Jeff Buckley : Live at Sin-E: Legacy Edition (2-CD) - Audio CDs (2003)

Product Description:

This Legacy Edition of LIVE AT SIN-E includes a DVD.

Solo performer: Jeff Buckley (vocals, guitar).

Recorded live at Sin-e, New York, New York in August 1993.

Includes liner notes by Mitchell Cohen, Mary Guibert and Steve Berkowitz.

Listeners shouldn't get too hung up about Jeff Buckley's bloodlines--although they're impossible to ignore. His father was Tim Buckley, one of the most poignant, enigmatic figures of the 1960s' folk scene; but young Jeff grew up with his mother and didn't even meet his father until one Easter when he was eight--two months before Tim Buckley's death. While the ecstatic, keening quality of Jeff Buckley's vocals recall the haunting timbre of his father's voice, there are also overtones of a young Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Delta blues legend Robert Johnson, Pakistani vocal master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and something indefinable--the sound of an individual talent beginning to blossom.

On this expanded version of the splendid live EP, LIVE AT SIN-E, we hear Jeff Buckley transmuting, transforming, and ultimately transcending his influences before an audience at a small Irish club in Manhattan's East Village. Standing there with nothing but his voice and an electric guitar, Buckley is simply mesmerizing. Buckley's Telecaster playing on "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal Life" is exceptional--orchestrating his vocals with a torrid stream of chords and melodic counterpoint, a la Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. He never descends into stock licks or hackneyed accompaniment; his classical arpeggios on Edith Piaf's "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" impart a calliope-like grace to her tune.

The ecstatic nature of Buckley's art is showcased on his extended journey through Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do," where the lyrics gradually dissolve into long scatting choruses of wordless moans and cries, as his voice and flamenco-styled guitar evoke an almost gospel fervor. Buckley's lyrics are just as personal as his voice. "Mojo Pin" is a dreamscape full of delirious visions and moody imagery of lost love, while on "Eternal Life," his rolling blues chords set the tone for nightmares about his own mortality, recalling the tormented hellhounds of Robert Johnson. A talent like Jeff Buckley's comes along once in a lifetime, and LIVE AT SIN-E certainly whets the appetite for his first group recordings, GRACE.

Entertainment Reviews:

Rolling Stone - 10/30/03, p.94

4 stars out of 5 - "...The yowl of his voice and the clang of his guitar couldn't drown out the roar of his raw ambition....Blues, R&B, folk rock, acid rock, classic rock and grunge were just the beginning..."

Entertainment Weekly - 12/26/03-1/2/04, p.142

Ranked #8 in Entertainment Weekly's 2003 "Records of the Year" - "...This double-disc expansion finally allows us to hear more: rapturous covers...between-song wisecracks, and to-the-bone renditions of his own tunes..."

Q - 12/03, p.148

5 stars out of 5 - "...Bittersweet and beautiful..."

Uncut - 11/03, p.124

"...Jeff Buckley would never sound this free again. At a key turning point in his all-too-brief career, hear his unruly magnificence ignite..."

Alternative Press - 9/03, p.120

"...[With] plenty of between-song banter that displays the comical side of this dearly departed crooner..."

Melody Maker - 4/9/94, p.30

"...Jeff Buckley has created one of the albums of the year with just a Telecaster and a voice that sounds like a choirboy singing from the rafters of a whorehouse. Buy it and melt..."

Mojo (Publisher) - 11/03, pp.138-9

4 stars out of 5 - "...Throughout, Buckley refashions the material in a singular style that was equal part rapturous romance and bitter pain..."

NME (Magazine) - 4/9/94, p.40

6 - Good - "...LIVE AT SIN-E captures Buckley still shaping his identity, hopefully the promise it displays will come to fruition..."