Jeff Buckley - Live At Sin-E
Jeff Buckley - Vocals, Guitar
Released 2003.
Columbia Records.
Recorded 1993 at Sin-E, NYC.
This album is more essential than Grace.
There, that got your attention, didn't it?
If you don't know much about Jeff Buckley, you probably aren't that in touch with the music world. Recently voted 2004's biggest influence by MOJO, and included in Total Guitar's 50 Guitarists To Look Out For This Year (ironically), Jeff's stature just grows and grows. He died in 1997, in the Mississippi river, while singing along to Led Zeppelin II. He was 31.
Radiohead, Coldplay, Starsailor, Travis, Elbow, Tom McRae, Badly Drawn Boy, and even Page And Plant's reunion album all owe him a debt, to mention but a few. This album, originally a 4-track EP, was released last year in honour of this. A similar treatment of the seminal Grace is planned later this year. I can't wait.
So, to the album. After all, the history doesn't affect the music within, does it? Actually, this album, I'd say, is an exception. Because what this album gives you - besides amazing music - is an ambience that, when your eyes are closed and you're lying in the dark, headphones on, makes you feel like you are there. Sitting at a table, drinking your coffee, watching one of the most amazing talents the music world has ever seen. It practically gives you his presence; something the world was sorely robbed of, and sorely misses.
This album is a collection of recordings from July and August 1993. The recordings took place in a small NYC cafe named Sin-E - hence the name. As you can probably guess, this lends the recordings an immediate intimacy. This ambience makes the entire album an event; a special treat. It's very hard to pick highlights, simply because every song is wrapped in this. They are all amazing songs - a great songwriter with great taste, our Jeff - but Jeff's vocals (powerful and beautiful as ever), Jeff's guitar (raw, bluesy), and the air of a man paying tribute to his idols while on the path to becoming one himself, envelops everything.
The monologues are key to this album. Often, interludes are an album's low point, being utterly skippable and only funny the first time. Here, they offer insight into his personality. Many of them are also songs themselves - I'm A Ridiculous Person is a Kwaali version of Smells Like Teen Spirit; Reverb, The Doors is a snippet of The End with changed lyrics (Jeff? Yes, Sony....); Fabulous Time For A Guinness is those words to the tune of Van Morrsion's Moondance. The crowd and the sound of coffee being poured, cups being clattered, can also be heard in the background here. Often, he speaks to members of the crowd.
Jeff's musicianship is one of the highlights of the album, too. With a backing band stripped away, all we have is Jeff and his guitar. And man, can he play the thing. Check Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin - played without a capo. Or the intro to Strange Fruit - a solo played while tuning up. He was an inventive improviser, in the vein of Jimi Hendrix. And, as anyone to learn on of his songs will know, his use of chord inversions and extensions to create broken, fractured, yet beautiful melodies was unsurpassed, even by his most direct influence, Johnny Marr of The Smiths.
My personal highlight songs - although as I mentioned, all are highlights - are as follows.
Be Your Husband -
I'm a massive Nina Simone fan, and this is probably her best-known song. There's no guitar on this track, just Jeff and (I believe) the crowd clapping the beat. His voice really gets a workout here, both technically and emotionally. And, of course, it's a great song.
Lover, You Should've Come Over -
Simply because it is a raw and passionate version of my favourite Buckley song.
Strange Fruit -
Billie Holiday's song that changed America. If you have never heard this song, get yourself a version of it. It's the most powerful song about racist oppression ever written. Jeff pays the song the respect it deserves while delivering another great vocal performance. And, of course, there's that intro solo.
Night Flight -
Taken from Physical Graffiti, Jeff is very playful here, and he really gets into the song. You can easily imagine the crowd dancing. If I was there, I certianly would have been nodding my head.
Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai -
Who's heard of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan? Jeff has - he speaks glowingly of him in the preceding monologue. This is a highlight for Jeff singing in a foreign language, and for the guitar, which features a simply stunning progression.
If You See Her, Say Hello, I Shall Be Released -
When Jeff covers a Dylan song, you always get the feeling the two were meant for each other. The best songwriter ever, and arguably the best singer, creating works of astounding beauty. Jeff's versions almost always surpass the Dylan originals and that's not an easy task. IYSHSH, for my money, is Dylan's best song, taken from Blood On The Tracks. Intensely personal and emotionally candid, Jeff renders it even more so. I Shall Be Released wasn't a Dylan song I would have classed as a favourite, until I heard it here. Now, it's bettered only by If You See Her....., and Tangled Up In Blue. All Dylan fans need to hear these two versions.
Je Ne'n Connais Pas La Fin -
You'll know this song, just not by name. Everyone does. It's also called L'Hymne L'Amor sometimes. Jeff's version is beautiful and nostalgic, again surpassing the original. And the guitars are an absolute treat again - this song is great fun to play, but MAN is it hard!
I commenced by saying that this album is more essential than Grace. I would recommend anyone interested buy Grace first; but thanks to this album, I very rarely listen to Grace, and when I do, I go straight for Dream Brother and So Real, the only Buckley tracks not here. This album is perfection for when you just want to sit and the dark and float away to a better place. That place is Sin-E. Before I die, I will visit it and pay my respects, and give myself a clearer picture of just what those magical nights must have been like.
The only things I can say are wrong with this album are these.
- It was very expensive when I bought it - something like £22.99. (Average album here is £13.99) And it's probably hard to download the whole thing - and believe me, you want the whole thing. Then again, you get more than 2 and a half hours of music for your money....
- I would have liked to see a Smiths cover make the album. How Soon Is Now, or I Know It's Over would have been amazing. But then, I can't think of a track I'd drop to make room for it. The album flows so well - despite being recorded over a series of nights, it feels and runs like one evening.
And that's it. Everything else is wonderful. I'd say this is the best live album ever, surpassing The Roots Come Alive!, James Brown Live At The Apollo, How The West Was Won, and Get Yer Ya Ya's Out!. And were there no Buckley originals, I'd say it was the best covers album ever, too.
5/5. Without a single doubt.
oh well, Jeff Buckley's great anyways, thanks for convincing me to buy it.:D
