Jeff Buckley 1: Live At Sin-é

Jeff Buckley was the son of ‘60s folk singer Tim Buckley. Although he said he never knew his father, he’d certainly inherited the gift of a unique, keening voice and an esoteric, original songwriting style. Both Buckleys had talent, but it was Jeff who arguably made the biggest impression, and in a shorter amount of time.

The sound he became known for was developed over a couple of years bouncing around quirkier downtown hangouts of New York City, so it was wise of whatever A&R guy that agreed to it to make his first Columbia Records release a simple snapshot of a performance during what Jeff would later refer to as his “café days”.

At Sin-é, an East Village coffeehouse and bar started by a couple of Irish guys, he would set up in the corner with a Telecaster, amp and microphone, and proceed to sing and play for a few hours. Eventually, a couple of sets were professionally recorded. The four-song Live At Sin-é EP contains performances of two songs destined for his soon-to-be-recorded studio album debut, and two unique covers—one an Edith Piaf song, sung in French and English, and the other, a ten-minute exploration of Van Morrison’s “The Way Young Lovers Do”, with a lengthy a cappella scatted midsection showing off his multi-octave vocal range.

It’s an authentic artifact, showing the listener where Jeff Buckley was at. It didn’t exactly fly off the shelves, nor did it rock the world, but a substantial article by Bill Flanagan in the February 1994 issue of Musician magazine helped spread the word, and stoke anticipation for the full-length album. (To this writer, the idea of an edgy walking jukebox with a Telecaster was very appealing.)

Ten years later, his estate conspired with Columbia to release an expanded Live At Sin-é, offering two full CDs (plus a DVD of interviews and clips). Geared specifically at fanatics, these two-and-a-half hours present a wider picture of where he was at, playing only a few originals (“Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” before he finished the lyrics, and an early draft of what would become “Last Goodbye”), leaning heavily on covers associated with Nina Simone, Bob Dylan and more Van Morrison. As a guitarist he was encyclopedic; as a vocalist he was stunning. It takes a lot for a snotty white kid to cover “Strange Fruit”, and follow it with a faithful run through Zeppelin’s “Night Flight”. The between-song patter is indexed separately, but gives excellent context for how and why he performs a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song. Bum notes and bad jokes are left intact.

And this is just what happened to be captured on two summer nights. Stories abound of the dozens of other songs he’d pull of out of the notes in his head, and the mind reels at the possibilities were he still around to dazzle tiny crowds in his own special way.

Jeff Buckley Live At Sin-é (1993)—3
2003 Legacy Edition: same as 1993, plus 30 extra tracks and DVD