Customer Reviews

A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley

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Allow me to lay my biases on the table: I am a dyed in the wool Jeff Buckley fan. If I could reshape the world, there would only be one biography about Jeff, and there would be no such thing as rumor mongering and gossiping, for no one would be prone to commit, or listen to, that sort of thing. But this is the real world: I have lost count of biographies written about my hero; and they keep on coming. They have spread so much innuendo, smut, over the Jeff's legacy. With this in mind, I salute Apter's biography: it is factual, generally avoids exploiting gossip or sensationalism. It more often than not demonstrates a dispassionate examination of the subject. When it draws inferences, or throws its weight in one direction, in my opinion it comes fairly close to the truth as a reasonable person with the facts would perceive them.

Apter obviously is familiar with the music scene, coming from Australia's Rolling Stone magazine. The reader benefits from the author's relevant background. Discussions about Jeff Buckley's interactions with fellow musicians and acquaintenances during his short career, from L.A. to New York; the burden of having to deal with his dead father's musical legacy; his being thrust into the paws of the media monster, AKA Columbia/Sony, and how he endeavored to foster his career yet remain true to his professional principles, all make for extremely interesting reading.

On the enticing, but very problematic and subjective topic of Jeff Buckley's frame of mind, his psychology, Apter succeeds in refraining from unsubstantiated melodrama. Unlike Browne in Dream Brothers, he avoids drawing inferences based on hearsay, he refuses to exploit the sensational for the sake of selling more books. Based on what Jeff's closest friends have said, there is absolutely no reason to conclude, or suspect, that Jeff Buckley was ever on the verge of a nervous breakdown or that he ever contemplated suicide. Yes, even as a young adult he can be accused of immaturity, though his prolonged Grace tours seem to have propelled him to emotional maturity towards the very end. He can accurately be suspected of not being professionally focused, though I never would have thought that this constitutes a psychological pathology. Yes, he resented the fact that his biological father, Tim Buckley, abandoned him. Yet, who wouldn't harbor resentment over abandonment by one's parent? Nothning bizarre or pathological about that. And again, yes, Buckley suffered from a writer's block. But that is hardly what most of us would consider a pathology. Apter provides some very good insights on the topic of Jeff's writing inertia. The author draws a portrait of a very talented young man, who is essentially honest, caring and loyal to his friends to a fault. Yes, he had some emotional baggage. But don't we all? I wouldn't mind being the type of person Jeff Buckley was. Not at all.

Apter shows considerable courage in raising the topic of just which parent ultimately may have done Jeff Buckley more harm: his deceased biological father or his still very much alive mother, Mary Guibert? He informs the reader about how Jeff constantly moved from one location to another while growing up. We learn that Buckley was ashamed to apply for a job upon graduation from High School because he never spent more than a few months in any one school and would have had to list the reams of schools he attended within the space of a few years in any job application. He lets the reader know that Jeff as an adult purposefully kept minimal contact with his mother. This topic is quite relevant to the masses of Jeff Buckley fans who very much want to benefit from and enjoy the products of Buckley's genius, and to show their respect for this phenomenal musician, but run into the brickwall known as the Jeff Buckley Estate, controlled by Mary Guibert, its Executor. In the Coda of the book, Apter provides a short but meaningful discussion on just how the Estate has managed, or exploited, the development and release of Jeff Buckley's musical legacy.

A Pure Drop is a well-written and researched biography. It treats its subject with respect and impartiality. It portrays Jeff as human like the rest of us, but doesn't exploit his foibles to the extent that his undeniable genius and basic humanity are overshadowed. Bravo, Jeff Apter, for a work well done!

I knew Jeff Buckley. I know Jeff Apter as a writer. I played lead guitar with Tim Buckley and wrote about Tim and Jeff Buckley in my book, Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered. Having explored Tim and Jeff Buckley's lives in depth, I can vouch 100% for Apter's Pure Drop.

His research is solid and comprehensive. His insights are right-on. His appreciation for Jeff Buckley's struggles and accomplishments is above reproach. His understanding of Jeff's domineering mother, Mary, is unmatched for accuracy, insight, and mature judgment. Five stars for Jeff Buckley, five stars for Jeff Apter, and five stars for A Pure Drop!

I read Dream Brother and found it a little bit slanted as painting his mother as a victim of life mainly because she was in the writers ear the whole time spinning the facts. A Pure Drop was more of a brutaly honest account and I enjoyed it alot more.

One of the best reads out there- it consumed me. What an incredible life and tragic loss. He will forever be special- words and thoughts.

I haven't read Dream Brother, but the thoroughness of Aptley's research and the balance he's struck from a host of insiders promises a summation. He meticulously sources facts, but not at the expense of opinions. And these cursory quips at other talents in the Buckleys' orbit, I'm mostly in accord with. Celebrity was a state Jeff, sadly, was ill-equipped to deal with. The echoes of his father's life abound; appearance, fabulous larynx, magpie musical tastes, and rootlessness. Tim's recorded edifice, 10 albums versus the astounding, but singular,'Grace', remained an Oedipal challenge. Though the mum's questionable packaging of so much material since his death seems bent on redressing that digit, minus the quality. Aptley's insiders bemoan the existence of so much material they believe Jeff, the perfectionist, would never have condoned. I, for one, am glad the Paris concert at the Olympia has seen the light of day. Not only for the versions of,'Lilac Wine' and 'Hallelujah' but the tacked on coda,'Say You Will' with mugham master,Alim Qasimov. If Nasrat Ali Faht Khan was a formative inspiration for improvising, Qasimov's magnificently expressive tenor, which humbled Buckley, was a logical successor. It's this head-fizzing singing I return to both father and son for. Not the Led Zep arena-styled din. For the connective tissue, the company he kept, the doubts and exhilerations of this human jukebox, Aptley's book will do the Buckley's saga for me. Doubtless the industry will grind out more fodder for the racks. I'll settle for the music.