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Dave Lory On World Cafe: A Window Into Jeff Buckley's Tremendous Artistic Life

Dave Lory (left) with Jeff Buckley (right)
Merri Cyr
/
Courtesy of the author
Dave Lory (left) with Jeff Buckley (right)

For a lot of music fans, uttering the name Jeff Buckley is tantamount to prayer, and whispering the title of his song "Eternal Life" is prophecy. While there are limited morsels of Buckley's otherworldly essence left on this earth, there are untold stories from those who knew him. It's taken Dave Lory two decades to tell some of these tales.

Dave Lory picked Jeff Buckley up in a white Ford contour van in the winter of 1994 for Buckley's first solo tour, and co-managed the remarkable star (along with George Stein) all the way through Buckley's tragic and untimely death in 1997. Lory shares many of those stories in a new book he co-authored with Jim Irvin called Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah to Last Goodbye.

Lory's book will be released on the anniversary of Buckley's death May 29, but he visited the World Cafe to give us an early preview. From their time on the road together to the triumphs and challenges release of Grace, Lory gives us a window into Buckley's tremendous artistic life. Lory also mines the painful memory of Buckley's disappearance, including the final voicemail Buckley left for Lory shortly before his death. Listen in the player above.

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Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.