Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley (born in Anaheim, California, USA on 17 Novemb… Read Full Bio ↴Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley (born in Anaheim, California, USA on 17 November 1966 – 29 May 1997), raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of musicians Tim Buckley and Mary Guibert.

He had emerged in New York City's avant-garde club scene in the 1990s as one of the most remarkable musical artists of his generation, acclaimed by audiences, critics, and fellow musicians alike. His first commercial recording, the four-song EP Live At Sin-é, was released in December 1993 on Columbia Records. The EP captured Buckley, accompanying himself on electric guitar, in a tiny coffeehouse in New York's East Village, the neighbourhood he'd made his home.

Buckley made his public singing début at a tribute concert for his father called "Greetings from Tim Buckley". The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on 26 April 1991.

By the time of the EP's release during the fall of 1993, Buckley had already entered the studio with Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drummer), and producer Andy Wallace and recorded seven original songs (including "Grace" and "Last Goodbye") and three covers (among them Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", Benjamin Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol") that comprised his debut album Grace. Guitarist Michael Tighe became a permanent member of Jeff Buckley's ensemble and went on to co-write and perform on Grace's "So Real" just prior to the release of the album.

In early 1994, not long after Live At Sin-é appeared in stores, Jeff Buckley toured clubs, lounges, and coffeehouses in North America as a solo artist from January 15th to March 5th as well as in Europe from March 11th to 22th. Following extensive rehearsals in April to May of 1994, Buckley's "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" found him on the road with his band from June 2nd to August 16th. His full-length full-band album, Grace, was released in the United States on August 23rd, 1994, the same day Buckley and band kicked off a European tour in Dublin, Ireland; the 1994 European Tour ran through September 22nd, with Buckley and band performing at the CMJ convention at New York's Supper Club on September 24. The group headed back into America's clublands for a Fall Tour lasting from October 19th until December 18th.

On New Year's Eve 1994-95, Buckley returned to Sin-é to perform a solo set; on New Year's Day, he read an original poem at the annual St. Mark's Church Marathon Poetry Reading. Two weeks later, he and his band were back in Europe for gigs in Dublin, Bristol, and London before launching an extensive tour of Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom which lasted from January 29th to March 5th. On April 13th 1995, it was announced that Jeff Buckley's Grace had earned him France's prestigious "Gran Prix International Du Disque -- Academie Charles CROS -- 1995"; an award given by a jury of producers, journalists, the president of France Culture, and music industry professionals, it had previously been given to Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, among other musical luminaries. France also awarded Buckley a gold record certification for Grace.

From March 5th through April 20th, Buckley and his band rehearsed for an American spring tour with gigs running from April 22th until June 2nd. From June through August, Jeff and company toured the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland. The band took off for Down Under to play six Australian shows between August 28th and September 6th, 1995. In November 1995, Buckley played two unannounced solo shows at Sin-é. He performed songs including the new "Woke Up In A Strange Place" on Vin Scelsa's "Idiot's Delight" show on WXRK-FM on December 17 and celebrated New Year's Eve 1995-96 with performances at New York's Mercury Lounge and Sin-é.

Jeff Buckley and his touring ensemble went back to Australia, where Grace had earned a gold record certification, for the "Hard Luck Tour," which ran from February 9th to March 1st of 1996. Drummer Matt Johnson left the group after the final Australian show. The posthumous album Mystery White Boy brings together some of the high points from Jeff's 1995-1996 live performances. The DVD/home video release Live In Chicago documents, in its entirety, Jeff's concert at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13th, 1995.

In May of '96, Jeff played four gigs as a bass player with Mind Science of the Mind, a side-project of Buckley's friend, Nathan Larson of Shudder To Think. In September Buckley played another unannounced solo gig at his old favorite haunt Sin-é. December of 1996 found Jeff Buckley embarking on his "phantom solo tour"; designed to experiment with new songs in a live setting (as in his Sin-é days), these unannounced solo gigs throughout the Northeast U.S. were played under a succession of aliases: the Crackrobats, Possessed By Elves, Father Demo, Smackrobiotic, the Halfspeeds, Crit Club, Topless America, Martha & the Nicotines, and A Puppet Show Named Julio.

At midnight on February 9th, 1997, Jeff Buckley debuted his new drummer, Parker Kindred, in a show at Arlene Grocery on New York's Lower East Side. He also played a couple of solo gigs in New York during the first months of 1997: a gig at the Daydream Cafe (featuring band members Mick Grondahl and Michael Tighe as "special guests") and a solo performance February 4th as part of the Knitting Factory's 10-Year Birthday Party.

Buckley and his band had recorded intermittently — with Tom Verlaine as producer — during Summer/Fall 1996 and early winter 1997 in New York and in February 1997 in Memphis. After the conclusion of those sessions, Jeff sent the band back to New York while, during March and April 1997, he remained in Memphis and continued to craft his work-in-progress, making various four-track home recordings of songs to present to his bandmates. Some of these were revisions of the songs recorded with Verlaine, some were brand new compositions, and some were surprising cover versions. The new lineup debuted Buckley's new songs at Barrister's in Memphis on February 12th and 13th. Beginning March 31st, Jeff began a series of regularly scheduled Monday night solo performances at Barrister's. His last show there was on Monday, May 26th, 1997.

Buckley passed away in a drowning accident in the Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, on May 29th, 1997. The night Buckley died, he was on his way to meet his band to begin three weeks of rehearsals for My Sweetheart, the Drunk; producer Andy Wallace, who'd helmed the boards on Grace, was to join them in Memphis in late June to record his new album.

In addition to his Columbia Records releases, Live At Sin-é and Grace, Jeff Buckley has appeared as a guest artist on several other recordings. He can be heard singing "Jolly Street," a track on the Jazz Passengers 1994 album In Love. He contributed tenor vocals to "Taipan" and "D. Popylepis," two recordings on John Zorn's Cobra Live At The Knitting Factory (1995). On Rebecca Moore's Admiral Charcoal's Song, Buckley plays electric six-string bass on "If You Please Me," "Outdoor Elevator," and "Needle Men" (on which he also plays drums). He both plays guitar and sings backup vocals on Brenda Kahn's "Faith Salons," a key track on her Destination Anywhere album (released 1996). Patti Smith's critically acclaimed Gone Again album features Buckley adding "voice" to the song "Beneath the Southern Cross" and "essrage" (a small fretless Indian stringed instrument) to "Fireflies." On Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness, a various artists' spoken word tribute to beat poet Jack Kerouac, Jeff Buckley performed on "Angel Mine"; Jeff plays guitar, sitar, and mouth sax (adding words at the poem's conclusion) on the track. Buckley can be heard reading Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulallume - A Ballad," on Closed on Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (disc 2: The Devil's Brew) (Poems & Tales by Edgar Allan Poe) on Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records. He sang "I Want Someone Badly" (Epic) for Shudder To Think's soundtrack to First Love, Last Rites. Sandy Bell, a friend of Buckley's during his L.A. days, released the resurrected track "Hollywould" in 2000, which she co-wrote and recorded with Buckley.

An ardent enthusiast for a myriad of musical forms, Jeff Buckley was an early champion among young American musicians for the work of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the world's foremost Qawwali (the music of the Sufis) singer. Buckley conducted an extensive interview with Nusrat in Interview magazine (January 1996) and wrote the liner notes Nusrat's The Supreme Collection album, released on Mercator/Caroline records in August 1997. On May 9th, 2000, Columbia Records released Mystery White Boy, an album of live performances, and Live In Chicago, a full-length concert (available on DVD or VHS) recorded live at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13, 1995, in the middle of Jeff's "Mystery White Boy" tour.

Following the release of Grace on August 23rd, 1994, Jeff and his group spent much of 1994-1996 performing around the world on the Unknown, Mystery White Boy, and Hard Luck tours. Mystery White Boy brings together, for the first time, some of the high points of those shows. Produced by Michael Tighe (guitarist for Jeff's band throughout their international touring and the recording of Grace) and Mary Guibert (Jeff's mother) and Mystery White Boy provides an evocative cross-section of Jeff's repertoire: previously-unreleased Buckley compositions, electrifying live interpretations of songs from Grace, and obscure and marvelous cover choices. The recordings heard on Mystery White Boy have been hand-picked from scores of concert tapes by Mary Guibert and the members of Jeff's band who played such a large role in helping Jeff realize his musical vision.

According to Mary, the tracks on Mystery White Boy are "the individual performances that represented transcendent moments from each of the concerts we'd identified as being in the 'overall outstanding' category."

"It was obvious which performances were contenders for the record," concurs Michael Tighe, "and in some cases a performance would be so supreme and unpredictable that I knew it had to be brought to the public."

The posthumous album Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk was released in 1998 and included songs Buckley was working on while in Memphis for his upcoming release.

Tribute songs:
PJ Harvey - Memphis
Rufus Wainwright- Memphis Skyline
Mark Eitzel - To the Sea
Zita Swoon - Song for a Dead Singer
Amy Correia - Blind River Boy
Duncan Sheik - A Body Goes Down
Chris Cornell - Wave Goodbye
Katatonia - Nightmares by the Sea
Willie Nile - On the Road to Calvary
Rachael Sage - Grace
Aimee Mann - Just Like Anyone
Cocteau Twins - Rilkean Heart
Jim Major - Angels Fall (Song for Jeff Buckley)

A film about Buckley's life, a biopic called "Mystery White Boy", is currently in pre-production. Actors have not yet been cast, according to IMDB.

Kick Out the Jams
Jeff Buckley Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I'm gonna kick 'em out

Well I feel pretty good
And I guess that I could get crazy now, baby
Cause we all got in tune
When the dressing room got hazy now, baby

I know how you want it, child,

Hot, sweet, and tight
The girls can't stand it
When you're doing it right
When they're up on the stand
And then they kick out the jams, yes
Kick out the jams, I like to kick 'em out

Yes I'm starting to sweat
You know my shirt's all wet
What a feeling
And the sound that abounds and
Resounds and rebounds off the ceiling
You gotta have it, baby
You can't do without
When you get the feeling
You've got the sounds above
Put that mic in my hand
And let me kick out the jams
Yes, kick out the jams, got to kick 'em out

So you got to get it up
And then can't get enough
That's what
Cause it gets in your brain
It drives you insane, makes you crazy
The, the faster you funk
If you want to feed my rocket
Till the morning comes
Let me be who I am
And let me kick out the jams

Yes kick out the jams
I done kick 'em out

Overall Meaning

Jeff Buckley's version of "Kick Out The Jams" is an explosive take on the original MC5 song. The lyrics are a celebration of letting loose and being wild, of feeling the music and setting it free out of one's body. The singer of the song opens with a declaration that he's going to "kick 'em out" which could refer to repressed emotions or inhibitions that he's been holding back, or maybe even the audience itself, as he invites everyone to join him in a frenzy. He sings about feeling good and getting crazy, the atmosphere in the dressing room getting hazy, and how the music can bring everyone into tune. The use of the word "baby" throughout the lyrics adds to the playful, flirtatious tone of the song.

The second verse is much more explicit in its sexual connotations. The singer addresses a "child" and sings about how the girls can't resist when you're doing it properly. He mentions the girls being on stage before kicking out the jams, which could suggest that they are part of the band, or simply enjoying the show. He describes the experience of feeling the music, sweating and getting wet, the sound resonating off the ceiling. He asserts that "You gotta have it, baby", perhaps referring to the need for music and for the release it can bring. He concludes with a request to put the mic in his hand and let him kick out the jams, repeating the chorus twice more.

Overall, the lyrics are a call to arms for music lovers who want to let loose and be wild, to embrace their inhibitions and surrender to the sound. The use of repetition and rhyme, along with Buckley's grungy, electric guitar-heavy style, creates an intense, visceral experience that echoes the sentiments of the song.

Line by Line Meaning

I'm gonna kick 'em out
I'm going to give it my all and put on the best show possible.

Well I feel pretty good
I'm feeling confident and excited about what's to come.

And I guess that I could get crazy now, baby
I'm ready to let loose and really get into the music.

Cause we all got in tune
The band and I are in sync and ready to go.

When the dressing room got hazy now, baby
We were getting in the zone and preparing for the show.

I know how you want it, child,
I understand what the audience is looking for.

Hot, sweet, and tight
They want a high-energy, intense performance.

The girls can't stand it
The female audience members find the music irresistible.

When you're doing it right
When we're really nailing the performance.

When they're up on the stand
When the band is playing on stage.

And then they kick out the jams, yes
The band will really let loose and play their hearts out.

Kick out the jams, I like to kick 'em out
I love to really let go and play my music with everything I've got.

Yes I'm starting to sweat
I'm really getting into the performance and putting forth a lot of energy.

You know my shirt's all wet
I'm giving everything I have and working up a sweat in the process.

What a feeling
Performing like this is an amazing experience.

And the sound that abounds and
The music fills the air and dominates the atmosphere.

Resounds and rebounds off the ceiling
The sound is powerful and can be felt throughout the room.

You gotta have it, baby
This music is essential and can't be missed.

You can't do without
It's impossible to resist the allure of the music.

When you get the feeling
When the music really resonates with you.

You've got the sounds above
The music has transcended this world and takes you to another place.

Put that mic in my hand
I want to take control of the performance and really put on a show.

And let me kick out the jams
I want to really let loose and play my music with everything I've got.

Yes, kick out the jams, got to kick 'em out
I need to give it my all and really put forth my best effort.

So you got to get it up
You have to put your all into the performance.

And then can't get enough
Once you feel the music, you'll be hooked for life.

That's what
That's the magic of music.

Cause it gets in your brain
Music has the power to affect us at a deep level.

It drives you insane, makes you crazy
Music can have a profound and intense effect on our emotions.

The, the faster you funk
The faster and harder we play, the more intense the experience becomes.

If you want to feed my rocket
If you really want to see me perform at my best.

Till the morning comes
All night long.

Let me be who I am
Allow me to really be myself and put forth my best effort.

And let me kick out the jams
Let me really let loose and play my music with all the passion and intensity I can muster.

Yes kick out the jams
I need to give it everything I have and really perform at my best.

I done kick 'em out
I've really let loose and performed at my very best.

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Robert W. Derminer, Wayne S Kramer, Dennis A. Tomich, Frederick Smith, Michael H Davis

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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Most interesting comment from YouTube:

a

5y↑6

I'm gonna kick 'em out!!!

Well I feel pretty good
And I guess that I could get crazy now, baby
Cause we all got in tune
When the dressing room got hazy now, baby

I know how you want it, child,
Hot, sweet, and tight
The girls can't stand it
When you're doing it right
When they're up on the stand
And then they kick out the jams, yes
Kick out the jams, I like to kick 'em out

Yes I'm starting to sweat
You know my shirt's all wet
What a feeling
And the sound that abounds and
Resounds and rebounds off the ceiling
You gotta have it, baby
You can't do without
When you get the feeling
You've got the sounds above
Put that mic in my hand
And let me kick out the jams
Yes, kick out the jams, got to kick 'em out

So you got to get it up
And then can't get enough
That's what
Cause it gets in your brain
It drives you insane, makes you crazy
The, the faster you funk
If you want to feed my rocket
Till the morning comes
Let me be who I am
And let me kick out the jams
Yes kick out the jams
I done kick 'em out.

All comments from YouTube:

pouyan242

11y↑21

An absolute gem. This must be preserved for future generations.

sciexp_Oscar

6y↑3

Amazing, I discovered this live years ago. It´s very nice... very nice... Cool... Sometimes I remember it... And it is always nice to listen to it... Specially this song. What a shame he died in such a way...