The Fans

Salmon in a Ring-Shaped River - Part Four

Jeff Buckley

With a little bit of luck I could have met Jeff in July 1991 in Los Angeles. Instead, Judy gave me his first demo tape with four tracks. Unfortunately, it was too late when I heard of the Tim Buckley tribute concert in April 91 in New York, organized by Hal Willner.

It was there that Jeff sang I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, leaving a strong impression on the critics present. On February 14, 1997 the Zurich radio station Lora (Polo and Fritz) invited me to a four-hour morning show on the occasion of Tim Buckley’s 50th birthday. I talked extensively - amongst other things – about my trip to Los Angeles. Asked about Jeff Buckley, I praised his development and I pointed out that in my opinion he would do everything the right way in order to avoid the perennial comparisons with his super-father.

I was deeply awed by the way Jeff learned his skills through solo performances, playing with the charisma of a street musician in small New York cafés for years, and how he accompanied himself in a boyish, but very virtuosic, fashion on the electric guitar, impressively documented on the posthumous CD Live At Sin-é

I was also very moved by his debut CD Grace at the age of 27, the same age at which his father had released his last work. Unfortunately, I was wrong. A few weeks later Jeff Buckley died under mysterious circumstances, when he jumped into the Mississippi river with his clothes on in order to take a refreshing bath.

During interviews the early days, when he did not close up against the questions about his father, Jeff spoke in a derogatory way about the commercially unsuccessful late phase of his father. Jeff had an incredibly strong debut in 1994, and he managed to blow away that late phase of his father with one blow. Everything went according to plan, Sony had great hopes in the rising star, he went on tour all over the world with his band, and countless limited edition singles were released in France, Holland, Japan and Australia.

On July 16, 1995 he played at the Gurtenfestival in Berne, Switzerland. Before it started, Jeff and two musicians came walking towards me, but I did not want to disturb his concentration before the concert - besides I wasn’t sure how to address him.

The performance blew away my final doubts. I was fascinated by the unrivaled grace with which he modulated his voice, but also by the extreme range of songs from Kick out The Jams by the MC5 to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Euphoric, I tried to congratulate Jeff, but the backstage space was completely inaccessible due to modern security measures. In February 1998, I met the greatest Swiss female Jeff Buckley fan, Alex Reiter from Berne in the Rec Rec store. We talked about his unique performance in Switzerland, his death and his funeral. Alex did not only manage to fly to New York in time, she also managed to meet Jeff’s mother Mary Guibert, to attend the public and the private funeral ceremony.

With my friend Daniel Waldner, I had founded Rec Rec mail order in September 1979. Soon Daniel became the leading force through hard effort and optimism, and in August 81 he opened the Rec Rec store and in February 83 the Rec Rec label. In 1995, the firm had grown to the most important independent distributor in Switzerland with fifteen employees. During a harmless hike in the Swiss mountains an hour’s drive away from Zurich, Daniel had a fatal accident on September 3 with his fourteen-month-old son Valentin, when they fell over a steep hill.

For a few minutes his wife had Barbara lost him in the rising fog, she survived the drama with her eight-year-old son Johannes. On the evening of May 28 in 1997, I invited Barbara over for dinner and for the first time since the accident, we had the opportunity to talk about everything.

We were preoccupied by the same questions that many people had when Tim and Jeff Buckley died, a subject on which David Browne has written an entire book, Dream Brother (2001): “Would it have been possible to avoid the accident?“ “How high was his own allotment“ (compared to an airplane-crash?) “What symbolism speaks through the accident?“ “How does the event fit into his previous life history?“ A few hours after this four-hour, highly emotional, and enormously disturbing talk, Jeff Buckley jumped into the water with his shoes on...

The last words however go to Joan Wasser, Jeff’s girlfriend at the time of his death. I had been following her development as a viola player over the years and in 2006 she impressed me with her first work as a singer under the name of Joan as Police Woman.

In November 2006, she performed with her trio in the Zurich club Moods to an intimate audience of 120 people. The delicate version of So Real touched and impressed me deeply, and sounded to my ears like a conciliating echo to Buckley father and son.

...veit f.stauffer was born 19th january 1959 on the 2nd floor of münstergasse 8 in the old town of zürich as the third child of serge & doris stauffer, both photographers and later co-founders of the privat artschool farbe & form. he played drums with the swiss groups razzia (1975-76), feifi & edi (1977-78) & city vibes (1979-80). he released three books: his autobiography "halbweiss" (1983), the rec rec katalog 1986-88 (1986) & the comic relief-photo booklet "der stationsvorstand" (2000). he lived at different places in zürich, since 1994 unmarried with maria gasche and has two kids from earlier relationships: orlando (*1985) & raffaela (*1989). he is very proud to celebrate his 50th birthday in 2009 on the same day edgar allan poe will be 200 years...

Original liner notes translated by Katrin Jeanne Lässer
US internet edition by Llew Llewellyn
The original german version can read at www.recrec-shop.ch