The late Jeff Buckley was known for poetic and spiritual songwriting, plus vocals that drew comparisons to Nina Simone and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, both of whom he worshipped. However, at age 30, while making his second album, Buckley drowned in Memphis in 1997. His dad, musician Tim Buckley, also died young — at 28. His son didn’t know his dad well, but they were very similar in looks, talent, and unrealized potential. Jeff Buckley’s short life story is told in a new documentary called It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, directed by Oscar and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg.
Grace was the only album Buckley released when he was still alive. Berg says that when she heard it in the 1990s, it “opened her up,” especially since the music scene at the time was aggressive and testosterone-driven, as she describes to KCRW.
“It brought up these feels that you don’t usually get listening to some of the grunge music of the ‘90s. So it cut through all the noise and just made me feel just real.”
It took a while to make this new documentary because in 2007, when Berg approached Buckley’s mom, Mary Guibert, about the project, Guibert declined. She repeatedly asked again in the coming years, and finally in 2019, received the green light from Guibert, who controls her son’s estate and all his music.
Guibert raised Buckley as a single mom. Berg explains that she met his father, Tim Buckley, in a high school French class, then quickly got pregnant. But they broke up before she gave birth at age 17. She wanted to become a singer and actress, then committed her life to being a good mom. “She admits honestly in the film that sometimes she was a flawed parent, but that was part of the dynamic that I really wanted to tell, because it defined Jeff in so many ways.”
Jeff Buckley appears with his mom, Mary Guibert. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
When Jeff Buckley was 8, Guibert saw a newspaper advertisement for a concert by Tim Buckley, who became a cult musician in 1970s New York, and asked her son if he wanted to go. In the film, Guibert describes them at the show, “Jeff was rocking to the music, looking up at his dad. Tim had his eyes closed, but he had to know he was there, had to be aware of his presence.”
Jeff Buckley then met his dad for the first time in the green room. He went to Tim’s home and was supposed to stay for a week, but after three days, Tim sent Jeff back to Guibert’s house, along with his phone number. But he never called his son, and shortly thereafter died of an overdose. It was a cloud that hung over Jeff for most of his life, Berg says.
KCRW archives: Jeff Buckley speaks with Liza Richardson, 1990s
So how did Jeff Buckley develop his passion for music? He was predisposed to it and had a natural gift for it, Berg says.
Ultimately, record executives at Cafe Sin-e, the East Village coffee shop and club where Buckley worked and played music, discovered him. Word quickly spread around New York, and soon, artists like Sinéad O’Connor, U2, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and others watched him perform.
“He was pretty much instantly discovered, and he had about … a year and a half before he actually went in and recorded Grace from that point on. So that was when the love of just singing and performing switched over for him to becoming a very serious job,” Berg recalls.
In the film, Buckley calls the title track of his album a “death prayer.” It largely has to do with him being the son of someone who died young, Berg explains.
“He didn’t think he had long on this earth. And I guess there was some type of a grace that he saw in that realm in between, that a lot of people who met him described Jeff as the guy [whose] feet didn’t touch the ground, that he graced us with his beauty and his songs and his voice. Death was an interesting subject in his music.”
When Buckley became a star, his record company pushed him to produce, and he toured nonstop for three years. Buckley also put pressure on himself too, “and maybe wasn’t emotionally ready for the next album because there was so much to learn at the point he was at in his life,” Berg says.
In the mid-1990s, Buckley moved to Memphis to write his second album. “He was in the thick of trying to be creative and trying to find himself, and shared with one of his close friends, Tammy, that he was really just trying to be a man, and he was trying to figure out what that looked like for him.”
At the same time, he contacted his friends and mom, leaving messages on their answering machines. Berg says he was trying to be healthier and feel connected. In one voicemail to his mom, he said, “Anybody can be famous, Mary. … But it takes a real spirit. You hear me? It takes a real spirit to raise a kid.”
Berg notes that Guibert endured lots of trauma in her life, including relationship abuse from men, and Buckley was her rock for many years.
Then in 1997, Buckley passed away. The medical examiner determined the cause as accidental drowning, but some people still think it was suicide or a substance overdose.
“He was having a moment of impulsive behavior. He was very excited. His band was on their way from New York to Memphis. They actually hit the tarmac around the time he went into the water. And he was singing ‘Whole Lot of Love’ by Led Zeppelin. And he jumped in, fully clothed, combat boots. And there are these cargo ships that go by, and they create an undercurrent that just could pull one under. And that’s what happened.”
Buckley ended up becoming a mythic creature, Berg acknowledges, considering his dad also died young. “There’s never enough Jeff Buckley. If you go online, people are just repurposing everything he ever did. There is so much love for him, and he has this way of feeling perfect. I hope that you can feel the human side of Jeff after seeing the film. But he is definitely a person that was special, unique, and he’s become untouchable in that way.”
Amy Berg is the director of “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley.” Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
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