Jeff Buckley’s links to Ireland

If he’d lived, Jeff Buckley would have been 50 next week, writes Jonathan deBurca Butler

Thu, 10 Nov, 2016 - 00:00

Early on in his solo career, singer-songwriter, Jeff Buckley picked up a Monday night residency at an Irish bar in New York named Sin-é. Between reinterpreted covers of Led Zeppelin and Edith Piaf, the young musician would throw in his own compositions. It was here that he would hone his craft. As it turns out, the venue was also the latent inspiration behind an RTÉ Radio Documentary which airs this Saturday afternoon entitled Sin-é: Jeff Buckley’s Irish Odyssey.

The 45-minute documentary focuses on the sweet-voiced singer’s relationship with Ireland and is timely given that Buckley would have been 50 next week.

“I was a fan of Jeff Buckley in the days before the internet,” says producer, Steve Cummins. “You’d pick up snippets of information about him in record shops or just chatting to people and this connection that he had with a space called Sin-é is what really got me started. I sort of found it intriguing.”

It soon transpired that the East Village venue was not the only Irish link. When The Commitments invented Dublin Soul and took their message to the USA, Buckley became Glen Hansard’s guitar technician and a lasting friendship was born.

A trip to Ireland soon followed. In 1992, after a split from his band Gods and Monsters, Buckley came to Dublin.

“Two years before he was signed he actually ended up playing a gig at the Trinity Ball,” says Cummins. “It was his first time out of the USA and one of his first gigs on his own. He did a five-song set, a really eclectic mix of stuff, Bob Dylan cover, Van Morrisson and I have some of the recording in the documentary, which I’d say must be the first footage of him playing on his own. It’s fantastic really.

“And I think what a lot of people forget is just how good a guitarist he was too. Mostly he is remembered for that amazing voice but he really could play guitar.”

Buckley eventually signed to Columbia Records in 1994; and was paid a reported $1 million for a three-album deal. Sadly, he would produce only one, Grace, which was well-received by critics and musicians alike. Sales of the album were relatively slow however and relentless touring of the album took its toll.

“I think towards the last few years he went through a bit of a dark period,” says Cummins. “He had high standards for himself and he wasn’t too happy with the direction he was going in. He had been three years on the road and he was suffering from a bit of writer’s block. He certainly tried to get away from Grace and go for a heavier sound.” It was in Memphis during session recordings for that second record, posthumously released as Sketches from my Sweetheart the Drunk, that Buckley took an evening swim and disappeared from view.

“There is this image of him as a kind of fallen angel, a reflective quiet type,” says Cummins. “But from talking to people the big thing that stood out was his sense of humour. He was very generous and really everyone spoke of how present he was. He made you feel like you were the only person in the room if you were speaking to him.” Sin-é Jeff Buckley in a nutshell.