When the musician Jeff Buckley died at the age of 30 on May 29, 1997 — just three years after 27, the cursed age that most prematurely deceased rock stars check out at — he left behind one album, in the form of Grace, that was to become one of the most admired, even beloved, records of the late 20th century. Everyone from Bob Dylan and David Bowie to Brad Pitt and, of all unlikely people, Morrissey have lined up to eulogize both the record and Buckley himself, who has, like so many dead musicians before and after, been preserved in reputational aspic by dint of expiring long before his due date.
Somehow, it seems hard to imagine a 57-year-old Jeff Buckley. His father Tim made it to a mere 28, too. Clearly, the Buckley men were destined to burn bright and then disappear rather than fade away into obscurity. Yet while Tim died of that most passé of decadent binges, a heroin and morphine overdose, Jeff’s end was inimitable. Apparently overcome by a Dionysian urge to perform, he threw himself into the Mississippi, fully clothed, singing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and drowned after being swept under the wake of a passing tugboat. No trace of alcohol or drugs was found in the autopsy. He had been spending the previous year trying and largely failing to record his sophomore album My Sweetheart the Drunk, but he was a committed professional who took his work seriously, which meant that rumors of suicide have largely been dismissed by those around him, not least his mother and executor Mary Guibert.
