Buckley’s ‘Legacy’ revisited

Jeff Buckley never had a mainstream radio hit during his life. Can he have one seven years after his death?

Sony Music is giving it a big push. The company is aggressively promoting the previously unreleased song “Forget Her,” which is featured along with other bonus material on the new 10th anniversary “Legacy Edition” expanded version of “Grace.”

It’s the only full album Buckley completed and released before he drowned at age 30 after wading into the Mississippi River near Memphis in 1997. It’s been supplemented with a second disc of unreleased performances, plus a DVD with a documentary on the making of “Grace” and other features.

Despite not having the artist available to promote the release, Sony is mounting what Mary Guibert, Buckley’s mother and the custodian of his estate, terms a “full-court press” behind the song. It’s a development she says would embarrass and perhaps chagrin her son, who never saw himself as a mainstream radio artist.

“Jeff is not here to be mortified by having a hit song,” she says. “Posthumously it’s less egregious. And since he was cremated, there are no bones to spin in the grave.”

Guibert is being a bit ironic, but she adds that just releasing the song was cause for soul-searching. “Forget Her” was recorded during sessions for “Grace” and was intended to be part of the album, but Buckley pulled it at the last minute. He’d written it during a breakup of a relationship, but when he and the woman got back together, he felt it inappropriate for public consumption. That came as a great disappointment to Columbia Records chairman Don Ienner, who thought the soaring ballad was a surefire hit.

With the anniversary edition in the works early this year, though, Guibert reconsidered and consulted with people close to the situation, including the woman the song is about. The consensus was that the time was right to put the song out.

Sony executive Steve Berkowitz, who worked closely with Buckley, thinks the quality of the song and the opportunity to introduce more people to Buckley’s music make the effort right in terms of the art and the business.

“It’s just a really good song,” says Berkowitz, now senior vice president of A&R; for Sony’s Legacy catalog division, noting the posthumous attention given in recent years to such artists as English folkie Nick Drake and American songstress Eva Cassidy. “Who says you can’t promote a song from some time ago? And there are still people at the label as well as Jeff’s mom committed to the music this guy laid down.”

One important factor is the growth of Buckley’s stature since he died. Such artists as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, John Mayer and Damien Rice all have cited Buckley as a key influence.

But will it be a hit?

“It’s too soon to tell,” says Chris Patyk, music director of Los Angeles station KYSR-FM (98.7). “But I think it’s a really cool thing that they’re doing it.”

Guibert says she’ll be satisfied regardless of the song’s success. “If the song resonates, then it will mean it’s reached its time after a decade,” she says. “Let Jeff have one real hit and I’ll be happy. But if it’s not a hit, I’ll be just as happy with what we’ve done for the legacy over the last seven years.”

An agent’s take on the concert slump

Jonny Podell has long been a concert agency executive as colorful as the artists he’s worked with -- and he’s worked with pretty colorful acts, Van Halen, the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Alice Cooper among them. For years he’s been at the center of the bigger-is-better growth of the business, as a top executive at William Morris, then head of ICM’s music division and recently as cofounder of the Evolution Talent Agency.

But now he’s taking a small-is-beautiful course of action, having left Evolution to start his own New York-based boutique firm, the Jonny Podell Talent Agency, where he’s putting his fortunes largely on the careers of young start-up acts. Though he’s continuing to work with big names, he’s focused initially on nurturing the careers of rock band Silvertide and singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw.

We took the occasion of the firm’s launch to check in with Podell for his view of what’s wrong with the troubled concert business and what might be done to fix it.

First is high ticket prices.

“That’s huge,” he says. “It has to be fixed industrywide. Why is concertgoing not the same importance to kids now that it was when I was growing up? Ticket price is certainly part of it. What if all concerts were free, subsidized by corporate sponsors? Would every kid going to two concerts this summer go to four next year? Would it become more a part of what they do? To some extent, yes.”

Second is the summer glut.

“It would be nice if the concert season was spread out equally over 12 months. The business is set up so that 75% of the concerts happen in three months, so even if money is not an issue, time is an issue. This might change with the lessening of the importance of outdoor amphitheaters, which are owned by the major promoters like Clear Channel. That’s what’s driving the boat now. They start out in a deficit position with the amphitheaters and need to reduce the debt, so the season can only be in the summer. The tail is wagging the dog.”