Jimmy Page’s opinion on Jeff Buckley

The American singer and guitarist Jeff Buckley was one of the most praised musicians who appeared in the 90s, releasing in 1994 his only album “Grace”. He had always been a huge fan of bands like Led Zeppelin and the guitarist Jimmy Page was one of his biggest inspirations.

But what was Page’s opinion on Jeff and his music?

What is Jimmy Page’s opinion on Jeff Buckley

Jeff’s career was tragically cut short in May 29, 1997 in Memphis, when one day the musician decided to go swimming fully dressed in the Wolf River Harbor, reportedly singing the chorus of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”.

The wake of a tugboat swept him away from the shore and under water. The body of the 30 year-old artist was found only a week later. He had a lot of famous fans, including Jimmy Page who even said he was one of the best singers he heard in decades.

“I was really affected by Jeff Buckley when I heard him perform. I heard one of his last concerts in Australia, penultimate concert. It was just absolutely staggering, he was absolutely… I mean, he just touched every emotion in you, you know. He was really superb and a total class of his own as you know. Because you’ve heard so many singers and you know that they got that from Jeff Buckley.”

“He is iconic and really just in a total class of his own as I say. So I was really deeply affected by his music and I thought he was a master. It was tragic to hear that he died. But there was a weird irony when somebody said, I’ve heard that, that he was singing ‘Whole Lotta Love’. He had sort of said, that was in Australia, that would be really good if we’d done something together. Can you imagine how I would have loved to have done that with him? But he started doing a second album and then (stopped) and started up again. It’s a tragic loss, my God he was good.” Jimmy Page said that in an interview with RTL2 Station in 2014 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Jimmy Page said that was scary to see Jeff Buckley singing live

Page was not only impressed by Jeff’s talents on record. He once said that he was scary to see him performing live, because it really showed how good he was. “He was the best singer that had appeared probably… I’ve not been too liberal about this if I say the past two decades. (..) I started to play ‘Grace’ constantly. The more I listened to the album, the more I heard, the more I appreciated Jeff, Jeff’s talents and Jeff’s technical ability to which he was just a wizard. It was close to being my favorite album of the decades. (…) We (Me and Plant) actually made a point of going to hear him play and sing, it was absolutely scary.”

Jimmy Page continued:

“One of the things (that was) a little frightening was that I was convinced that he probably did things in tuning and he didn’t. He was doing things in standard tunings and I thought: ‘Oh dear, he really is clever, isn’t he? (…) He quite clearly had his feet on the ground and his head and his imagination was flying way, way, way out there beyond.” Jimmy Page said that in the documentary “Jeff Buckley: Everybody Here Wants You” (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Dowd, Buckley’s close friend, told Uncut Magazine in 2014 that the musician told him that he actually cried when he had the chance to meet Jimmy Page. According to him, Page was the godfather of Jeff’s music because Led Zeppelin really was a huge inspiration for the late artist. He said that Buckley was obsessed with the Hard Rock band. The musician could play every guitar and bass parts from all the songs and even some parts of keyboards and drums.

Jeff was the son of Tim Buckley, the influential musician who was active from 1966 until 1975 when he passed away at the age of 28. Jeff was born in the same year his late father started his musical career.