Jeff Buckley - MYSTERY WHITE BOY Vinyl

Personnel includes: Jeff Buckley (vocals, guitar); Michael Tighe (guitar); Mick Grondahl (bass); Matt Johnson (drums).
Released in conjunction with the LIVE IN CHICAGO video (which features a somewhat different song selection), this live album offers a glimpse of Jeff Buckley and his band in full flight, blazing through selections from Buckley's lone studio effort GRACE, as well as previously unreleased material. Buckley was always an inveterate genre-hopper, moving gracefully from gentle jazzy ballads to roaring, Led Zep-inspired rock anthems. However, the lack of outside musicians or studio frippery lends these performances a more consistent flavor than on GRACE.
Despite the presence of two guitarists (Buckley and Michael Tighe), and an average song length tending toward the epic, there are hardly any solos here. Buckley's superhuman, octave-leaping voice occupies center stage throughout, whether crooning incantatorially (the Doors-like "Dream Brother"), wailing like Robert Plant gone mad ("Grace"), or moving with quiet transcendence through a breathtakingly beautiful cover medley (Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"/the Smiths' "I Know It's Over"). We're lucky to have this to remember Buckley by, although it ultimately begs futile questions about what else might have been in store had he not passed away so tragically soon.

• Format: Vinyl
• Genre: Pop