The power and influence of Grace increases with each passing year. Here, Daphne Brooks traces Jeff Buckley's fascinating musical development through the earliest stages of his career, up to the release of the album. With access to rare archival material, Brooks illustrates Buckley's passion for life and hunger for musical knowledge, and shows just why he was such a crucial figure in the American music scene of the 1990s. EXCERPT: Jeff Buckley was piecing together a contemporary popular music history for himself that was steeped in the magic of singing. He was busy hearing how Dylan channeled Billie Holiday in Blonde On Blonde and how Robert Plant was doing his best to sound like Janis Joplin on early Led Zeppelin recordings. He was thinking about doo-wop and opera and Elton John and working at developing a way to harness the power of the voice...In the process, he was re-defining punk and grunge "attitude" itself by rejecting the ambivalent sexual undercurrents of those movements, as well as Led Zeppelin's canonical "cock rock" kingdom that he'd grown up adoring. He was forging a one-man revolution set to the rhythms of New York City and beyond. And he was on the brink of recording his elegant battle in song for the world to hear.

The journals, notebooks, musings, and early song drafts of Jeff Buckley, the late singer best-known for the definitive version of "Hallelujah" and his classic album Grace, including dozens of evocative photos of his personal effects and ephemera. After the release of his acclaimed debut album, Grace, in 1994, Jeff Buckley quickly established himself as one of the decade's most defining talents in pop music: a singer, guitarist, and songwriter with a multi-octave range whose tastes took in rock, blues, jazz, hardcore, Qawwali music, and even show tunes. Hailed by the likes of Bono, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, Grace showcased Buckley's voice, passion, and influences and pointed to an inordinately promising future. Three short years later, at the age of thirty, he tragically drowned in Memphis. But his legend and stature have only grown since; in recent years, everyone from Adele to Coldplay to Radiohead has spoken of the impact Buckley's music had on them. For much of his life, Buckley diligently kept journals recording his goals, inspirations, aspirations, and creative struggles. These diaries amount to one of the most insightful life chronicles any musical artist has left behind. Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice marks the first-ever publication of Buckley's handwritten account of his journey from his days in Los Angeles in the late '80s through shortly before his passing. Combined with reproductions of other memorabilia--including letters, notes, and unpublished lyrics--this book takes readers and fans deep into Buckley's mind and life.

For the first time since Jeff Buckley’s untimely death on May 29, 1997, Dave Lory reveals what it was like to work alongside one of rock’s most celebrated and influential artists. Go on the road and behind the scenes with Buckley, from his electrifying first solo shows in New York to the difficult sessions for the second album he never completed. Lory opens up about their struggles with the record label and trouble with the band, shares previously untold stories and describes fascinating scenes that only he witnessed, including what went down in the days immediately after getting that fateful call, “Jeff is missing.”

Jeff Buckley made only one album, but the one he made has proved to be seminal. His talent awed industry giants and moved the hearts of fans spanning generations. But Buckley's untimely death in 1997 left his fans to wonder about all the sonic magic that could have been. Photographer Merri Cyr was there along the way. She has documented Buckley's career from his days at the East Village coffee shop Sin-e to his iconic Grace cover shoot to his rigorous tour around the world as he promoted his unprecedented debut. In 25 Years of Grace, Cyr joins forces with Jeff Buckley biographer Jeff Apter to produce an illustrated tribute to this classic album in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary. The book features brand new interviews with Buckley insiders, revealing the details about Buckley's signing to a major label, the songwriting process and final song selections, key meetings and collaborations, recording techniques, memorable moments in the studio and more. The book also includes reflections about Buckley and Grace from an array of music artists. Lavishly illustrated with many never-before-seen photographs, 25 Years of Gracetakes a fresh look at the making and legacy of this classic album.

Praised as "brilliantly revelatory...a masterful work of critical journalism" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Holy or the Broken is the fascinating account of one of the most-performed rock songs in history--Leonard Cohen's heartrending "Hallelujah." How did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Celebrated music journalist Alan Light follows the improbable journey of "Hallelujah" straight to the heart of popular culture.

When Jeff Buckley drowned at the age of thirty in 1997, he not only left behind a legacy of brilliant music -- he brought back haunting memories of his father, '60s troubadour Tim Buckley, a gifted musician who barely knew his son and who himself died at twenty-eight. Both father and son made transcendent music that mixed rock, jazz, and folk; both amassed a cadre of obsessive, adoring fans. This absorbing dual biography -- based on interviews with more than one hundred friends, family members, and business associates as well as access to journals and unreleased recordings -- tells for the first time the intriguing, often heartbreaking story of these two musicians. It offers a new understanding of the Buckleys' parallel lives -- and tragedies -- while exploring the changing music business between the '60s and the '90s. Finally, it tells the story of a father and son, two complex, enigmatic men who died searching for themselves and each other.

His Roman-Catholic faith has been an enduring part of the life and personality of William Buckley, Jr. Now, for the first time since his ground breaking God and the Man at Yale he has written a book about faith--his own. Nearer, My God, An Autobiography of Faith is William Buckley's superbly written story of his life seen through his abiding love for the Catholic Church, a love instilled in him from childhood. He reminisces about his school days in England, his family, the affect the Lunn/Knox dialogue had on him, and examines many aspects of Catholicism and its theology, doctrine and liturgy and on the way discourses about Lourdes, the vernacular mass, the Church and the State, the Crucifixion, the priesthood, contraception as well as the many people who have assisted him on his life's journey. A remarkable, revealing book about one man and his faith.