The Quadrangle

Issue date: 10/11/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Jeff Buckley

Thirteen years ago, Jeff Buckley returned to the cramped café that made him famous. Recording equipment and a record contract in hand, Jeff set out to capture, once more, the mood that created a buzz all around Manhattan and left people begging for more.
It was at Sin- É (pronounced Shin-Ay), a small café in the East Village, that the show was taped. Like the tables and chairs, waiters, and patrons, Buckley made himself a staple at the shop's Monday night open mic. For an entire year, amongst offer after offer to sign a record deal, the only way to see him play was to catch him at Sin- É or another neighboring coffee shop like the Cornelia Street Café.
That all changed in 1993 when Columbia Records offered Jeff production rights to his albums. Before he went in to the booth to record his first studio album, it was decided that he should return to the place that made him, or at least allowed him to create the music he always played in his mind.
What was recorded at the end of his two-night session was a collection of songs and conversations that encapsulate everything that Jeff stood for musically. Live at Sin-É, originally a four-track release had two of Jeff's original songs, "Mojo Pin," and "Eternal Life," as well covers of a French track and Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lover's Do."
He went on to write and record Grace, his first and only studio album, for release in 1994. Tragically, Jeff died three years later when he drowned in a river while swimming with a friend. He was in the midst of writing his second album My Sweetheart the Drunk, which was released postmortem as Sketches of My Sweetheart the Drunk.
His greatest work, however, was captured in the reissue of Live at Sin- É that was released in 2003. An uncut version of Jeff's two sessions that were recorded ten years earlier, the album showed the music world what made him such an incredible musician. Personal and emotional, Jeff would play a couple songs in his set and then start a conversation with a stranger in the audience as if they were best friends.
Throughout the album, his experiments with the guitar and his voice can be heard in tracks like, "Lover You Should Have Come Over," where he changes the song over and over until he gets the sound he likes.
The album also shows Buckley's love for music, and his inspirations as heard in several other covers in the album like Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," and a Jim Morrison impression from The Doors "The End."
Live at Sin- É is the perfect example of what music should be. Personal, unique, and passionate, the album acts as a window into the life and mind of an artist who left an incredible mark on the music world in the short life he led.

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