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Jeff Buckley music biography continued...

Buckley was the son of musician Tom Buckley, and played as a guitarist for hire in Los Angeles for a decade before relocating to New York. Buckley gained popularity in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, gradually focusing more on his own material. After turning away several labels, he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace. The album did not fare well commercially, but critics loved it, calling Buckley's rendition of "Hallelujah" "one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" (Rolling Stone). Over the next two years, the band toured extensively to support the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring and in 1997 moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to experiment with new material for a second album. While awaiting the arrival of his band from New York for their recording sessions, Buckley drowned during an evening swim in the Wolf River. His body was found on June 4, 1997.



Since Buckley's death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, as well as additions to his debut album Grace and his Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously; with Leonard Cohen's song, "Hallelujah" he earned his first #1 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart at Christmas 2008. Buckley and his work remain popular, with the artist frequently mentioned on 'greatest' lists in the music press.