DISGRACELAND - Jeff Buckley: Dreaming of Music, Drowning, and Eternal Life

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Jeff Buckley released his only studio album, Grace, at the height of grunge rock. But it didn’t sound like grunge. It sounded like nothing else out there. It defied categorization. It was full of originals and covers, some complex and cerebral, others straight-up pop. From the pissed-off punk takes to the Eastern-influenced meditations, the constant was Jeff’s voice. A voice unlike any other. A voice that could do anything. A voice that was singing out loud on May 29, 1997, when Jeff Buckley, just 30 years old, waded into the Wolf River in Memphis…and never came back.For a full list of contributors, see the show notes at disgracelandpod.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Jeff Buckley are insane. He was just 30 years old when he disappeared. Six days later, his body was found floating in the water near Beale Street in Memphis. He released only one studio album in his lifetime, yet he's achieved near icon status. His father, Tim Buckley, a singer-songwriter of his songwriter of his life.

own, also died tragically and at the age of 28. But Jeff Buckley never knew his father. Jeff wanted to create his own legacy, so that's what he did. And in doing so, Jeff Buckley made great music. He made one of the greatest debut records of all time. Unlike that music, I played for you at the top of the show. That was a great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Mbop by Hansen. And why would I play you that specific slice of flaxen-haired brotherly cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on May 29, 1997. And that was the day that Jeff Buckley waded into a river in Memphis and never returned safely to shore.

On this episode, Floaters, Beale Street, a great debut, two tragic deaths, and Jeff Buckley. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. Nusrat Fata Ali Khan was dreaming of music. The sound of hands clapping in rhythm, Tabla, harmonium, Kuvali singers entering a trance-like state, pure ecstasy, their throat stretching and vibrating like rubber bands. Music was constant. Music was endless. Music didn't stop when you fell asleep. But Nusrat Fata Ali Khan wasn't just dreaming of music. He was dreaming of his father, the great Kuvali singer. Nusrat's father never wanted a son to follow in his footsteps. But things change. Ten days earlier, Nusrat's father had died, and now he was here, and Nusrat's dream.

So real, as real as in music that pulsed throughout Pakistan. He had one request. He asked his son to sing. Father, Nusurat replied. You must try, his father said. And then he put his hand on Nusrat's throat. Nusrat felt a tremor. It percolated there, just beneath the skin of his neck.

He felt something to bubble up from his gut. It coursed through the blood in his veins. His father's warm hand guided the vibration through Nusrat's entire body. Nusrat opened his mouth. And then he shot up in bed. His eyes wide open. His dream stayed a distant memory. And he was doing something he'd never done before.

He was singing. Over 30 years later, on May 29, 1997, Jeff Buckley was singing as he waited into the Wolf River in Memphis, He was wearing black jeans, black boots, and a t-shirt with the word Altamont written eye. A nod to the infamous Rolling Stones concert from three decades prior. But he wasn't singing a Rolling Stone song as he waited in deeper. He wasn't singing a song by Nusfrat Fata Ali Khan either. Even though Nusirat was it for Jeff Buckley, Nusratt was his guy, his Elvis.

Nusratt was always in Jeff's voice, whether he was screaming like a heavy metal banshee, cooing like, as he once described himself, a chanteuse with a penis, or a scatting like a jazz singer venturing in the slipstream. Right now, by the light of the blue moon hanging in the Memphis sky, Jeff was singing a song by his other idol, Robert Plant. Specifically, Led Zeppelin's whole lot of love. From the shore, Keith Fody called out to Jeff, who is now on knee-deep. What do you doing, man?

Keith, the musician and hairstylist. made the trek from Jeff's adopted home, New York City, with Jeff's tour manager, all the way to Memphis, where Jeff was busy recording his second album. Now he found himself here, down by the water, after he and Jeff drove around town for what seemed like an hour in search of Jeff's rented rehearsal space to go bash on some instruments. They had time to kill. Jeff's band members weren't due back in town until later that night.

But their search for the studio turned into a boondoggle. Jeff and Keyes didn't know Memphis saw. that well. This was the 90s. There were no smartphones, no standard-issue GPS in the van. Navigation was analog, and that means it was a bitch. Fuck it. They'd find the rehearsal space later. Jeff had a better idea. A spur of the moment idea. Those were the best kind. Let's go down to the river, he told Keith. Keith brought his guitar in a boombox from the van. Jeff, of course, had something else in mind. Now he was swimming out farther into the wolf, while Keith yelled at him to come back. to shore. It made no difference because no one told Jeff Buckley what to do. He did his own thing,

followed his own muse. His label, Columbia Records, legally couldn't tell him what to do. The contract Jeff signed with Columbia back in 1992 gave him complete control of his music. It also gave him space and time to develop. But nearly three years had passed since the release of his debut album, Grace. It was obvious that Jeff had too much space and too much time. With no real deadline, he procrastinated. He couldn't get the new songs right. He couldn't get the sound right. Tom Verlaine tried.

Jeff hired the legendary television guitarist to produce, but the new songs weren't finished. Verlaine wasn't a mind reader. They moved the sessions from New York to Memphis in hopes that a change of scenery would lead to inspiration. It only led to Verlaine's patience running. out. Same for the money. Verlaine went back to New York. Jeff stayed in Memphis. He played on assuming solo gigs at a small place called Barristers as if he wasn't a major artist on Columbia

Records, as if he was starting all over again. Who knew what would happen next? Maybe he'd buy the small house in Memphis that he was staying. Maybe he'd get married. Maybe get a job working with butterflies at the Memphis Zoo, which no shit is something he actually applied to do. Jeff Buckley was spontaneous. He was passionate about moments in life and about opportunities that needed seizing. He made impulsive decisions, like waiting out into a river in Memphis at 9 o'clock in the evening fully closed. He inherited that trait from his father, just like his five and a half octave vocal range. But Jeff Buckley didn't talk about his father. Tim Buckley wasn't even a memory. He was a dream, just like his songs. All songs were dreams. Some of the

Some dreams could be songs. Music was everywhere. It was endless. Nussrat Vata Ali Khan knew this, and Jeff Buckley knew it too. People were divine and eternal. People were here, even if they were gone. That last one rang all too true every time someone wanted to talk to Jeff about his dad. Tim Buckley was dead, but his memory wouldn't leave Jeff Buckley alone.

Tim was one of the so-called New Dylan's. of the 1970s, which was a ridiculous albatross, the press slung over any decent singer-songwriter for like a decade. But Jeff Buckley didn't want the albatross of his father on his shoulders. Tim wasn't even there when Jeff was born. Tim was barely there at all. In 1975, when Jeff was eight years old, he spent a few days with his dad. The only days they ever spent together. Just a few months after that, Tim Buckley, ever-impulsive and impetuous, was dead from a heroin overdose. And although Tim's obituary made no mention of Jeff's existence, Jeff still had his father's legacy to contend with privately. My blood is cursed, he told his girlfriend. He knew he'd wind up

like his father, so he was surprised when he turned 28, the age at which Tim Buckley died, and Jeff still found himself alive. And then he even outlived his father. And now, he was surprised. Now, he was 30 years old. But he still couldn't shake that feeling. It never went away. You know, he invited to his girlfriend. I'm going to die young. Maybe the Wolf River would get him out of his own head.

Aquatherapy or Carpe DM therapy or some shit. Jeff was still doing his best Robert Plant impersonation while swimming the backstroke, heading farther away from shore. Keith Fody tried to get his attention. Get out of the fucking water! Jeff was about 100 feet from the shore now. He couldn't see many stars up in the Memphis sky, but he knew they were there all the same.

Keith kept yelling. Jeff, man, there's a boat coming. Locals used to call this part of the river the shoot because it carries the flow of the wolf right into its convergence with the mighty Mississippi River. On the opposite side of the shore where Keith Fody stood, crossed the Wolf River, was a naturally formed sandbar called Mud Island.

and it was at the tip of Mud Island that the wolf met the Mississippi and whirlpooling eddies that were a lot stronger than they appeared. Jeff turned around to see that Keith was right. There was a tugboat heading straight in his direction. Jeff didn't have much time to react. Instead of heading back towards the shore, he began to swim toward Mud Island,

or so it seemed from Keith's perspective. Jeff moved just in time, safely out of harm's way, and the tugboat sailed on by. But then, in the near distance, another boat appeared. This one was even bigger. Once again, it was headed straight forward, Jeff. Jeff kept swimming, managing to get himself clear from the approaching vessel.

Two close calls on a matter of minutes. As the bigger boat passed, however, it kicked up a much bigger wake. In the waves swelled, all the way to the shore where Keith Fody stood. He picked up his boombox so that it wouldn't get soaked by the water. He put it down safely away from the shoreline and then turned back around to face the river. He looked out. Jeff Buckley was gone. Keith Fody saw nothing but water rising and falling,

like the chest of a deep sleeper. Like it had all been a dream. Gunshots rang out from the back of the reggae club. They overpowered the sound of scow music coming from the stage. They snapped like pop balloons, loud as fuck. The crowd panicked and the band stopped playing. More shots rang out. Jeff Buckley clung to his guitar and looked for

a place to take shelter. Fuck, is it really worth this? Late-night gunshots were nothing new to a guy living in a shitty apartment on Hawthorne Avenue, directly across from Hollywood High. Jeff heard the LA gangs fire off rounds in the football field from his bedroom, but to have it happen here, inside, while he was working, where innocent bystanders were like fish in a barrel. That was fucked up. L.A. was fucked up. And if random gunfire didn't get you, the sunset strip of the sunset strip of eventually would. As the 1980s came to a close, the strip was oversaturated. Too many bands, too many girls, girls, girls, and it wasn't about talent anymore.

It was all about money. Money talked and no money having talent fucking walked. You want to play the strip? You pay to play the strip. You want to get on stage? Fuck your demo tape. You need a wallet as thick as the bulge in Tommy Lee's pants. You got cash and you're in.

And you better fucking look the part too. Again, see Tommy. Lee's bulge for details. The strip was leather and hairspray and stilettos and cocaine. It was Motley Crew and G&R. It was a jungle baby. Jeff Buckley, barely into his 20s and a little over an hour north from where he grew up in Anaheim, was welcomed into that jungle like so many other musicians before and after him. Nobody fucking cared. He had a vocational certificate from a local music school called the Musicians Institute, which in theory made him feel like Al D. Miola or John McLaughlin or insert your favorite esoteric jazz fusion guitarist here, but in practice, it was just another

piece of paper. Everyone chasing a dream in L.A. had a piece of paper. Paper meant shit. Oh, you went to school? Good student? Fuck you. Take a number. Get in line. Now, listen. This Jeff Buckley, The one I'm talking about, circa 1990, is not the same one you're currently envisioning. Not the guy with the white V-neck t-shirt and the unbuttoned flannel and the Fender Telecaster slung halfway down his body. Not the sublime vocalist with crazy range and acrobatic flair who covered songs by some of the greatest artists of all time and made them his own. This is Prague, Jeff Buckley. Hesher, Jeff Buckley. The guy who worshipped at the altar of Genesis, yes, and Rush.

The guy who eked it out as a journeyman in metal pop. in ska bands with names like group therapy. Sometimes he didn't even go by Jeff Buckley. Sometimes he was Scott Moorhead, Scott being his middle name, the one he was called as a child. And Moorhead, being the last name of the stepfather who raised him in his biological father's absence. The same stepfather who introduced him to all those staples of classic rock

like Grand Funk Railroad, Chicago, Crosby Stills and Nash, and of course, lead fucking Zeppelin. Sometimes he wasn't even Jeff or Scott. During his tenure in the AKB band, he was Scalp Cutta. That's C-U-T-T-A. A nickname here, due to the razor-sharp reggae wrists he chopped on his electric guitar. If that sounds a little ridiculous, well, it is. But so was Los Angeles.

In Jeff Buckley's eyes, L.A. had become a creative and inspirational wasteland long before he got there. And if he hung around too much longer, he'd rot from the inside out. Right now, though, at this little reggae club, Jeff Buckley was simply trying to not get shot. He kept themselves safe behind the stage, far away from wherever the commotion was happening. People were still screaming and clamoring for the exits. Whoever had pulled the trigger was either still inside

or maybe they bounced, it was hard to tell, but it was easy to feel that sinking feeling and hear that voice in the back of your head. It's no good here. It's time to move on. It's difficult to know for sure if the shooting at the AKB band gig was the thing that finally convinced Jeff Buckley to leave L.A.

Maybe it was just another of his impulsive decisions. But in early 1990, he packed what few things he had and moved to New York City. He worked the guitar for higher angles some more. He auditioned for an eclectic range of groups. He didn't really fit in with anyone. Nothing was clicking. When Jeff's Harlem roommate played him some Nussrat Vata Ali Khan cassettes, though, something did click, and it clicked hard.

Jeff locked in. The trance-like state of the music. It took him somewhere else, somewhere outside his own body. Listening to that shit was a physical experience. He listened to it all the time. I felt a rush of adrenaline in my chest, he later said, like I was on the edge of a cliff, wondering when I would jump and how well the ocean would catch me.

Van Morrison's Astro Weeks was next. It had the same effect. It was cliff jumping music. equally risky and rewarding. It awakens something deep inside of them in a way only music can. Music is primal. It taps deep into your psyche. It reminds you of smells and tastes,

of memories that may or may not even be real. And if you give yourself over to the music, it can change you. It takes you on a journey where the you once knew dies, and the new you is born. The music transformed, Jeff, from the inside out. walked him to the edge and took his breath away. Nusrat and Van held his hand and led him there. Robert, too.

Both Roberts, actually. Plant and Johnson. They all took him to that place. Where jagged cliffs slice into the horizon, where the wind blows up from an abyss below and carries with it not just those smells and tastes and memories that live inside of you, but a song. The wind smacked him in the face.

The song smothered him. There were hands on Jeff's throat. Sing, the hands told him. They weren't his father's hands. Not Tim. Fuck that guy. Which is precisely what Jeff first said when Herb Cohen called. Fuck that guy.

Herb Cohen was Tim Buckley's former manager, and he wanted to help Jeff's budding career. Jeff suspected Cohen just wanted him to carry his father's torch. But Jeff didn't carry shit. Look, Jeff Buckley didn't hate his father all the time, But when it came to his own career and his worth as an artist in his own right, well, that was one of those times. So fuck that guy. That was also his initial response when the producers behind greetings from Tim Buckley, a tribute concert held at St. Anne's in Brooklyn Heights,

approached and to perform some of his father's songs after they discovered that not only did Tim Buckley have a son, but that he was living right under their noses in New York. Jeff knew he had to swallow his pride. These were opportunities, opportunities that needed seizing. With Cohen's help, he made a demo tape, a tape for him, for Jeff, not for anyone else. That was all it was, a tape. And with the greetings from Tim Buckley concert, he convinced himself that he was simply saying goodbye to the father he never knew. But as the buzz grew around his New York debut, Jeff remained resolute and wanted to distance himself from being known solely as Tim Buckley's kid.

I'd really rather that people not think about me as a face or a name or a body, he said, and just come and listen. Plus, he had his own journey to make, and he had shit to do. There was a cliff to walk to, an abyss to marvel at, and somewhere down there, way down below, an ocean to jump into. We'll be right back after this world, word, word. At Chenet, a little cafe in the East Village, the coffee was strong and the Rolling Rock was cheap. Sheenay was geographically and ideologically far from L.A. Jeff Buckley didn't pay to play.

The audience didn't pay to watch. In L.A., you walk into a place with nothing with a white telecaster, you borrow from a friend in a demo tape, and you get laughed right out the fucking door, but not here. Cheney's Irish expat owner didn't even listen to Jeff's tape. Just set your shit up against the back wall and give him a hell, kid. Monday nights were best. There was no pressure on Mondays, no expectations.

Monday was, who the fuck is this guy night? It was, no, I am not the best. son of a somewhat famous songwriter from the 70s night. Starting in the spring of 1992 on every Monday night, Jeff Buckley cast aside the weight of Tim Buckley, a walk to that cliff. He felt the wind kick up. He felt the hands touch his throat.

He could do anything. He could be anyone. His hands started to hammer out a rhythm on his reverb-soaked telly. Edith Piaf? Wee, we. Jeff could do Edith. Tre bien. He picked up speed and volume on his telly.

He vamped on one note, then an entire chord. How about some Zeppelin? He let his voice spiral upwards into another register, like it had grown wings. It morphed easily into Robert Plan and then Nusra, and then Van, and then it dropped the O and the N and added an E and a Y, and he was Morrissey, and then suddenly back to Plan again. His right hand kept scraping against the telly strings, the reverb bouncing like a springboard. Old scalp cut of rides again.

And then with a dramatic chop of his right hand, he stopped. striving, but the music was endless. It didn't stop. He was now stomping his foot on the floor, accented the rhythm by clapping his hands together. He started singing again. This time, Nina Simone, this time with nothing accompanying him but the rhythms of his own body. At Chenet, Jeff Buckley was, as author Daphne Brooks put it, Spotify before Spotify. Which reminds me, let's all agree there should be a moratorium on performing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah because Jeff Buckley recorded the definitive version, a version that has not only been marked for preservation by the Library of Congress,

but, as Jeff himself explained, was meant not as some sad-ass tear-jurker to be played during some heartbreaking scene in a stupid movie, but an ode to, you know, the hallelujah of an orgasm. But I digress. At Chenet, Jeff didn't just play covers. He workshopped his own songs. Eternal Life, Mojo Pin. Lover, you should have come over.

Word spread fast. This guy at Chenet, he sounds like everyone and no one. He's an anomaly, a true original, and dig it. You can watch him evolve on stage every week at this tiny coffee shop in St. Mark's Place. The audiences got bigger. Soon, and everybody there wanted him, including reps from all of the major labels. By the autumn of 1992, Jeff was signed to Columbia Records. Almost two years later, in August of 1994, he released his debut LP, Grace.

It was the height of Grunge Rock, just months after the death of Kurt Cobain. But it sounded like neither grunge nor Kurt. It sounded like nothing else out there. It defied categorization. Some songs were cerebral and complex, straight up art rock. Others were slick pop confections. But whether it was that untouchable cover of Hallelujah or original songs that ran the gamut from pissed off punk

to Eastern influence meditation, the constant was Jeff's voice. It was a voice that could do anything, anything but find a mass audience at sea. It took nine months before Grace even cracked the billboard top 200. But just like Jeff's contract, the record had time and space to find that audience. Columbia worked on finding Jeff Buckley's audience without dragging Tim Buckley into it. They never mentioned Jeff's father once in their PR blitz.

Jeff even had a rider on his tour contract that restricted venues from using Tim's name in their advertisements. And if they did, he could legally refuse to perform. But the more Jeff gave the memory of his voice, father, the silent treatment, the more it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Jesus Christ, kid, you look just like him. You sound like him, too. Your song, Dream Brother, is that a direct response to Tim's song, Dream Letter? Did you ever play his songs? Why not? Why don't you play one of his songs for us right now, tonight? On tour in Denver, the constant barrage of requests finally got to him. Against his better judgment, Jeff rambled his way through one of his dad's old songs. Are you satisfied

Now, he asked the crowd when he was finished. Are you really? Now shut the fuck up for the rest of the night. Loving kisses from the living one, Jeff Buckley. The state he told him to get out of the car. He didn't realize that he pulled over Jeff Buckley. He didn't know who Jeff Buckley was. This was New Jersey, after all.

Are you Frank Sinatra? No, and get the fuck out of the fucking car. Jeff did as he was told. In the cop's eyes, he was just another slacker with long hair, a goodwill wardrobe, and a sorry excuse. and when it came to excuses, you could say whatever he wanted. It didn't matter. The cops saw him take a swig from the beer bottle as the car he was riding and blew past where the police cruiser sat.

Saw him with his own two eyes, and where there was smoke, there was always fire. The cop told him that empty his pockets. Jeff did. The plastic bag was tiny. Just enough weed for one joint. Just enough to put him in cuffs and head down to the station. At the station, however, all it took were a few words. words from Jess's friend for the police to change their tune. Hey man, you want me to call your manager?

Hold up. His manager? Who was this kid? A recording artist? A star? Hang on. Loosen those cuss a little bit. What do you need, kid? Something to drink, something to eat? Maybe we've been a little too hard on you. Jesus Christ, this shit was even worse than getting arrested. The idea that Jeff's level of fame, which all things considered, was moderate at best, meant that he'd get treated different. And he'd get treated than the next guy. It was tough enough navigating whatever the hell his life was, his skin, his flesh, his bones,

but to navigate being famous on top of all of that, it was a total mind fuck. So were the rumors that were set in motion when word of Jeff's brush with New Jersey's finest hit the press. Rumors that it wasn't weed in Jeff's pocket, but heroin.

It was the same shit he had to read about when Courtney Love invited him to catch a production of Hamlet on Broadway. Curate had been dead a little over a year. Jeff gladly accepted. They were just friends. The tabloid said otherwise. They must be lovers, at least drug buddies. Jeff was hanging out with Courtney, thus Jeff must be another Kurt Cobain, another Tim Buckley, another genius turned addict on his road to tragedy, another story that sold their fucking papers. And while it's true, based on the accounts of his bandmates and other

musicians, that Jeff dabbled very occasionally in snorting heroin, he was no junkie. He had plenty of other things to worry about. There was that second album, the one he couldn't finish. Some days, couldn't even start it. And there was that pretty boy bullshit from the last goodbye video gaining traction on MTV. He wasn't pretty. He wasn't soft. He wanted the next record to rock hard.

And he was nobody's puppet. To really drive that last point home, he turned down the gap when they asked him to model their clothing. He turned down Saturday Night Live. And he turned down David Letterman, too. Colombia, though, was getting impatient. Not only was Jeff rejecting all of his media attention, he was way past deadline and financially in the whole.

Grace had cost the label $2.2 million between recording fees, tour support, and promotional expenses. And of that, $1.8 million was recoupable, meaning that 100% of Jeff's royalties were going directly to pay back that deficit. There would be more sales, and thus more royalties, if only he'd say yes to the country. goddamn gap. But Jeff Buckley didn't do things the way that someone else wanted. He did what he wanted, even when the signs told him not to. It wasn't an ocean, and you didn't have to jump off a cliff to

dive into it. But the Wolf River called out to Jeff Buckley all the same. There was something about the water on this night in this moment. It was impossible to explain, so he didn't try to, just went in. First, he waited into the water. Before long, he was swimming. He ignored his friend shouting at him, just like he ignored the no swimming signs back on the shore. He sang Zeppelin and heard his voice float into the sky. The sky was a landfill of dreams and songs, and just like dreams and just like songs, the sky was endless. This moment felt like a dream.

The kind of dream you could smell, the kind of dream he could taste. Before long, just like Nusrat Fata Ali Khan, when he dreamt of his father, coming to him, touching his throat, telling him to sing. Jeff felt something touch his own throat. But it wasn't someone's hands, and no one was telling him to do anything. It was a rush of water kicked up by a boat's wake, and he wanted more than his throat. Who wanted to swallow him whole? Keith Fody was running. He stopped when at last he found a pay phone. Like many things in Memphis, it wasn't all that far from a statue of Elvis. He grabbed the receiver and dialed 911, told the operator on the other end of the line that his friend had disappeared.

Jeff Buckley was somewhere in the Wolf River. It was just about 9.30 p.m. Memphis PD sent helicopters. They launched boats, and they combed the shoreline. They lit up the pitch black wolf like a Christmas tree. Jeff's band, meanwhile, went back to the small house he was renting. Up in the attic, they found skull candles and notebooks full of Jeff's handwriting. One particular entry was all about, quote, transition and reincarnation,

and becoming molecules in rain, unquote. The next day, Memphis was dry. The clouds were wispy, far away, but so close, so real. The clouds moved quickly against a backdrop of deep blue, blown from one spot in the sky to the next. It was hard not to look up to that sky and sense that Jeff Buckley, too, had moved on. Which isn't the same as saying he was gone.

People, like music, like dreams, are divine. and eternal. People are here even if you can no longer see them with the naked eye. They are in the mind's eye, in the mind's ear, and their songs drift along with the clouds in the sky, and their melodies tumble down to earth in between raindrops. Their voices echo from the river's edge, and each day those voices rise with the sun. On June 4, 1997, six days after Jeff Buckley disappeared, just hours after his band members and friends left Memphis. A passenger on board the American Queen Riverboat spotted his body stuck in an eddy of branches near Mud Island, where the Wolf River meets the Mississippi. There were no drugs in a system, and just enough

alcohol for one glass of beer or wine. The official cause of death was accidental drowning. Unlike Jeff Buckley's short life, the music he left behind is endless. It is everywhere. We can take you on a journey and change you. It awakens something deep inside you. It is cliff jumping music. Listening to it now remains a pathway to a trance like state. A state of ecstasy. A state of eternal life.

A state of grace. I'm Jake Brennan. And this is Disgraceland. Discraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at Disgraceland. If you're listening as a disgraceland all-access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

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