Sound Check — Geoff Carter: Brilliance of Buckley’s music shouts from beyond

Friday, June 9, 2000 | 9:16 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appear Fridays. Reach him at carter@ vegas.com

There have been few days since June 4, 1997, that I haven't missed Jeff Buckley. Since that sad day -- when Buckley was discovered accidentally drowned in the Mississippi River -- the world has been without the most promising singer-songwriter to emerge in some years, and I've been without the only rock star I ever really wanted to interview.

I had plenty to say to him. I would have spoken to him as a peer -- he was born in Orange County, Calif., in 1966; I lived there some 15 years. Would have spoken with him of the rootless and disenfranchised feeling that was endemic to being part our generation, and how we had fought to overcome it.

I would've talked Led Zeppelin with him; "Mojo Pin" tells me we both enjoyed "Physical Graffiti" quite a bit. I would have asked him how much fun it was to work with the Jazz Passengers -- if you haven't heard his vocal on "Jolly Street" yet, you haven't lived. Most importantly -- and I don't care if this makes me sound like an idiot -- I would have thanked Jeff Buckley for recording music that stirred my heart.

Even now, as I listen to the posthumous live collection "Mystery White Boy," Jeff Buckley is talking to me, to the stuff I keep behind my eyelids. Recorded during an epic 1995-96 tour in locales from Seattle to Lyon, "Mystery" isn't so much a whisper from the grave as a full-bodied shout -- a joyous whoop from a talent whose love of life somehow didn't end with his death.

The guitar intro to "Dream Brother" comes on slow, like memory. Buckley's angelic tenor bobs in and out of the mix, almost sotto voce -- and just as you're convinced he's never going above a whisper he shouts, pushes the levels into the red and lets fly. Such was his gift, and on "Mystery" one can hear it used to its fullest potential.

"Mojo Pin," "Grace" ("This one's for the grifters") and "Moodswing Whiskey" are beautifully heartbreaking. And while Leonard Cohen wrote "Hallelujah," Buckley's passionate performance of it on "Grace" made it a signature track. The version on "Mystery" retains the power of the studio version, and even adds a surprise: a short vamp on the Smiths' "I Know it's Over."

"I know it's over, still I cling / I don't where else I can go," Buckley sings. He even seems to wink as he sings the unsettling prescient refrain: "I can feel the soil falling over my head."

Nothing good ever dies. Jeff Buckley may not be around to support "Mystery White Boy," but as I listen to it I find myself being interviewed by him, and he has a fine sense of humor. Just as I suspected he would.