Hallelujah – The Influence of Jeff Buckley
A video of artists talking about the influence of Jeff Buckley’s music popped up on my timeline. It reminded me of how amazing he was and his impact on so many. His only album “Grace” was released August 23, 1994, but still lives on almost 30 years later.
Jeff Buckley sang like he had one foot in heaven and the other on the edge of a storm. His voice, angelic, trembling, and yet so fierce. It wasn’t just heard, you felt it. Every note carried both fragility and fire, like someone whispering a secret while standing in the middle of a cathedral. As he once admitted, after a show he felt “really strange … like when you wake up in the morning … and told some stranger all the most intimate details of your life. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
His cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” became definitive, aching, pure, and haunting. Though it wasn’t a hit during his lifetime, it’s now regarded as one of the most beautiful recordings ever made. Instantly recognizable.
Influences flowed through him like a live wire—Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, even Siouxsie Sioux. “Siouxsie, I have much of her influence in my voice,” he confessed. Buckley described his influences simply yet profoundly: “Love, anger, depression, joy and dreams … And Zeppelin. Totally.”
His only full-length album, Grace, became a luminous myth. Jimmy Page called it “close to being my favorite album of the decade”; Robert Plant found an elusive truth in its depths. Bob Dylan named Buckley “one of the great songwriters of this decade,” and David Bowie would choose it for a deserted island.
Tragically, Buckley’s life ended before his career could fully bloom. On May 29, 1997, while awaiting his band’s arrival in Memphis to record his second album, he went for a spontaneous evening swim in the Wolf River Harbor. Fully clothed and in good spirits, he was caught in the wake of a passing boat. His body was found days later. He was just 30 years old. His death remains surrounded by a sense of mystery—no drugs or alcohol were found in his system, and friends insist it was a tragic accident.
Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), who grieved publicly when Buckley passed, captured the potency of that brief flame: “When Jeff died, I bought 15 of his bootlegs. …He’s going to be the most important artist to so many people throughout their lives. …He did this amazing thing in such a short period of time.”
We were left with a lifetime of “what if.” Yet, his absence made his songs echo louder, like a voice calling back from somewhere unreachable.
He didn’t just sing songs; he composed emotional maps for listeners and artists alike. His influence is a quiet pulse—intimate, enduring, deeply alive.
Doug O’Brien
