[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Open-mouthed and elevating his voice in a slow-burning rise, he morphs in this performance into both sexpartners as they hit the pinnacle of wordless ecstasy in song.It’s pretty special sometimes, the way a song affects aroom, the way you’re in complete rhythm with thesong.When you’re emotionally overcome, and there’sno filter between what you say and what you mean,your language becomes guttural, simple, emotional,and full of pictures and clarity.58The key to this “Mojo” performance then is twofold: itboth revels in the ambient and it puts to work the immenseuses of voice.Guitar wonks were always quick to point outthat Buckley’s musicianship was often overshadowed by themajesty of his vocals.But live in performance as well ason Grace, it’s more than apparent that the two—voice andguitar—were always heavily entwined, reciprocal, re-sponding.Jeff Buckley was known for performing with twomain guitars, an early 1990s Mexican Telecaster and a LesPaul Gibson with dual humbucking pick-ups.In either case,he was able to strike an ethereal effect and (most likely withthe Telecaster) create a bright, jangly sound.With opentuning he had the ability to work with more pitches on hisguitar, to sound more drone, and to create a rich, full, tex-tured sound.Through open tuning, he could use the samepitch in different gages with a clean setting and lots of reverbto at times conjure an almost organist, churchy aesthetic.59• 90 •GRACEIn Jeff Buckley’s ambient guitar universe, he created asanctuary full of heat, fire, and intensity in song.You couldfeel engulfed by the wash of a big, sweeping sound, one thatwas held together by the magnetism of voice.If, as somepop music scholars have noted, rock music’s lead singeroperates traditionally as mentor/shaman to young men insearch of defining and expressing their masculinity, then JeffBuckley brilliantly mixed up these archaic dynamics in rockspace and rewrote the utility of rock frontmanship.Still aconduit of hopes and desires, he also challenged mainstreamaudiences to respond in new ways to the music.He demandedsomething different from listeners and he created a kind oftransgressive space that went beyond stylish posturing toforge intense connections with his audience.The live showsbecame the occasion to watch the birth of a new rock arche-type for men and women alike.He was doing somethingwith more than words.I’ve always felt that the quality of the voice is wherethe real content [of a song] lies.Words only suggestan experience, but the voice is that experience.60Words are really beautiful, but they’re limited.Wordsare very male, very structured.But the voice is thenetherworld, the darkness, where there’s nothing tohang on to.The voice comes from a part of you thatjust knows and expresses and is.I need to inhabit everybit of a lyric, or else I can’t bring the song to you—orelse it’s just words.61Live in concert, Jeff Buckley showed that he was unafraidto experiment with repetition in words, moans and yelps thatreinforced the concept of wordless mantra.Extraordinarylive versions of “Grace,” for instance, evolved into full-throt-• 91 •DAPHNE A.BROOKStle exorcisms with Buckley bouncing off the walls vocally,howling and screeching like a preacher man caught in anorchestral tempest.On certain nights he might push thegrace note far outside of the bounds of the song, leapingvocally into a heated repetition, a controlled spectacle ofartfully losing control with the voice, a kind of beautifulcross between Linda Blair, Al Green, and Freddie Mercuryin the round.On tour, Jeff was moving swiftly and brilliantly towardincorporating the spirit of Qawwali, its celebration of theutterance to create something of a living mash-up, part ambi-ent utterance and “jouissance rock,” part Sufi divine music,part Liz Fraser / Bjork / Kate Bush Euro-gynocentricworldless profundity and aversion to the WORD, partR&B singing, part gospel call and response.He was craftingperformances that called attention to the elasticity of voiceand its power to reconfigure space in connection to otherhuman beings.With a voice that was, as Johnny Ray Hustononce called it, “expansively sexy,” Jeff Buckley used powerfulvocalizing in concert to challenge the preeminence of theelectric guitar “as an instrument of mastery that amplifiesthe masculinity of the band’s performers.”62His voice was very, very commanding and at the sametime hypnotic and it would flood the stage and notonly cast a spell on the audience but a lot of times onthe band as well.That was something that Jeffinduced—for you to leave yourself and just let themusic flow through you.—Michael Tighe, guitarist 63Holy departure.In the live performances of Grace’s wrap-around tracks, a new electric mysticism was born.• 92 •GRACEN O T E S1.Jeff Buckley as quoted in “The Making of Grace,” GraceLegacy Edition DVD (Columbia Records 2004).2.Mary Guibert as quoted in Everybody Here Wants You, dir.Serena Cross (BBC, 2002).3.Jeff Buckley as quoted in “Interview with Jeff Buckley,” Live at the Sin-e´ Legacy Edition DVD (Columbia Records 2003).4.Author’s phone interview with Steve Berkowitz, June 28,2004.5.Unpublished notebooks, September 16, 1989, courtesy ofMary Guibert and the Jeff Buckley estate.6.Jeff Buckley as quoted in Steve Tignor, “A Live Thing,”Puncture (1st Quarter 1994).7.Matt Johnson as quoted in Jeff Buckley: Amazing Grace, dir.Nyala Adams (2004).8.Jeff Buckley, “Letter to Elaine Buckley,” Jeff Buckley ex-hibit, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH, 2003.9.Jeff Buckley as quoted in Sony Grace press release.10.Matt Johnson as quoted in Mystery White Boy: The Jeff Buckley Story (BBC 2), September 25, 2004.11.Author’s interview with Berkowitz.12.Mick Grondahl as quoted in “The Making of Grace,” GraceLegacy Edition DVD (Columbia Records), 2004.13.Jeff Buckley as quoted in Live at the Sin-e´ Press Release, Columbia Records.14.Jeff Buckley as quoted in “The Making of Grace,” GraceLegacy Edition DVD (Columbia Records), 2004.15.Wallace as quoted in ibid.16 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]