Jeff Buckley
Born: 17 November 1966
Died: 29 May 1997 (31 Years)
Died: 29 May 1997 (31 Years)
Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scott Moorhead, was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by playing songs written by others at venues in Manhattan's East Village such as Sin-é, gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing much interest from record labels and Herb Cohen, the manager of his father, singer Tim Buckley, he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994.
Over the following three years, the band toured extensively to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring [4] and made sporadic attempts to record Buckley's second album in New York City with Tom Verlaine as producer.
In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-track demos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. On May 29, 1997, while awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim, fully clothed, in the Mississippi River when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat; his body was found on June 4.
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk, expansions of Grace, and the Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously: with his cover of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" he attained his first number one on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached number two in the UK Singles Chart that December. Rolling Stone included Grace in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and included Buckley in their list of the greatest singers.
On the evening of May 29, 1997, Buckley's band flew to Memphis to join him in his studio to work on his new material. The same evening Buckley went swimming fully dressed in Wolf River Harbor, a slack water channel of the Mississippi River, singing the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin while swimming under the Memphis Suspension Railway. Keith Foti, a roadie in Buckley's band, remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. The wake of the tugboat had swept him away from shore and under water. A rescue effort that night and the morning after by scuba teams and police failed to discover him. On June 4, passengers on the American Queen riverboat spotted his body in the Wolf River caught in some branches, and he was brought to land.
Buckley's autopsy showed no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system, and the death was ruled an accidental drowning. The official Jeff Buckley website published a statement saying that his death was not mysterious and was not a suicide.
(wikipedia)
Over the following three years, the band toured extensively to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring [4] and made sporadic attempts to record Buckley's second album in New York City with Tom Verlaine as producer.
In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-track demos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. On May 29, 1997, while awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim, fully clothed, in the Mississippi River when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat; his body was found on June 4.
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk, expansions of Grace, and the Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously: with his cover of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" he attained his first number one on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached number two in the UK Singles Chart that December. Rolling Stone included Grace in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and included Buckley in their list of the greatest singers.
On the evening of May 29, 1997, Buckley's band flew to Memphis to join him in his studio to work on his new material. The same evening Buckley went swimming fully dressed in Wolf River Harbor, a slack water channel of the Mississippi River, singing the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin while swimming under the Memphis Suspension Railway. Keith Foti, a roadie in Buckley's band, remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. The wake of the tugboat had swept him away from shore and under water. A rescue effort that night and the morning after by scuba teams and police failed to discover him. On June 4, passengers on the American Queen riverboat spotted his body in the Wolf River caught in some branches, and he was brought to land.
Buckley's autopsy showed no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system, and the death was ruled an accidental drowning. The official Jeff Buckley website published a statement saying that his death was not mysterious and was not a suicide.
(wikipedia)