You don't really care for music, do ya?

I missed posting this earlier in the week so it's a belated birthday RIP to Jeff Buckley for Tuesday Nov 17th.  Felt odd to learn that we were so close in age - that he would have been 48. It's one of those nearly alone in a dark house in the gloomy early winter pondering mortality kind of nights; I say nearly as daughter no 1 is locked away upstairs in self imposed isolation and no 2 is with Mom in Cincinnati on the first US Cheer competition of her season.  Today/tomorrow would also be brother JP's birthday; first one for which is no longer with us.
I went through a  Jeff Buckley bender a few years ago after an extremely emotional reaction to his iconic "Hallelujah" that just rotated in at random on the iPod one day - I didn't even know I had the track, which came in the "Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs" collection gifted me by younger brother PW.  The song seems to be everywhere these days.   Most recently I was aghast to be attending a school band concert and the junior choir launched into it.... a heavily sanitized and lyrically dumbed-down version as it turns out, though nonetheless made me want to laugh and scream at the same time.  I was holding my breath and squirming to have to hear a bunch of children actually singing "There was a time when you let me know.... What's really going on below....But now you never show it to me, do you?"  but thankfully they never went there.  I love everything about his "Grace" version, from the exhalation into the mic at the very beginning through the great playing with what I consider to be the best guitar sound ever.  Speaking of which, I was astonished to run across this video on YouTube and find I was too late to buy THAT guitar!  I would have wavered at the $60,000 it went for, especially some crazy '83 top-loader of all things, but was cool to think it was out there and available for a short while...

Of course the hilarious thing about it, for those wise to the Jeff Buckley lore, is that it wasn't even his.  It was a semi-permanent loner from Janine Nichols, one of the artistic directors for NYC's St Ann's, who finally got it back at Jeff's memorial service following his death (see definitive article at http://www.mojopin.org/pages/telecaster.php).  I think it is a great example of the artist being far more important than his tools, an extraordinary player shining on a rather ordinary instrument that no collector would give a second glance.  For those who have actually read this far and are still thinking "Jeff who....?" I refer you to the fine BBC 4 doc linked below.

http://vimeo.com/41954163

(photo above top from Premier Guitar FB feed; no available credit)