IN A SAD STATE OF GRACE

By David E. Thigpen

When he decided to escape the muggy Memphis heat with a quick plunge into the Wolf River, singer Jeff Buckley had every reason to feel buoyed by good fortune. At 30 he was signed to Columbia Records--the home of Bob Dylan and Miles Davis--and had just settled into a cozy old house in town to begin recording a follow-up to Grace, his powerful 1994 debut. That album, a darkly romantic and stunningly original blend of folk, blues and alternative rock, had earned Buckley a reputation as a superstar in the making, much as Greetings from Asbury Park did for Bruce Springsteen in 1973. Buckley's rise was tinged with poignancy. Success promised to lift him at last out of the haunting shadow of his father, the brilliant folk singer Tim Buckley, who died of a heroin overdose in 1975 at age 28.

But on the evening of May 29, after driving to the Memphis marina with a member of his road crew, Jeff inexplicably waded, fully clothed, into the muddy river. As the roadie watched from the riverbank, Buckley swam far out. When the wake of a passing boat splashed ashore, the roadie turned away for a moment to move Buckley's guitar and radio to safety. When he looked up again, Buckley had disappeared. He never came back up. After six days of searching, police last week pulled his body from the water near Beale Street, Memphis' music row.

News of the accidental drowning unleashed an outburst of grief that attested not just to the tragedy of a young man's life cut short but also to the uncommon force of his music. In the hours after his disappearance, fans from around the world--Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and even Singapore--inundated his record label with worried messages. In New York City's Greenwich Village, Buckley's home turf, scores of fans brought candles and flowers to Cafe Sin-e, the former coffeehouse where he first drew crowds with his spiraling voice and captivating intensity. "His music was so beautiful it made the hair on your neck stand on end," said a weeping fan. "He was special," said Columbia Records president Don Ienner. "We saw the future in Jeff."

That Buckley's life ended in awful symmetry with his father's was a painful irony. The younger Buckley had long struggled to escape the label of "Tim's son." He had met his father only once, at age 8. Tim Buckley left home the year his son was born, a fact that may have fueled the melancholy, beauty and despair that swirled within Jeff's songs. In one of his own final acts of grace, Buckley said to a close friend, "Remember that I forgive my father, and I just have to move on." He seemed to be doing just that when he was pulled under.

--By David E. Thigpen