The late Jeff Buckley knew a thing or two about cover songs. His unique versions of other artists’ material were always things of beauty to behold—if you heard (or in my case, lucked into seeing firsthand, living in NYC in 1993) his Live At Sin-é EP and marveled at Buckley’s bold and improvisational take on Van the Man’s “The Way Young Lovers Do” (or his insanely fearless flight through Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai”), you immediately got a sense of his myriad gifts for interpretation, extrapolation and mostly just plain joyful transmission of a great song, well-played.
This album unearths a literal pigpile of forgotten treasure—10 never-before-heard tracks with funky, loose-limbed takes on everything from Bob Dylan (“Just Like A Woman”), Sly (“Everyday People”), the Smiths (“The Boy With The Thorn In His Side,” “I Know It’s Over”), Bukka White (the slipping and sliding “Poor Boy Long Way From Home”) and even his eventual blooze-rock inheritors, Led Zep (a ridiculously dexterous take on “Night Flight”). And for added measure: “Dream Of You And I,” an original that completely presaged his latter-day, lo-fi Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk work.
Like a good deal of Hendrix’s posthumous material, whether you dig this or not depends largely upon your expectations. Were you seeking the production values and crystalline magic of his Grace-era best, or do you prefer listening to one of the most talented singer/songwriters ever just jamming his way through his (admittedly, wellcurated) record collection?
Me? To paraphrase the man himself: Jeff Buckley, he’s my Elvis, man. I listen to him every day.
—Corey duBrowa
