Grace by Jeff Buckley

There is something inherently tragic about listening to an album from a rock star who died young. Looking at their picture on the album cover, forever frozen in time, with just their songs left to talk to us now. 

In Buckley’s case, he released just this one album then died, apparently after a swimming accident, at the age of 30. There’s an additional level of poignancy here, because his father Tim (who had abandoned him as a baby) also died young, in his case from a drugs overdose at 28. Both father and son were not really appreciated when they were alive, but now have posthumous reputations that have grown as time has passed.

Tim Buckley’s ghost haunts this record - it was released in 1994, but it harks back to the folk rock sounds of the 60s and 70s, particularly in the cover versions of the songs Lilac Wine and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. It’s difficult to know what directions Jeff may have gone in after this, and we’ll never find out.

https://album.link/gb/i/1046187510