Jeff Buckley
On May 29, 1997 : Jeff Buckley dies at the age of
30
Jeff Buckley 
Real Audio 200 K.
Jeff Buckley was found in the
Memphis Harbor on Wednesday afternoon, June 4. 1997 The 30-year-old
singer had been missing since Thursday, May 29, but had been presumed
drowned by his family and friends.
Memphis police reported that
passengers aboard the American Queen riverboat first saw the body
near the southern tip of Mud Island at approximately 4:30pm; American
Queen crew members rode a rubber dinghy to the location of the
body and brought it ashore at the foot of Beale Street in Memphis.
After the body was found on
June 4, 1997, a positive identification had been made by Gene
Bowen, a close friend of Buckley's who had acted as the artist's
tour manager for the last three years. Lt. Lemons of the Memphis
Police Department stated that there were no indications of any
other cause of death other than accidental drowning. An autopsy
was conducted indicating no signs of alcohol or narcotics (drugs)
in his system at the time of death.
Buckley's disappearance occurred
after the musician and a friend, Keith Foti, 23, went to the Memphis
Harbor shore, where Buckley had swum on previous occasions, to
sing and play music. Buckley had gone swimming, fully-clothed,
in the harbor, while Foti remained on the shore. According to
Foti, a passing towboat created a wash on the shore and Foti lost
sight of Buckley when he turned away from the water to move a
portable stereo away from the waves. After calling out and searching
for the singer, Foti reported Buckley's disappearance to the Memphis
police at 9:22pm.
With the release of his debut
album ``Grace, Jeff Buckley emerged from the shadow of his late
musician-father, TIM BUCKLEY, a popular performer during the 1960
s and early 70 s who died from a drug overdose in 1975 at the
age of 28.
The 28-year-old singer/guitarist
had a voice that sounds as if it came from a different era. On
his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," Buckley peels
back the husk of Cohen's voice to reveal the latent sensuality
in the words he gently croons : "But remember when I moved
in you, the holy dove was moving too, and every breath we drew
was hallelujah."
Jeff was voted by People magazine's
annual "50 Most Beautiful People" issue. Number 12 on
the list .
Buckley emerged in the mid-90
s as one of the most gifted singer-songwriters of his generation:
a remarkable feat considering it was achieved on the basis of
just one album - and that everyone was comparing him to his late
father, Tim, himself one of the most creative talents of the 60s.
Jeff Buckley was born in November 1966, the only child from a brief marriage between the then-unknown Tim Buckley and his teen-aged bride, Mary. Father and son met only once, spending a week together just two months before Tim Buckleys death. If you listen to the
Jeff Buckley " Grace CD" and the folk-rock LP "Goodbye
and Hello" from Tim, you know what a great loss the Buckleys
are to popular music.
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