charts, and only one single, “Last Goodbye,” made any kind of dent on rock radio. Right at the album’s center sits “Hallelujah,” the set’s longest track.įor all the high expectations, though, and the mystique it would later acquire, Grace was a flop it didn’t make the Top 100 on the U.S.
A version of Benjamin Britten’s “Corpus Christi Carol” comes near the record’s end. The album’s fourth track is Nina Simone’s “Lilac Wine,” a staple of his live show. The final song selection included seven songs written or cowritten by Buckley three of his wide range of covers also made the cut, illustrating his sprawling tastes and influences. Jeff Buckley’s Grace album was released by Columbia Records in August 1994, amid a flurry of hype. The book is available December 4 from Atria Books. Alan Light’s The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” explores how a random album track on Jeff Buckley’s commercial flop Grace- written by an old master, Leonard Cohen - went on to change the course of music history.