The Beautiful Buckley Boys: three new films

'Greetings from Tim Buckley' takes its name from the 1972 album by Tim called 'Greetings from L.A.'; it juxtaposes the two Buckleys' lives, both cut tragically short.  In it, the younger Buckley is played by Penn Badgely,(above) Ben Rosenfield plays his father. It was shown at the Toronto film festival last September and is soon due for general release. Directed by Daniel Algrant, it shows Jeff's life immediately prior and up to his legendary performance of his father's songs in 1991.All the music in the film comes from the Tim Buckley estate, except for Hallelulah by Leonard Cohen, which Jeff Buckley famously covered on 'Grace', his only studio album. Jeff grew up in Orange County as Scott Moorhead, with his mother and step-father Ron Moorhead, only taking on his real first name and his father's surname after his father's death in 1975.

The second film is  'A Pure Drop' (also the name of a biography by Jeff Apter), in it the Australian director Brendan Fletcher examines the relationship, or lack of it, between the father and son. The film's writer, Train Houston, says it is a 'look at the life of a gifted and troubled musician who was haunted by a father whom he hardly knew.'

Jeff Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert, holds rights to her son's music and is the executive producer of the 'official' biopic, 'Mystery White Boy'. (In 2000, three years after Jeff's accidental drowning, she had compiled a selection of live recordings which were released under the same name.) Patricia Arquette will be playing Jeff's mother in  this film, Reeve Carney is the lead, directed by Amy Berg. David Browne's book 'Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley' has been used to help shape the story.

Penn Badgely/Jeff Buckley/Reeve Carney

Tim Buckley had several acclaimed hit albums from late sixties until he died of a drug overdose in 1975. He had divorced Mary a month before Jeff was born. Jeff's public singing debut was at a tribute concert for Tim, called 'Greetings from Tim Buckley', where he sang 'I never asked to be your mountain' a song his father had written about him as a child (and his mother) He concluded the concert with  the beautiful 'Once I was'. Buckley later stated 'It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral,that I'd never been able to tell him anything. I used that show to pay my last respects.'