Jeff Buckley

Raised in California, Buckley always resisted comparisons with his late father, folk singer Tim Buckley. Initially he adopted his stepfather's surname and was known as Scotty Moorhead, insisting that his mother, a classically trained cellist and pianist, influenced him far more than his father. He started playing guitar at five, joined a jazz band and studied music in Hollywood before moving to New York, where his discovery of Pakistani qawwali devotional music had a big effect on him, reflected in his own spiritual songwriting. Helped by his father's ex-manager Herb Cohen, he began to get solo work and in 1994 released his debut album Grace, including his beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Initial sales were slow but, acclaimed by the likes of Bob Dylan and David Bowie, it is now regarded as a classic. It was to be the only album released in his lifetime - he drowned while swimming in Memphis in May, 1997.