A new book will provide an intimate look at Jeff Buckley’s creative process and personal life using reproductions of his handwritten lyrics, diary entries and letters. The singer’s mother, Mary Guibert, co-wrote the upcoming Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice with Rolling Stone Senior Writer and Buckley biographer David Browne. The book will come out on October 15th.
The singer-songwriter meticulously kept journals of his daily life, his goals, inspirations and struggles his entire life, and the book draws heavily on those. It also contains reproductions of memorabilia like notes and unpublished lyrics, as well as previously unpublished photos. Drawing on all this source material, the book offers an account of Buckley’s life, from growing up in Orange County, California to journal entries written in the months leading up to his death in May 1997.
“There have been and probably always will be those who wish to speak for my son, take credit for his success or put words in his mouth,” Guibert, who is also the executor of her son’s estate, said in a statement. “In choosing these pages to share with the world, I’m giving him the chance to speak with his own voice, for the record … and for his fans to see what a sweet, funny, amazing human being he was.”
“As Jeff’s biographer, I often wondered what made him wander down a particular path in his life or music,” said Browne, who previously chronicled Buckley’s life, and his father’s, in Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley. “With His Own Voice, we now have a better sense of those choices, thanks to these never-before-published journals, letters and musings. We’re honored to present these to world and let Jeff have his say on so many aspects of his life.”
Browne also recently published Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup.
In other Buckley news, a graphic novel adaptation of the only album Buckley released in his lifetime, Grace, is due out this spring. Guibert contributed archival material for the visual interpretation of the singer’s life.