wrote Dylan a beautiful letter once, which included the lines, “You were really gracious to me, to even allow me backstage to meet you. I’ll never forget you, what you told me, as long as you live. You said ‘Make a good record man’. And I’m very honoured to have met you at all.”
Led Zeppelin
One of Buckley’s most important influences was Led Zeppelin, more specifically, lead singer and lyricist Robert Plant. Buckley once referred to Plant as “My man”. Detailing further, he explained: “The cool thing about all those Zeppelin songs is that, because of the way Plant sings, if you put them into a different musical setting, they would sound like R&B songs. With Led Zeppelin, everything was out of tune, and Plant sang wrong notes. But he was the one that showed me that there aren’t any wrong notes.”
Apparently, when Buckley met Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, they both cried. Buckley’s friend Chris Dowd recalled that “Jimmy heard himself in Jeff, and Jeff was meeting his idol. 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.”
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