BBCDOCUMENTARY

Everybody Here Wants You

Serena Cross and her crew have put together a creatively concise biographical analysis of some of the most crucial and compelling instances related to the life and times of Jeff Buckley. Aside from this, she manages to share some of the parallels between father and son.

Tim Buckley's role in the documentary is obviously secondary, but Serena manages to keep the time allotted to Tim's presence both compelling and forthright. She is certainly aware of how essential Jeff's relationship was to his father and his music. It seems to me, that she would have needed a lot more time to tell the complete story of Tim's influence. She did a terrific job with the time constraints of a one-hour production.

This BBC4 documentary contains a countless number of scenes, still frames, archived fragments of Jeff's performances, as well as numerous personal video and audio segments. The sound bites of the various loving friends and celebrities involved were all tastefully handled with good judgment and flawless editing. It is with that in mind, that I congratulate the men and women involved in the video editing, the audio dubbing and the excellently composed camera work. These are the people who made this documentary come alive. The production staff came together under Serena's guidance and vision to give Jeff and Tim's audiences the kind of professional treatment that they are always longing for. They all came through as a winning team. I tip my hat to each and every one of these hard working, creative individuals.

Allow me to roll the credits and give each and everyone their just respects.

Narrator...Andrea Oliver

Consultant...David Browne

Rostrum...Chris Shelley

Additional Camera...Merri Cyr

Online Editor...Neil Hatton

Dubbing Mixer...Tim Wheeler

Production Manager...Jo Housden

Researcher...Maxine Kabuubi

Camera...Sebastian Sharples

Editor...Andrew Quigley

Associate Producer...Pamela Esterson

Executive Producer...Mark Cooper

Producer and Director...Serena Cross

Serena Cross did a wonderful job of telling Jeff's story both musically and visually. I'm sure that some credit goes to David Browne as well. In my humble opinion, an enormous amount of the documentary seemed to be a visual extension of David's book.

RANDOM THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING THE DOCUMENTARY

Seamless editing, constant visual transitions and computerized digital imaging kept the program moving along at a comfortable pace.

It was interesting to hear Mary Guibert admit that Jeff "may have been influenced by his father".

Mary Guibert also pointed out how Jeff went out of his way to avoid the very same pitfalls that eventually killed Tim.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Hal Wilner describe his thoughts about the Tim Buckley tribute at Saint Ann's in Brooklyn and Jeff's experiences at Sine'.

I thought that Merri Cyr's comments were all "on the money".

Liz Fraser's heart-felt memories were all so honest and revealing.

We get a brief glimpse of the downtown New York City music and art scene when Jeff arrived in town.

I enjoyed hearing that Jeff listened to RUSH, YES, THE POLICE and of course LED ZEPPELIN. I still listen to those folks.

It was important how the documentary pointed out Jeff's prowess with the guitar. Many people my age (53), think of Jeff as a singer more than anything else. Jimmy Page calls Jeff a "guitar wizard". Pretty impressive, coming from one of the "greats".

The narrator pointed out the tension between art and commerce had begun to fascinate Jeff. Dan Gordon said: "Jeff was really curious. He wanted to know when it was good for Tim; when did it turn bad? Why did he fuck up?"

It was great to hear Judy Buckley and Lee Underwood's descriptions of when they first saw Jeff leaning up against a wall in the same pose as the one on Tim's first album.

It was nice to see Larry Beckett, if only for two short sound bites.

The clarity of the Boboquivari footage was encouraging. It's nice to see that there is a clean master of one of Tim's Starsailor bands out there somewhere. Hopefully, we will soon see the BBC4 Documentary here in the states, perhaps on Public Television and maybe it could be followed by the complete KCET Boboquivari performance. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

SOME QUOTES OF INTEREST

Chrissie Hynde: Tim Buckley seemed to be just about everything that was right about the hippie-sixties. So, if you really had faith in it, and belief, as I did then he just epitomized everything that was good about the 60's.

Larry Beckett: "Grace" was in a similar environment like his father's in the mid-sixties; where he was allowed to include things like Corpus Christi Carol or anything whether it was commercial or not commercial.

Brad Pitt: Jeff tapped into something. And, he was the conduit. And, he makes me think about where art comes from, and where does a true genius come from.

Jimmy Page: I made a point to go and hear him sing and it was absolutely scary.

Brad Pitt: There's an undercurrent to his music. There's something you can't pinpoint, like the best of films or the best of art. There's something going on underneath. And, there's a truth there. And, I find this absolutely haunting. It's under my skin. On a technical basis, he's Plant and Page in one. It's mind-blowing.

Mary Guibert: Each individual area of responsibility, he felt. The one about the music, the one about his personal life, the one about his band, the one about where he was going to go in terms of his future in the industry. These responsibilities could have had an accumulative effect on him.

Parker Kindred (Jeff's drummer '96-'97): All I know is that Jeff needed to get out of New York. He was going insane here. On a good day, the city is an incredible place to live. On a bad day, the city can eat your soul.

Jeff Buckley: I don't hate my father. And, I don't resent him existing. It's just something that I've grown up with all my life. I mean, not being a part of the life that has so much energy over here and then having my own life.

When you're a kid, people assume that you don't have a mind of your own, which, at a very early age, I did. It's my way of resisting people's trivialization of my music. If it should be known, and it should, I have a great admiration for Tim and what he did. And, some of the things he did, completely embarrassed me to hell. But, the things that were great, I'll hold up against anything. But, that's a respect as a fellow artist because, he really wasn't my father. My father was Ron Moorehead. But, because I've done so many interviews and I look at the page, I think that the feeling that comes across is not accurate. It shouldn't be remembered as that because it looks very bitter.

I strongly recommend that you experience "Everybody Here Wants You" first hand. It is a must-see for all Buckley fans, both old and new.

Thanks go out to Serena Cross and all involved for keeping this presentation so reel.

Jack Brolly

Host of "Room 109, Pleasant Street"