Jeff Buckley's Grace

33⅓ Main Series #23

by Daphne A. Brooks

The power and influence of Grace increases with each passing year.
Here, Daphne Brooks traces Jeff Buckley's fascinating musical
development through the earliest stages of his career, up to the release
of the album. With access to rare archival material, Brooks illustrates
Buckley's passion for life and hunger for musical knowledge, and shows
just why he was such a crucial figure in the American music scene of the
1990s.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Pop Culture

Kindle Edition

First published April 28, 2005

About the author

Daphne A. Brooks is author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Bodies in Dissent, winner of the Errol Hill Award for outstanding scholarship in African American performance studies. The William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Theater Studies, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, Brooks has written liner notes to accompany the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, and Prince, as well as stories for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, and Pitchfork.

Reviews

[Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[Grace is] a quality I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching for the gun too quickly. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly. In short, it keeps you alive."
-Jeff Buckley on his album's title

Despite the largely negative reviews on here, I thought this was a perfectly serviceable tribute to Jeff Buckley's iconic album. I guess that's because I was sort of the ideal audience, coming to the book with both a pre-existing love for Buckley's music and a near-total ignorance of his personal and professional history, beyond the few standard bits of trivia about his untimely drowning and his (non-)relationship with his biological father, singer-songwriter Tim Buckley. It's worth noting that I'm also a generation younger than Jeff was (he was born almost exactly a year before my mother, and started recording Grace the month I was born), so I don't feel the same sort of possessiveness over his legacy that older fans seemingly do. All of which is to say, the info and insights I found here were a lot fresher and less contentious to me than they apparently were for others.

I'll confess that Daphne A. Brooks' style does take some getting used to, dense with academic adjectives and overwhelmingly reverential in tone, but I appreciated her sincere passion for Buckley's music and was happy to get a black woman's perspective on this so-called "mystery white boy" who learned so much from the likes of Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. Actually, if this book has a thesis, it's that Buckley's most important quality—beyond his legendary voice and mastery of the electric guitar—was his willingness to synthesize elements from diverse musical modes and traditions in a way that was well-informed, non-exploitative, and artistically coherent. (To give just one example, he called the Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan "my Elvis," was painfully conscious of coming off as a "totally hideous whiteboy fan," and even interviewed Khan and wrote the liner notes for a compilation of his recordings shortly before both their deaths.) This is a quality of Buckley's I'd already picked up on in the music itself, so it was fun learning about his specific streams of influence and his thoughts on the work he was doing. By all accounts he really did grapple with these questions deeply and honestly, which is still rare even 25 years down the road.

Sure, it's probably true that Brooks gives Buckley a little too much credit for his racial and sexual barrier-breaking, and at times she's clearly trying to make him fit her own idealized image. The most egregious example of this is her treatment of Led Zeppelin, a band whose culturally appropriative, "cock rock" tendencies Brooks is understandably disdainful of, but whom Buckley consistently cited among his chief musical role models (and whose lyrics he was singing when he went for his fatal final swim in May 1997). Every time Buckley's engagement with the band comes up, Brooks has to assure us that his real intention was to somehow challenge, subvert, or transcend them—even when there's little evidence for this in Buckley's own, frequently-quoted words. But generally her analysis is solid, and whatever quibbles I had were minor.

This was my first book in the 33 1/3 series, and I thought the format worked well. Brooks gives just enough attention to Buckley's biography, performance history, and recording process (as well as her own relationship with the music) to set the stage, but rarely gets bogged down in music nerd minutiae. She provides a multi-page close reading of every track on the album, along with a few additional recordings, and she quotes liberally from Buckley, his bandmates, and various music critics and scholars. It was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be—no more, no less—and I'm excited now to check out some of the other books in this series.

But most importantly, Grace (the book) got me even more hooked on Grace (the album), and I've been listening to it continuously since I started reading. I loved Jeff Buckley before and I love him even more now, and that's exactly what a book like this should do.

Here's one of my favorite live recordings. Rest in peace, Jeff. Gone way too damn soon.

[Kimley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to worship at the Jeff Buckley shrine rather late in the game. Being an avid music junky, I was aware of all the rave reviews of his work and generally knew his story but for whatever reason had not gotten around to exploring his music until after he had taken that fateful swim.

I moved to NYC in 1993 and wandered the same streets and clubs as he did. I often wonder stupid things like whether he was at the same amazing Tom Verlaine show I saw at Tramps. Surely we should have crossed paths at some point and I still can't believe I never saw him performing in some dive club riffing on a Nina Simone song or cracking one of his silly jokes.

I've often been amazed at how attached we become to people we don't even know, who are no longer even of this planet. I guess it's just that eternal need to connect to something, anything. Jeff is one of those rare people that so many of us wish to connect with in some way.

And the best parts of this particular adulatory book are the ones where Daphne Brooks talks specifically about what Buckley's music meant to her. She talks about driving around Los Angeles as a student listening to Grace in her car and knowing just how much of the album she could hear on her commute to class - this sticks with her all these many years later. It's ingrained in her psyche and I just love that. That's what amazing music should do.

The book does get a bit overly academic in parts which I think is inevitable for a book of this nature. Talk of technical recording issues and the like are not of particular interest to me however I know many a Buckley fan who will really groove on this geek talk so to each his own.

Also on the academic side but of much more interest to me, she explores Jeff's place culturally and looks at race and gender issues and while it's probably obvious to most hardcore fans, it's nice to see Jeff get his proper due for pushing the boundaries here.

Of course, the best part of reading this book is that upon closing the cover after reading that final page, I immediately put on Grace and was transported the way I always am when I listen to that album.

Grace is what matters in anything. Especially life. Especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. It's a quality I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching for the gun too quickly. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly. In short, it keeps you alive.

--Jeff Buckley

[Squash (Lex) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it's because I'm only a casual fan of Jeff Buckley and not a super fan, but I was very bored by this book. It felt more like a repetitive hagiography than a discussion of an album. Brooks doesn't even touch the actual album Grace until page 70. A good chunk is just discussing his career, his live performances, original and cover songs that didn't end up on the album. She talks a lot about how amazing he is, about his voice being beautiful, how he challenged the grunge aesthetic/philosophy, but doesn't go anywhere with it. A lot of the book is repeated rewording of statements, as though she copy/pasted from various articles or fragments. Buckley's influences are constantly reiterated. In fact, in 151 pages, there are 13 instances where she lists off the same handful of artists that Buckley took inspiration from. She constantly talks about Qawwali music without really explaining its connection to Buckley in a way that matters; she just sort of handwaves the similarities towards the beginning of the book and then continues to name check the musical style. Her writing is full of strings of synonyms, which could work if her own writing style was more on the poetic side, but it just ends up sounding either cloyingly gushing or try-hard. So much of this book was just reworded statements from earlier chapters, probably a good quarter of it could have been cut and the book might have had more impact. As it is, it was a chore to finish this book and I was bored most of the time.

[Jeff Reguilon · Rating 1 out of 5]

An incredibly frustrating look at one of my all-time favorite albums. Brooks pimples her prose with unnecessary adjectives in an attempt to sound more passionate or convincing, which only makes her sound green (though I will cut her some slack, because expressing enthusiasm can be difficult and I often find myself falling into the same traps). More irritating, though, is her tendency to make bizarre intellectual leaps and commit serious factual inaccuracies without explaining herself even though the book is heavily footnoted. Plus, she misquotes lyrics on more than one occasion. I mean, if you're obsessive enough about an album to write a book about it, I'd like to think you'd know basic nuts-and-bolts facts like, you know, the lyrics or at least take some time to proofread or fact check. Still, it provided some insight into the record, so it wasn't a complete waste. I did, at more than a few points, however, feel like chucking the book across the room.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful tribute to Jeff and Grace! As a MEGA fan, I really enjoyed reading Brooks’s interpretations of Jeff’s songs and covers, notes on his influences (musical and poetic), and her inclusion of quotes from Jeff’s friends, band mates, and even his journals. Her writing was very touching to me; I can tell how much Jeff’s music means to her, too.

Jeff Buckley was truly one of the most special artists to have graced the earth—that sounds dramatic, but I believe that with my whole heart. And, as Brooks would agree, Grace is a gorgeous album all about being human: love (most of all), heartbreak, despair, rebirth, death, and, yes, grace:

“Grace is what matters in anything - especially life, especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. That's a quality that I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching out for the gun too quickly. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly. It sort of keeps you alive.”
—Jeff Buckley

[gianna cicchetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed this deep dive into one of my very favorite albums ever made, i coincidentally read most of it on the record’s anniversary 🥺 between this and the new documentary, im truly convinced jeff was the one of the most beautiful people to ever live

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 1 out of 5]

Daphne A. Brooks was originally supposed to help with the liner notes of Jeff Buckley's Grace Legacy Edition CD released late in 2004. When Sony decided to use another's opinions, Brooks decided to compile her information and use it to write this book. Because of this, the information is obviously opinionated. However, these opinions often get in the way of deciphering which parts are opinion and which parts are cited facts. The book is basically a repetitive compilation of information from other sources with opinions thrown in. Some of the quotes are new because of the author's access to materials that have not been officially released, but most of the information is recycled from previously released albums, DVDs, and books. This makes the book unnecessary for avid fans, but perhaps still desirable for the opinions of a fellow fan.

Although the book is titled "Grace," it discusses songs that did not make the album like "Forget Her" and songs sang during the Mystery White Boy tour like Judy Garland's "The Man That Got Away" and Edith Piaf's "Je N'En Connais Pas la Fin."

Brooks is obviously a devoted fan who visited St. Ann's Church where Jeff first sang his father's songs and where a memorial was held after his death. She was also fortunate enough to attend the performance in which Jeff sang his now famous "Chocolate Mojo Pin," a version explained as highly sexual, but unlike mainstream sexuality of the time. Brooks' explanations of the songs on the album and what they meant to her are interesting and offer a different perspective than what one might have concluded.

Strangely, Brooks manages to misquote several song lyrics including So Real on more than one occasion and dialogue from the Live at Sin-E CD. For one that claims to be a giant Buckley fan who wore out Grace by playing it so much in her car, Brooks does not know the songs well. She also falsely states that Jeff sang two songs at St. Ann's Church's tribute to his father, Tim Buckley. Brooks credits Buckley of covering "Once I Was" and "I Never Asked to be Your Mountain" when in reality, he covered those two and "Phantasmagoria in Two" and "Sefronia." These mistakes are somewhat unforgivable and make one wonder what other information in the book is untrue.

Overall, Daphne A. Brooks' book is a mediocre tribute, a "love note" to Jeff just like his Live at Sin-E CD was a "love note" to the building in which he played, but from a lesser talent.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been such a long time...time feels like it's flown away, the days just pass and fade away.

Obviously written by a (self-admitted) uber-fan, these essays brought me back to a time when I thought I understood Jeff so well: his influences, the themes he was trying to communicate though his music, his voice...some interesting thoughts here, if at times repetitive. It was nice to delve back into that shimmering music, if only for a short while, for it is usually just way too painful.

[fashion castillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There is no simile in the world that can accurately describe a first encounter with Jeff Buckley in song… No language does justice to the intense feelings this man’s music has the power to conjure,” yet Brooks does a pretty good job of explaining it.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anyone with ears can tell you that Jeff Buckley can do gold medal backflips with his voice. This book says just that over and over and over and over again. It talks some about him as a songwriter, but mostly it dwells on his vocal prowess. (Rightfully so, imho, as Buckley's songwriting always felt a bit lacking in focus to me. I realize I am in the minority...probably an even more noticeable minority among folks who have read this book.) And this book seems to think Buckley's every eye movement and blink are faultless and thought provoking. In a way, that's what the 33 1/3 book series is about: geeking out on the music we love. But when an author chooses instead to write hagiography, there is a limit to how much a reader of said book can glean.

Spoiler alert: Jeff Buckley was human. Not that you will learn that in this book. Instead you have the author make bold declarations on multiple occasions that Jeff Buckley is "punk" merely because he didn't play alternative or grunge in the first half of the 90's. I guess this means "Lover, You Should've Come Over" is a rebellious youth anthem? I dunno, I kind of got bored with after a while.

Here's my take: When one thinks of Generation X, they usually think of Reality Bites and grunge, not of another one of its less cynical products: Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise. In the film, we watch as two would-be lovers stay up all night drifting around Vienna discussing everything and nothing. As a youth, I saw myself in Ethan Hawke's character; these days I kind of want to punch him in the face. It is here in this place that Jeff Buckley's Grace lives.

Like Ethan Hawke's Jesse, the album walks many a thin line. The vocals walk the razor's edge between naivete and absolute sincerity. The singer himself is equal parts romantic and insufferable. The album's inspirations vacillate from starry-eyed hero worship to eye-rolling "Patti Smith in her Rimbaud days" obsession. But beyond these juxtapositions, it also captures a specific moment of youth so beautifully. Jeff Buckley's Grace is Generation X before the cynicism has taken hold, each pained cry a betrayal against the hopeful tomorrow that could be. It is messy and high-flying and noise that begs to be heard. It falls short plenty of times in the songwriting, but damned if those vocals don't aim high and hit the target most of the time.

This book, however, misses the mark.

[Rob Harvilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

But as lovely as "Last Goodbye" truly is with elegant, orchestral maneuvers and with Buckley's signature Eastern vocal flourishes and phrasing, it is the very core of the track—a sexy, rhythmic breakdown passage that leads directly into the song's trademark supplication to "Kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me out of a desire ... not consolation"—that unites Jeff Buckley with yet another of his rock and roll muses, one whom critics nonetheless rarely cite as an influence on Grace—that of his purple majesty Prince. Michael Tighe confirms, in fact, that, "Yes. He really loved Prince. He felt very akin to his worship of sex and sensuality and women ... There are parts of 'Last Goodbye' that were also influenced rhythmically by certain rhythms that Prince would use a lot ... [They] shared, in their songs, this sense of ... worshipping a goddess. I feel they are very similar in that way."

On "Last Goodbye," Buckley summons the spirit of everybody's favorite hopelessly sacred and profane icon of rock romance. The Prince who can croon a Joni Mitchell lyric ("help me I think I'm falling") in the middle of his ballad to a diner waitress. The Prince who can mournfully remind us that "sometimes it snows in April" and that breaking up will always be delicious torture because nothing ever compares to you. The Prince so in awe of Fellini-esque women that he wants to spend as much "extra time" as possible in their kiss. As a new romantic coming of age in the wake of Prince's purple reign, Buckley slipped easily into the role of the rock male lover who isn't too macho to beg for earnest affection. He eased into the position of longing for desire rather than merely achingly desiring for and pursuing women. With this "goodbye" and a parting rise into a Prince-inspired head voice with controlled expiration, Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" refused the big-haired power ballad antics of the '80s and the brutal, wounded anti-love songs of '90s alt-rock and instead made love, even at the moment of breaking up, a sublime affair to remember.

[Hannah]

I fell in love with Jeff Buckley and Grace in high school, shortly after I learned to drive, so the opening passage about the author's relationship with his music and the road resonated with me right away. This book was beautifully written, with a great mix of background about Jeff Buckley's influences, upbringing, and musical philosophy, as well as analyses of the ten tracks that make up Grace and several other songs that he performed at his live shows.

It's been a while since I passed the peak of my Jeff Buckley fanship, so at times I didn't connect fully with the author's rapturous view of his genius (though I do believe he was a genius and a brilliant musician). Still, I don't know how well I would have enjoyed this in my Buckley heyday since my attachment to the music felt so personal that it would have wrecked me to know that others felt the same depth of connection to it as I did. Now, I was able to enjoy and appreciate the author's specific perspective as a fan, critic, and Black woman, and how that enabled her to open my eyes to a new understanding of his music and its place in the art scene of the time.

This was my first foray into the 33-1/3 series and I was very pleased with the quality of the writing and analysis, though I wish the book had had another round of copyediting. It was hard to turn off my work brain and appreciate the writing fully when I kept getting distracted by numerous minor errors. Still, the same way that Buckley talked about appreciating imperfections in the music of his idols, I am willing to embrace the imperfections in this lovely little book.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I hope that people who liked him resist the temptation to turn his life and death into some dumb romantic fantasy, He was so much better than that. Not everyone can get up and sing something they take a liking to and make it their own, sing true to their heart, and be curious about all different strains of music."-Bono

I first heard Jeff Buckley in 1994 when "Last Goodbye" was played on a local independent radio station in my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa....

While I appreciate what this book trying to do. This book just misses the mark and was incredibly frustrating to me. It reads like an overly romantic fan tribute. Books misses the opportunity to intellectually deconstruct Buckley's "Grace" album or at the very least deconstruct the mythology that has surrounded Buckley since his death. Instead, this book merely contributes to the perpetuation of that mythology. I didn't need to be convinced to love Jeff Buckley and the one studio album that he was able to make. I came to this book precisely because of that love. I appreciate that Buckley has had such a profound impact on the author but she spends too much time talking about that. The book seems to be more of a personal exercise rather than the intellectual exercise that it purports itself to be. Instead of resisting the trap that Bono warned against in the above quote at the beginning of this review, she falls right into it.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only thing I knew about Jeff Buckley going into this book was that he wasn't the conservative commentator who was an asshole to James Baldwin and that he did a cover version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah that really broke that song for the masses. Like broke that song WIDE open and made it huge. And in the recent Cohen documentary, Buckley said he hoped Cohen never heard his version because he sounded like a little boy singing it... and I found that self-deprecating humility endearing. The man had a charm about him.

Musically this album isn't my thing. I assumed this album was made in the 70s and then I find out it was made in the 90s. At the time I was listening to a lot of Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails and Jesus and Mary Chain and Pixies and Sugar. When I listen to this record now, I think Buckley was doing a lot of hippy noodling. If I was listening to it then, I would think Buckley was doing a lot of hippy noodling. The book was enthusiastic in painting Buckley as this love child with a punk soul who wanted to be Nina Simone... but to me, the love child is what asserts itself the most. He went out floating down the Mississippi on his back, loving life. I don't like the music, but the book made it easy to like the guy.

[robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite passages were the opening ones because they are the most personal and we see the impassioned love affair between Daphne A. Brooks and Jeff Buckley.

Her thesis convinces -- Buckley crossed racial, cultural, and gender divides without appropriating or trying to become someone he was not. I never heard that before and was fascinated to discover how even qawwali singing is an ingredient in his musical stew.

I bought this because Robert Christgau is a fan (of the book, not the album). But like nearly all the 33 1/3 books I've read, the analysis doesn't sustain my interest. It starts repeating without ever going deeper. It doesn't have the excitement of the music being written about.

[Marcos Alarcon Olivos · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro es una excelente aproximación a la figura de Jeff Buckley como músico y al entorno cultural y musical que lo vio surgir y que este reconfiguró con su propia carrera. Si buscas una biografía del álbum Grace que al mismo tiempo te permita tener una lectura del mundo detrás de su creador, este es un libro ideal. Aunque una aproximación más crítica a las variables de género y raza hubiese enriquecido el libro, después de leerlo, el álbum tiene muchas más capas de significados de las que uno era consciente y la figura única de Jeff Buckley en el panorama de la música de la década de 1990 queda aún más engrandecida.

[Jessica Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a huge fan of Jeff Buckley and after seeing the praise this book got i decided to purchase it and dive in to these lovely pages myself. I was surprised that I cried a few times reading this even within the first few pages.

The way she described how Buckley’s voice and lyrics transcended you into a world of bliss and sorrow.

“What is grace and why does it continue to beckon us, disturb us, inspire us, soothe us, and spark our innermost hopes, fears, joys and desires?”

[Eli Bishop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insanely overwritten hagiography. I learned a couple of facts, but mostly I just learned that the author really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really likes Jeff Buckley (replace 9 of the previous "really"s with randomly chosen adverbs to get a general idea of the style). It's also a very badly edited book, even in terms of just basic copyediting.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate how much time the author spent on Buckley's respect for female musicians that came before him. The best parts were the sections about the various genre-defying covers he performed and recorded, which I did not know much about. I am giving it three stars because the run-on sentences were frequent and tedious to read for something that should have felt short.

[lola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok I’m writing this review as I relisten to the album after years!!! This was #my album in high school. She says some slightly overreaching stuff which put a general damper on the writing but the very end is soooooo worth reading. Some
Of the most beautiful writing on music I have read that is life affirming !!!!!! Crying to hallelujah! Gnite sweet dreams

[Lauren Segarra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love anything Jeff Buckley related. I remember the first time I had ever listened to Grace in my middle school best friend’s bedroom. It blew my mind. It has been one of my favorite albums since then. I enjoyed this book since it discussed some more details about Jeff Buckley’s mysterious life as well as each song on the album. Not amazing, but very nice.

[Cassius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought it was pretty good, it was a good deep dive into each of the pieces on Jeff Buckley’s album, Grace. Wish there was a bit more on his personal life but considering how the author got archival documents plus Jeff’s early death there wasn’t much anyone can do. Daphne a. Brooks has a beautiful way of writing

[Patrick Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice insight into Buckley’s brief, luminous career, including his Sin-É performances which constitute my favorite of his work. Appreciate the time allotted to his embrace of femininity, something which has been modeled by many artists in the time since but often seems far more performative than Buckley’s genuine invocations.

[Ted Gurley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grace Revealed

I had not spent any reflective time with Buckley’s Grace until I read this thoughtful introduction to Jeff Buckley respectful insights into the music. A great addition to my music library.

[John Westworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

It read like an academic paper what was being judged purely on the number of words, syllables and citations. If I didn’t know the album, this would have put me off buying it.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific examination of the life and times of a wonderful singer-songwriter.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been the most inspiring book out of this series so far. They should all be written like this.

[Zach Minuto · Rating 3 out of 5]

a fitting hagiography for a generational talent.

[Georgie Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gave me a lot of things to go and research and listen to which I like! Otherwise it was a pretty standard book about a phenomenal album

[Lauren Travers · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved every part. it took me so long to finish because I only read it when I was in class, when I was supposed to be doing something else.