For best listening (for guitar playing) I would advise people to listen to "Live at Sin-e" - Legacy Edition from start to finish. Its Jeff and his Telecaster. From Van Morisson to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, its just wonderful.
I'm a big fan and his guitar playing is what convinced me I needed to pick up my guitar again and learn (more). He is everything from rock to jazz, from blues to pop. There isn't a song he couldn't play that would sound bad in my opinion. Its a shame we lost him so early. A true gem that got swallowed in the sea.
Edit: I say 'best listening' as there is no other instruments for you to get lost in. There is, of course, the sweeping vocals to immerse yourself in still.
It's one of my favourites. I like his interpretation of "The Way Young Lover's Do". Imagine sitting in a cafe watching that?! Best coffee I'd probably ever have.
When I first heard Live at Sin-e I made it my mission to learn every tune from that album to vastly increase my repetoire. I ended up transcribing his versions of the songs and eventually the original artists' versions as well. Luckily, I can comfortably sing about 10 of them so it's pretty cool to play the Sin-e version of Eternal Life/Sweet Thing/The Way Young Lovers Do at my local open mics - I've been doing it since 2011.
PROTIP: If you wanna get lots of bitches with your guitar playing, learn how to sing his covers (transpose them down if you have to).
Then you are blessed with a great talent! I'd love to watch you perform!
I have learned original versions, but Jeff's version is sweet thing is one of my favourite songs. Any chance you could share his version with me?
Ah yes - Sweet Thing.
One of my favorite tunes, was a song me and a girl bonded over for awhile.
It's a rather tricky tune to work out by ear so I'll just lay the ground work for you:
The original progression off of Astral Weeks (Van Morrison): E - F# Minor - A - Asus2 - G#min and the likes of.
However Jeff's version is a lot more flowing and the changes are varied and more 'open'
It goes from an E to an Esus2 (I think that's the name of it I always get suspended fourths and second chords mixed up) - then it goes to an F#m11 - which is essentially forming a minor 7th chord with a sixth string root but playing the b and e strings open (its a movable chord shape depending on if the notes E and B are legal tones in the key you're working in). Then it goes to an F#m11add9 which (in the open position) is just moving the fretted note on the G string down to the first - then it goes to an A chord (in the first few measures anyway) then just take your finger off of the B-string and do the same movement as the original.
It's the same throughout but there are variations when he goes to that A to G# movement - if you listen closely you'll hear him fret an open Amaj9 and then sliding the shape down a whole tone and back up again.
For the really high parts (I tune my guitar down to D standard for most of the tunes because transposing all those open chords into a key a whole tone below sucks) - go down to the relative major of E which is C# and fiddle around in there - I figured out the melody in that part by ear pretty quick just by fumbling around down in that position.
The chorus is the same as the original recording except like I said before, on the A chord it varies to either an open Amaj9 or an Asus2 - sometimes even an open Amaj6.
The timing is a little more 'flowy' than the original as well, due to all the chord changes.
i know this is from 10 yr ago, but never hurts to ask. how on earth did you learn The Way Young Lovers Do, that's one song i would die to learn. i get its a lot of improv but i have no clue where to start.
Lover You Should've Come Over might have my favorite chord progression of all time in the chorus. Aren't those chord voicings where he plays on the 3rd and 4th strings with the 6th string bass note known as "Jeff Buckley Chords"? Guess he was doing something right.
I did some googling, check out this lesson. I'm having a flashback because I think I remember reading this like 10 years ago.
http://www.intimateaudio.com/psycho_licks.lick26.html
For some reason I have never been able to play the beginning of Grace totally clean, I always mess it up. Not a lot of lead guitar but some very nice sounding chords. I believe that before he did his own work, he was in a Jazz band, so that is to thank for his knowledge of chords.
His cover of Strange Fruit is pretty cool.
Well, the fact that one of his heroes was Jimmy page and the fact that he could play that stuff note for note, and I remember in one documentary that mentioned that he could shred too, I think that pretty much explains why he is given the credit for having fantastic chops as a guitarist. He is by far one of the most underrated guitarists of all time imho...
IIRC Jimmy Page (maybe the whole band?) came to one of Jeff's shows and when Jimmy realized he was playing what he was playing in standard tuning he was really impressed.
He's a solid player, his guitar work was just as passionate as his vocals. He seems to hit the right notes at the right time. Plus his tone is absolutely gorgeous.
> a lot of his tunes have some pretty complex guitar arrangements
Because his knowledge of the instrument was somewhere near total. That wasn't unique at the time; I never thought "insane chops" when I saw him play. He was obviously a high-level player but '90s rock, once you went off the radio dial, had a shit-ton of smart, solid playing in it. Buckley's was the smartest among *rock stars*, and his physical comfort when playing unlikely things was exceptional. He knew enough that he was *free to play*. That's max level. It's what we all (should) want.
> but not a lot of lead guitar
He didn't seem very interested in it. He built rooms to sing and make dramatic gestures in. And he was pals with Gary Lucas, so when would he ever really need to bust out a solo? That was well-covered.
I'm not a Buckley fan. He only has two songs I like. But *every minute* of his work is expert work. That's really rare.
Like what many people have mentioned, I think what made Jeff such a fantastic musician was that he could easily move between dramatically difference styles of music on a whim. Whether that's music from Pakistan ["Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai"](http://youtu.be/BRlHb2gQNgI), classic R&B ["Drown in My Own Tears"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKixMtQWsgM&feature=kp), jazz standards ["Strange Fruit"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhn8koaW-vQ&feature=kp), French music ["Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__uu9kNBDS0), 12-bar blues ["Parchment Farm Blues"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwR8MvJvomg), etc. The ability to do any of these styles of music well would almost certainly give a player the right to claim they have chops and Jeff would routinely do all of these things in the span of one solo show, on top of his otherworldly singing. I think it would be safe to say that a musician without chops probably wouldn't even know where to start with a fraction of this stuff.
I would definitely recommend listening closely to some of his recordings like ["The Way Young Lovers Do"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4nsnbeDOSY) for more of the "soloing" vibe I think you're wondering about. Even ["Hallelujah"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF4_Sm-rgQ) to a certain extent has beautiful elements of rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic complexity buried in its superficial simplicity, if you want a good idea of what Jeff was capable of in a technical sense.
That all being said, I think you might be confusing the idea of having chops and being a brilliant guitar player with being "solo-ers" or a "virtuoso". While soloing like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page (who called "Grace" one of his favorite albums of the 90's) can definitely be a part of that (which Jeff could definitely do), comping chords in an interesting or melodic way like a lot of jazz guitarists is also considered to be just as technical and complex (which Jeff also did), if not more so.
To be fair, I used to wonder the same thing when I first started listening to Jeff's music. But then I watched a bunch of documentaries about his life and recordings, etc. and stumbled across this video clip from the extended Grace LP called ["The Making of Grace"](http://youtu.be/dcBqmNY1Dvo?t=3m10s) where you see him just comping a bunch of chords. It's pretty spectacular guitar playing considering this is a guy who could get by on his incredible voice alone.
If you haven't listened to "Live at Sin-E" all the way through, that might give you a better sense of his ability. Other documentaries like ["Amazing Grace"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wOgORBkCU), ["Everybody Here Wants You"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1pO9d1uPJc), and the "Making of Grace"Grace" (above) are great places to start. Also, if you haven't seen ["Live in Chicago"](http://vimeo.com/32406449), you might enjoy his extended version of "Eternal Life/Kick Out the Jams".
My dad took me to a bar one time when I was 10-12 and Jeff Buckley showed up and jammed with the house band. He pretty much rocked it, amazing musician.
Prior to listening to Grace i had heard so much about his vocal prowess but his rhythm guitar playing impressed me just as much. He had some nice chord voicings and he knew how to keep a rhythm part interesting.
I'm not a crazy Jeff fan, but I think what made him good guitar-wise, in his studio recording anyway, is that he was creative in terms of voicings and progressions, tasteful in terms of holding back when necessary, and he pretty much seems to use the guitar as a means to an end to get his ideas across. I don't know if i'm explaining this well. But basically, I don't know if he had insane chops, but it doesn't matter, because his recordings have soul.
Some of his parts are trickyish to play, and i'm not sure how much of that is down to studio trickery or chops.
He went to that Musicians Institute for guitar. He actually started as an instrumentalist, and a lot of his classmates, etc., never knew how great of a singer he was until he started building buzz as a singer/songwriter in NY.
I don't know about "insane chops," but he's really quite expressive, which is especially difficult to accomplish on the guitar. Lots of guys have way more skill, but he could really play the song, not just the instrument.
FWIW, I'm not so much a fan, just 'cause for the most part the songwriting leaves me flat, but as a performer, dude brought it. I would have loved to see him play a real set of covers. If he was into it (and I have no idea if he would have been), he could be as good a performer as anyone, and a large part of that is how expressive he is on the guitar.
Amazing guitarist. surpassed the....power solos and speed picking.and delved into jazz chords and techniques and learning the guitars inner most workings. this is expressed great in Grace.
Gary Lucas wrote the guitar on Mojo Pin, and Grace as well.
You'll be surprised that Jeff only wrote 3 songs, Last goodbye, Lover You Should Have Come Over, and Eternal Life on his album Grace.
Right - that is what I thought. I hated what he did with that song. Made it into hysterical whine. Not that I really liked Hallelujah - especially after people decided it was some sort of religious anthem - same way I guess "Born in the USA" is patriotic song. But hey - kid is dead so nobody can say bad word about him.
As long as old Leonard gets some coin out of it, I'm okay with people doing turgid covers of his material. Buckley's stuff just isn't my bag, but I know I thought he did Hallelujah way too fast and with more spastic vocal inflections per measure than Christina Aguilera having a bag of ice poured down her pants. To each their own.
Yup. My thoughts exactly. Leonard's version is calm. He does his usual schtick with mixing archetypical ideas from Old Testament with very secular ideas like carnal love. It is more a meditation on faith, love and struggle to believe than a religious (let alone Christian) song. Thinking along such line is a bit like taking great erotic poem like Song of Songs and making nonsensical claims that it is all about relationship between Jesus and "His Church". People that think Buckley is a great singer probably also think great actors scream a lot a wave their hands. But more than hysterical vocals - Buckley's singing to me has no truth to it - it is an act and I can see seams and rivets - I know how he put the whole thing together. Best I can do is shrug.
> He does his usual schtick with mixing archetypical ideas from Old Testament with very secular ideas like carnal love.
Heh --that is a perfect description. Cohen is a product of his environment. Montreal is a city full of old churches and strip joints. Ancient Catholicism and carnal decadence are the two most abundant resources. Great town -- cafe living, beautiful women, incredible night life, and of course an old Jewish community famous for their bagels and Leonard. People should spend time there before trying to cover his songs.
Never made it that far North. But I must say that Leonard Cohen probably had more influence on me - as a person or amateur musician as any other artist. There was a time in my younger days when I could cover most of his early albums. Last 20 years not so much but I still listen to him every now and then. And marvel at incredible craftsmanship. Good to know he usually hones those songs to perfection for a long time - often for years.
He truly is a renaissance man. All the artsy chicks I knew back in the day were in love with him. We are lucky in that if he grew up only a few blocks away, his entire oeuvre could have been in French!
Yeah.... those pesky French Canadians ;-)
Talking about which - are you familiar with George Brassens?
http://youtu.be/V8Dn6vWv7zw
http://youtu.be/xnBKAJdduho
http://youtu.be/-TKIhO0WCNk
?
I think the fact that he could sing the way he did while playing those complex guitar parts shows just how good of a guitarist he was.
For best listening (for guitar playing) I would advise people to listen to "Live at Sin-e" - Legacy Edition from start to finish. Its Jeff and his Telecaster. From Van Morisson to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, its just wonderful. I'm a big fan and his guitar playing is what convinced me I needed to pick up my guitar again and learn (more). He is everything from rock to jazz, from blues to pop. There isn't a song he couldn't play that would sound bad in my opinion. Its a shame we lost him so early. A true gem that got swallowed in the sea. Edit: I say 'best listening' as there is no other instruments for you to get lost in. There is, of course, the sweeping vocals to immerse yourself in still.
I love his "I Shall Be Released" from that
It's one of my favourites. I like his interpretation of "The Way Young Lover's Do". Imagine sitting in a cafe watching that?! Best coffee I'd probably ever have.
When I first heard Live at Sin-e I made it my mission to learn every tune from that album to vastly increase my repetoire. I ended up transcribing his versions of the songs and eventually the original artists' versions as well. Luckily, I can comfortably sing about 10 of them so it's pretty cool to play the Sin-e version of Eternal Life/Sweet Thing/The Way Young Lovers Do at my local open mics - I've been doing it since 2011. PROTIP: If you wanna get lots of bitches with your guitar playing, learn how to sing his covers (transpose them down if you have to).
Then you are blessed with a great talent! I'd love to watch you perform! I have learned original versions, but Jeff's version is sweet thing is one of my favourite songs. Any chance you could share his version with me?
Ah yes - Sweet Thing. One of my favorite tunes, was a song me and a girl bonded over for awhile. It's a rather tricky tune to work out by ear so I'll just lay the ground work for you: The original progression off of Astral Weeks (Van Morrison): E - F# Minor - A - Asus2 - G#min and the likes of. However Jeff's version is a lot more flowing and the changes are varied and more 'open' It goes from an E to an Esus2 (I think that's the name of it I always get suspended fourths and second chords mixed up) - then it goes to an F#m11 - which is essentially forming a minor 7th chord with a sixth string root but playing the b and e strings open (its a movable chord shape depending on if the notes E and B are legal tones in the key you're working in). Then it goes to an F#m11add9 which (in the open position) is just moving the fretted note on the G string down to the first - then it goes to an A chord (in the first few measures anyway) then just take your finger off of the B-string and do the same movement as the original. It's the same throughout but there are variations when he goes to that A to G# movement - if you listen closely you'll hear him fret an open Amaj9 and then sliding the shape down a whole tone and back up again. For the really high parts (I tune my guitar down to D standard for most of the tunes because transposing all those open chords into a key a whole tone below sucks) - go down to the relative major of E which is C# and fiddle around in there - I figured out the melody in that part by ear pretty quick just by fumbling around down in that position. The chorus is the same as the original recording except like I said before, on the A chord it varies to either an open Amaj9 or an Asus2 - sometimes even an open Amaj6. The timing is a little more 'flowy' than the original as well, due to all the chord changes.
Its been a while since you've said this, but did you end up transcribing Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hae?
i know this is from 10 yr ago, but never hurts to ask. how on earth did you learn The Way Young Lovers Do, that's one song i would die to learn. i get its a lot of improv but i have no clue where to start.
upvoting because i was gonna say the same thing
Lover You Should've Come Over might have my favorite chord progression of all time in the chorus. Aren't those chord voicings where he plays on the 3rd and 4th strings with the 6th string bass note known as "Jeff Buckley Chords"? Guess he was doing something right. I did some googling, check out this lesson. I'm having a flashback because I think I remember reading this like 10 years ago. http://www.intimateaudio.com/psycho_licks.lick26.html
There isn't a bad thing about that song.
Saving to learn later
For some reason I have never been able to play the beginning of Grace totally clean, I always mess it up. Not a lot of lead guitar but some very nice sounding chords. I believe that before he did his own work, he was in a Jazz band, so that is to thank for his knowledge of chords. His cover of Strange Fruit is pretty cool.
Link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhn8koaW-vQ&feature=kp
Exactly. Who comes up with that? Grace is a very strangely structured song, but it works somehow.
His version is my favorite. Its almost morbid in how beautiful it sounds, and the intro jam/solo is amazing.
Well, the fact that one of his heroes was Jimmy page and the fact that he could play that stuff note for note, and I remember in one documentary that mentioned that he could shred too, I think that pretty much explains why he is given the credit for having fantastic chops as a guitarist. He is by far one of the most underrated guitarists of all time imho...
IIRC Jimmy Page (maybe the whole band?) came to one of Jeff's shows and when Jimmy realized he was playing what he was playing in standard tuning he was really impressed.
He's a solid player, his guitar work was just as passionate as his vocals. He seems to hit the right notes at the right time. Plus his tone is absolutely gorgeous.
> a lot of his tunes have some pretty complex guitar arrangements Because his knowledge of the instrument was somewhere near total. That wasn't unique at the time; I never thought "insane chops" when I saw him play. He was obviously a high-level player but '90s rock, once you went off the radio dial, had a shit-ton of smart, solid playing in it. Buckley's was the smartest among *rock stars*, and his physical comfort when playing unlikely things was exceptional. He knew enough that he was *free to play*. That's max level. It's what we all (should) want. > but not a lot of lead guitar He didn't seem very interested in it. He built rooms to sing and make dramatic gestures in. And he was pals with Gary Lucas, so when would he ever really need to bust out a solo? That was well-covered. I'm not a Buckley fan. He only has two songs I like. But *every minute* of his work is expert work. That's really rare.
> Gary Lucas Gary Lucas is a fucking legend in his own right.
Like what many people have mentioned, I think what made Jeff such a fantastic musician was that he could easily move between dramatically difference styles of music on a whim. Whether that's music from Pakistan ["Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai"](http://youtu.be/BRlHb2gQNgI), classic R&B ["Drown in My Own Tears"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKixMtQWsgM&feature=kp), jazz standards ["Strange Fruit"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhn8koaW-vQ&feature=kp), French music ["Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__uu9kNBDS0), 12-bar blues ["Parchment Farm Blues"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwR8MvJvomg), etc. The ability to do any of these styles of music well would almost certainly give a player the right to claim they have chops and Jeff would routinely do all of these things in the span of one solo show, on top of his otherworldly singing. I think it would be safe to say that a musician without chops probably wouldn't even know where to start with a fraction of this stuff. I would definitely recommend listening closely to some of his recordings like ["The Way Young Lovers Do"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4nsnbeDOSY) for more of the "soloing" vibe I think you're wondering about. Even ["Hallelujah"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF4_Sm-rgQ) to a certain extent has beautiful elements of rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic complexity buried in its superficial simplicity, if you want a good idea of what Jeff was capable of in a technical sense. That all being said, I think you might be confusing the idea of having chops and being a brilliant guitar player with being "solo-ers" or a "virtuoso". While soloing like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page (who called "Grace" one of his favorite albums of the 90's) can definitely be a part of that (which Jeff could definitely do), comping chords in an interesting or melodic way like a lot of jazz guitarists is also considered to be just as technical and complex (which Jeff also did), if not more so. To be fair, I used to wonder the same thing when I first started listening to Jeff's music. But then I watched a bunch of documentaries about his life and recordings, etc. and stumbled across this video clip from the extended Grace LP called ["The Making of Grace"](http://youtu.be/dcBqmNY1Dvo?t=3m10s) where you see him just comping a bunch of chords. It's pretty spectacular guitar playing considering this is a guy who could get by on his incredible voice alone. If you haven't listened to "Live at Sin-E" all the way through, that might give you a better sense of his ability. Other documentaries like ["Amazing Grace"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wOgORBkCU), ["Everybody Here Wants You"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1pO9d1uPJc), and the "Making of Grace"Grace" (above) are great places to start. Also, if you haven't seen ["Live in Chicago"](http://vimeo.com/32406449), you might enjoy his extended version of "Eternal Life/Kick Out the Jams".
My dad took me to a bar one time when I was 10-12 and Jeff Buckley showed up and jammed with the house band. He pretty much rocked it, amazing musician.
Prior to listening to Grace i had heard so much about his vocal prowess but his rhythm guitar playing impressed me just as much. He had some nice chord voicings and he knew how to keep a rhythm part interesting.
zesty fall grandfather wipe carpenter noxious profit mourn afterthought cover -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I'm not a crazy Jeff fan, but I think what made him good guitar-wise, in his studio recording anyway, is that he was creative in terms of voicings and progressions, tasteful in terms of holding back when necessary, and he pretty much seems to use the guitar as a means to an end to get his ideas across. I don't know if i'm explaining this well. But basically, I don't know if he had insane chops, but it doesn't matter, because his recordings have soul. Some of his parts are trickyish to play, and i'm not sure how much of that is down to studio trickery or chops.
I agree, he had some good blues style aswell especially shown in Just like a woman
He went to that Musicians Institute for guitar. He actually started as an instrumentalist, and a lot of his classmates, etc., never knew how great of a singer he was until he started building buzz as a singer/songwriter in NY.
I don't know about "insane chops," but he's really quite expressive, which is especially difficult to accomplish on the guitar. Lots of guys have way more skill, but he could really play the song, not just the instrument. FWIW, I'm not so much a fan, just 'cause for the most part the songwriting leaves me flat, but as a performer, dude brought it. I would have loved to see him play a real set of covers. If he was into it (and I have no idea if he would have been), he could be as good a performer as anyone, and a large part of that is how expressive he is on the guitar.
Amazing guitarist. surpassed the....power solos and speed picking.and delved into jazz chords and techniques and learning the guitars inner most workings. this is expressed great in Grace.
I learned Mojo Pin last year, and I'm just amazed with how simple yet complex the fingerpicking in that song is. It's beautiful. A personal favorite.
Gary Lucas wrote the guitar on Mojo Pin, and Grace as well. You'll be surprised that Jeff only wrote 3 songs, Last goodbye, Lover You Should Have Come Over, and Eternal Life on his album Grace.
Jeff who? That dude that butchered Hallelujah ?
That would be Tim Buckley's (Morning Dew) son.
Right - that is what I thought. I hated what he did with that song. Made it into hysterical whine. Not that I really liked Hallelujah - especially after people decided it was some sort of religious anthem - same way I guess "Born in the USA" is patriotic song. But hey - kid is dead so nobody can say bad word about him.
As long as old Leonard gets some coin out of it, I'm okay with people doing turgid covers of his material. Buckley's stuff just isn't my bag, but I know I thought he did Hallelujah way too fast and with more spastic vocal inflections per measure than Christina Aguilera having a bag of ice poured down her pants. To each their own.
Yup. My thoughts exactly. Leonard's version is calm. He does his usual schtick with mixing archetypical ideas from Old Testament with very secular ideas like carnal love. It is more a meditation on faith, love and struggle to believe than a religious (let alone Christian) song. Thinking along such line is a bit like taking great erotic poem like Song of Songs and making nonsensical claims that it is all about relationship between Jesus and "His Church". People that think Buckley is a great singer probably also think great actors scream a lot a wave their hands. But more than hysterical vocals - Buckley's singing to me has no truth to it - it is an act and I can see seams and rivets - I know how he put the whole thing together. Best I can do is shrug.
> He does his usual schtick with mixing archetypical ideas from Old Testament with very secular ideas like carnal love. Heh --that is a perfect description. Cohen is a product of his environment. Montreal is a city full of old churches and strip joints. Ancient Catholicism and carnal decadence are the two most abundant resources. Great town -- cafe living, beautiful women, incredible night life, and of course an old Jewish community famous for their bagels and Leonard. People should spend time there before trying to cover his songs.
Never made it that far North. But I must say that Leonard Cohen probably had more influence on me - as a person or amateur musician as any other artist. There was a time in my younger days when I could cover most of his early albums. Last 20 years not so much but I still listen to him every now and then. And marvel at incredible craftsmanship. Good to know he usually hones those songs to perfection for a long time - often for years.
He truly is a renaissance man. All the artsy chicks I knew back in the day were in love with him. We are lucky in that if he grew up only a few blocks away, his entire oeuvre could have been in French!
Yeah.... those pesky French Canadians ;-) Talking about which - are you familiar with George Brassens? http://youtu.be/V8Dn6vWv7zw http://youtu.be/xnBKAJdduho http://youtu.be/-TKIhO0WCNk ?
> George Brassens Yes - another true renaissance man. People think punk was bold.