GRACE: Jeff BUCKLEY

The work of Jeff Buckley was incredibly important to me at the time and is still in my top thirty at least of favourite albums of all time and the release of his first album, bought when it came out, seemed as perfect a debut as I had ever heard. The cover version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' was a revelation and despite my passion for the John Cale version, the whole Buckley album somehow prevailed upon me and I still don't think it has any tracks that are not perfect. 

As soon as the news came in that he had drowned in the Mississippi while taking a casual swim the whole world seemed rocked to the core. Things like that didn't happen to people who were so clearly so talented, so gifted. The following material filled me with dread and yet the next official album was an exception, a talisman if you will to indicate what the music world was going to miss and what stratospheric career he would have undoubtedly had. The uncommonly cruel coincidence that both father and son should die so early seemed unnaturally revealing of some terrible star sign error, some horrid curse, a macabre coincidence that hinted at the mystical but we have to accept I guess that truly horrific things happen to good people. Put 'Grace' on the deck again and tell me I am wrong . . . .