Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96

1	Dream Brother 8:48
2	I Woke up in a Strange Place 5:05
3	Mojo Pin 6:06
4	Lilac Wine 5:19
5	What Will You Say 7:34
6	Last Goodbye 4:58
7	Eternal Life 5:58
8	Grace 5:39
9	Moodswing Whiskey 5:36
10	The Man That Got Away 3:47
11	Kanga Roo 10:23
12	Hallelujah/I Know It's Over [Medley] 9:17

Barnes & Noble

For many, the legacy of Jeff Buckley, who drowned in the Mississippi River in May 1997, is one of what might have been. And while those folks will find much to mull over on this collection from the son of singer Tim Buckley, MYSTERY WHITE BOY is as much a celebration of what this singular singer-songwriter actually accomplished and stood for as it is an epitaph. Culled from three years' worth of live performances, the sprawling set spotlights both Buckley's offbeat but enticing songwriting and his adventuresome spirit as a stylist. In originals such as "Mojo Pin," one can hear the distillation of a wide array of influences, but it's Buckley's choice of covers that really illuminates his inner workings. From an appropriately twisted rendition of Big Star's "Kanga Roo" to a tender, gender-bending version of the jazz standard "The Man Who Got Away," Buckley allows his voice to swoop and soar in shaman-like fashion. Still, he never allowed the proceedings to get too far out of control: By the closing notes of his eerily prescient medley of Leonard Cohen's elegiac "Hallelujah" and the Smiths' "I Know It's Over," Buckley sounds like a man who knows he's said it all. It's a shame that he didn't get a chance to come up with a P.S. David Sprague

All Music Guide

It's hard to judge Jeff Buckley's live collection Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96 without thinking of what might have been, without realizing that he never fulfilled the extent of his potential. If that sounds harsh, it's not meant to be -- it's more of an acknowledgment of the tragedy of his premature death. After all, Mystery White Boy simply wouldn't exist if Buckley was alive when it was released in the spring of 2000. That wasn't the case with Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, the first posthumous release of his unreleased recordings. Those tapes were the foundation of what would have become his second album; the tapes that formed Mystery White Boy were DAT recordings of his supporting tour for Grace (which the album was named after), many of which weren't intended for release at any time. Once Buckley unexpectedly passed away, they became a core part of his legacy, particularly because his concerts were notoriously unpredictable and thrilling, sometimes transcendent (at least according to partisan fans). Mystery White Boy doesn't quite convey that sense of majesty, largely due to the uneven sound quality and the fact that it's a compilation, thereby lacking the ebb and flow of a real live show. Buckley's mother Mary Guibert claims in the liner notes that the compilation worked better than any individual concert, and she may well be right, since the album has a consistency that a full concert may not have. Still, it's hard not to slightly miss the dramatic rhythm of a real show. Even so, Mystery White Boy is a valuable document, since it does prove that Buckley could transcend time and place with a live show. That might only be of interest to hardcore fans, but they'll still thrill to this, all the same. Stephen Thomas Erlewine