Product Description

Jeff Buckley You And I on 180g 2LP

Very First Studio Recordings Made by Jeff Buckley for Columbia Records Virtually Unheard for More Than 2 Decades!

Recently Discovered in the Sony Music Archives During the Research for the 20th Anniversary Edition of Buckley’s Grace Album

Featuring 8 Covers & First-Ever Studio Recording of Signature Song, “Grace” & “Dream of You and I”

These 10 tracks (most of them cut in Steve Addabbo’s Shelter Island Sound studio in February 1993) have gone virtually unheard for more than two decades. Recently discovered in the Sony Music archives during the research for the 20th anniversary edition of Buckley’s Grace album, the performances on You and I are a revelation, an intimate portrait of the artist performing a variety of cover songs and original music expressing a range of emotion channeled through his singular sensibility.

The songs on You and I reveal, in part, the eclectic scope of Buckley’s extraordinary musical tastes and talent. The covers on the album include Jeff’s highly personal interpretations of songs written by Bob Dylan (“Just Like a Woman”); Sylvester Stewart (“Everyday People,” recorded by Sly & the Family Stone); Joe Green (“Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’,” recorded by Louis Jordan, Ray Charles and others); Bob Telson (“Calling You,” recorded by Jevetta Steele for the 1987 film Bagdad Cafe); Morrissey and Johnny Marr (“The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” and “I Know It’s Over,” recorded by the Smiths); Booker T. Washington “Bukka” White (“Poor Boy Long Way from Home,” from a 1939 “field” recording made by John Lomax) and John Paul Jones/Jimmy Page/Robert Plant (“Night Flight,” recorded by Led Zeppelin).

“Any time I take a cover and wear it on my sleeve, it’s because it had something to do with my life and still marks a time in my life when I needed that song more than anything ever,” Jeff Buckley explained to Plane Truth fanzine in a 1994 interview.

Rounding out You and I are two pieces of original music: the first-ever studio recording of his signature song, “Grace” and “Dream of You and I,” a mysterious and haunting piece which informs the deeply intimate and profoundly personal mood of the album. Long rumored to exist, but previously unheard outside the studio, the performances on You and I have never been bootlegged or released to the public in any form. These seminal recordings are a fan’s Holy Grail, a rare opportunity to hear Jeff Buckley in peak form, developing his artistry through a series of spellbinding solo performances, each one captured in pristine sonic detail.

“As we began to explore how we might celebrate the 20th anniversary of Jeff Buckley’s Grace, the vault -as it still occasionally and unexpectedly will – presented us with an unbelievable gift: this ‘lost’ cache of studio recordings from the period,” said Adam Block, President, Legacy Recordings. “We quickly realized how remarkable they were. They offer an incredible, rare glimpse of an artist, alone, in the sacred space that is the studio. There’s an intimacy and an honesty to the performances that’s literally breathtaking. You & I is an important addition to Jeff’s recorded legacy and will be a thrill for both his devoted longtime fans and newcomers alike.”

You and I is simply that, just Jeff Buckley and the listener alone together in the studio while he plays and sings the music that means the most to him in that moment. The newly found solo tracks on You and I showcase Jeff Buckley’sotherworldly once-in-a-lifetime voice, transcending technique, making a direct connection between the earthly and the divine. Named one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, Buckley was also an accomplished electric guitarist, the 6-string accompaniments on these recordings adding astounding depth and sublime emotional dimensions to these unforgettable performances.

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