Buckley's "Sin-e" Expanded

Jeff Buckley's Live at Sin-e EP, the first release of the late singer-songwriter's short career, will be reissued as a two-CD set on September 2nd by Sony/Legacy. The four-song set features just Buckley and his electric guitar and was recorded at the tiny New York City club where buzz first began to build about his talent.

The original EP, released in 1993, included two Buckley originals, "Mojo Pin" (a co-write with Gary Lucas) and "Eternal Life," along with a cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do" and the Edith Piaf standard "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin." The reissue set features the twenty-seven-minute Sin-e as well as more than two hours of additional music, including covers of songs by Bob Dylan ("Just Like a Woman," "If You See Her, Say Hello" and "I Shall Be Released"), Led Zeppelin ("Night Flight), Nina Simone ("If You Knew"), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ("Yeh Jo Halka Halk Saroor Hai") and Morrison ("Sweet Thing," in addition to "Young Lovers") and songs that would eventually appear on Buckley's full-length debut, Grace, released in 1994.

Also included in the set will be a bonus DVD featuring performances of five songs performed at Sin-e and an interview with Buckley talking about the shows at the venue.

Buckley was recording his second album in Memphis in 1997 when he drowned in the Mississippi River. Sessions for that album were released a year later on the two-CD Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Live Buckley recordings, including 2000's Mystery White Boy and 2001's Live at L'Olympia, have since followed.

Live at Sin-e track listing:

Disc One

Be Your Husband
Lover, You Should Have Come Over
Mojo Pin
Song for Lovers
Grace
Reverb/The Doors
Strange Fruit
Night Flight
If You Knew
Fabulous Time for a Guinness
Unforgiven
Twelve of Never
Café Days
Eternal Life
Just Like a Woman
False Start/Calling You, Apology

Disc Two

He's Hot, He's My Elvis
Yeh Jo Halka Halk Saroor Hai
I'm a Ridiculous Person
If You See Her, Say Hello
Dink's Song
Matt Dillon/Hollies/Classic Rock Radio
Musical Chairs
Drown in My Own Tears
The Suckiest Water
The Way Young Lovers Do
Walk Through Walls
Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin
I Shall Be Released
Sweet Thing
Goodnight Bill
Hallelujah

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
• 
  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter