Not only did Buckley inherit his father Tim’s fascination with French chanteuse, he also possessed far more than a working knowledge of Van, Nina Simone, Nusrat, Delta blues, Memphis soul, Bulgarian sacred chant and This Mortal Coil. He was that rare thing, a fine writer who took the art of interpretive singing deadly seriously. On that level, ‘Lilac Wine’ mated the Simone template with Edith Piaf and John Paul Jones’ mellotron strings from ‘Rain Song’. Few can hear him sing, “I drink much more than I oughta drink/Because it brings me back you” and remain unmoved.
By the same token, his reading of Benjamin Britten’s ‘Corpus Christi Carol’ was a shimmering and shocking boy soprano recital, while his ‘Hallelujah’ is the definitive interpretation of El Cohen’s scripture, perfectly pitched between lust and liturgy. As for his own ‘Last Goodbye’, this tune will evermore be heard in the context of Buckley’s premature death by drowning in the Mississippi river at age 27.
Grace is sacred music.