Are the Buckleys The Kennedys of rock 'n' roll - talented but cursed? Both father Tim and son Jeff were rare musical beasts - American cult figures fast-approaching wider acceptance when they each died mysterious deaths at a young age - Tim aged 27 in 1975, Jeff aged 30 in 1997. Both had been acting "strangely" before their deaths, both seemed to know of their fate and although Buckley junior never really knew his father, he seemed to unconsciously mirror his actions and behaviour. The spooky analysis, much in favour among more esoteric music writers, has been, "as if greater forces were at work, tying the two men's destinies together".
A highly-accomplished, dual biography, Dream Brother, attempts to sort the fact from the fiction, and separate the myth-making from a mundane series of coincidences (and there weren't that many, really). Superficially, the comparisons are that both had a similar, and very striking, fiveoctave singing range, both were more critically than commercially lauded, both reacted strenuously to record company pressure for them dilute their work, neither fulfilled their immense potential and both died from either suicide or tragic accident.
The well-respected writer, David Browne (who works for Entertainment Weekly), has dug deep into both men's lives and the entire Buckley family history to throw some light on this enigmatic tale. Extensively researched and featuring previously unpublished letters and diaries, Dream Brother was written with the full co-operation of Mary Guibert (Jeff's mother and Tim's ex-wife) and while it comes to no pat conclusion about a Buckley "curse" (thankfully enough), it does a great service to the legacy of these two talented musicians.
While this present musical generation may only be aware of Tim Buckley thanks to a breath-taking version of one of his songs, Song For The Siren by The Cocteau Twins on a This Mortal Coil album released in 1990, old 1960s heads will nod appreciatively when his name is mentioned. One of the great rock vocalists of his era, Tim Buckley emerged from the same Californian scene as Jackson Browne and the Mothers of Invention. A true musical eclectic and adventurer - long before the term became commodified as another section in a record shop - Buckley released nine albums in as many years with his style veering dramatically from folk to psychedelia to progressive jazz. A weird mix of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Captain Beefheart, it's perhaps no surprise that he recorded some of his best music with the arch maverick, Van Dyke Parks (the man who co-wrote the legendary "lost" Beach Boys album, Smile).
Although his albums never sold that well, he was a weather vane of the day, with a tight group of die-hard fans who were willing to travel with him on whatever musical journey entered his head. Perhaps best known for his Happy Sad album (released in 1969 on David Geffens' Asylum label), which is generally agreed to be his most "accessible" work, Buckley soon after embraced the avant- garde (oblique music, skeletal lyric, cacophonous vocal sounds), threw off his better-received romantic, melodic poet past and veered off on a jazz-improvisation route. Coming commercially unstuck, he worked for a while as a taxi driver and chauffeur. His final few albums still divide his fans - most felt them to be a sad waste of talent while a few (still) argue that they represent his most thoughtful work.
Like many of his contemporaries, he had numerous skirmishes with drink and drug abuse problems over the years. At the end of a tour in 1975, during which he had been clean of drink and drugs, he stopped off at a friend's house, took some heroin, which was a shock to his cleaned-out system, and died of an overdose. Nowhere near as big a story as Morrisson, Joplin or Hendrix, Tim Buckley's death, nevertheless, was a bitter blow to those who loved him as a true musical innovator.
Jeff Buckley was eight when his father died. It meant nothing to him at the time. Tim had left Mary Guibert before Jeff was born. According to Guibert's mother, Anna, when Mary told Tim she was pregnant with Jeff, he asked for a divorce. Tim made no attempt to get in touch with his son, but when Jeff was eight, his mother saw an ad in a paper for a Tim Buckley gig near to where they were living. She loaded Jeff into the car and drove to the gig. As Browne writes: "They took a seat in the front row. Jeff seemed enraptured. At the end of the set, no sooner had Mary asked her son if he wanted to meet his father than the kid was out of his seat and scurrying in the direction of the backstage area. Jeff ran to where Tim was and after years of distance, Tim seemed to feel it was time to re-cement whatever bond existed".
The following week, Jeff went to stay with Tim and his girlfriend for a few days. It was a joyless experience and that was the last they were to see of each other. A few months later, Tim died. Browne strains sometimes in searching for ways in which Tim's behaviour impacted on Jeff - and a lot of it is extrapolation cum guesswork. All the messages seem contradictory - Jeff hated any form of comparison with Tim - and would terminate interviews if his name was brought up. Other times though, he spoke warmly of his father's music - but only in the company of friends.
All the contradictions are condensed in a letter he wrote in response to a fan who had asked about his relationship with his father: "I've tried to believe, really believe that he loved me. He longed to see me, I believe that. He regretted not seeing me. But he was too afraid for a very long time. I understand, but I don't get it. It seems so over-romanticised, all of the accounts of his actions. He just didn't want to be with Mary, so typical, no frills, no big deal, I totally understand. But love me? I don't know what that means".
In 1991, while Jeff was beginning to make his way as a musician, he was asked to perform at a tribute concert to his father. Despite being warned to stay away for fear of people approaching him as the "new Tim Buckley" he decided to play. In one of the best passages of the book, Browne describes the reaction (you should remember that most of Tim Buckley's fans never knew he had a son, let alone one who looked like him and sang like him).
"A long-haired kid wearing a black tshirt took to the stage and began singing I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, a song Tim wrote about his relationship with Mary. After the previous hour's esoteric music, the audience suddenly stopped looking at their watches. Here was one of Tim's most recognisable songs, emanating from a very recognisable face and sung in a familiar voice. This was tribute, retort and catharsis all in one. "Then Jeff began singing Once I Was, his father's wistful remembrance of an old affair. Just before the last chorus, a string broke on his acoustic guitar and Jeff sang the lines `Sometimes I wonder for a while/Do you ever remember me?' unaccompanied. The audience was abuzz."
It was richly ironic, for a man who was so determined not to trade off his father's name, that his performance at the benefit concert led to a number of record companies chasing his signature. Eventually signing a lucrative deal with Columbia Records, Jeff Buckley's first release was a live album recorded at the tiny Irish bar, Sin-ee, -E correct in New York's East Village. Apart from the voice, there were no discernable similarities between Jeff and Tim's music.
Jeff Buckley's debut album proper, Grace (1994), was an astonishing effort, and still regarded as one of the best debut albums ever released. Although it didn't sell that well on release (about 750,000), it drew heaps of praise from Jeff's musical hero, Robert Plant, and is still namechecked by everybody from Bono to Travis. Much was expected from the follow-up, My Sweetheart, The Drunk, but Buckley repeatedly scrapped the recording sessions and started to behave erratically (Browne hints at a drug problem and doesn't rule out heroin). In the days before his death, he made a number of phone calls to people he was close to and on the night of May 29th, 1997, he and a friend travelled to the banks of the Mississippi River in Memphis where Jeff, fully clothed, dived in for a swim, singing all the time Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. After a few minutes he disappeared and his body was washed up a few days later.
This book, which took three years to write and contains 200 primary source interviews with those closest to both Tim and Jeff, doesn't contain any answers to the exact cause of either men's death, but it does contain a lot of clues. You can work it out for yourself.
Dream Brother - the lives and music of Jeff and Tim Buckley by David Browne, is published by Fourth Estate (£17.99 in UK)