If you like Jeff Buckley, try these 7 artists

Jeff Buckley made one finished album, Grace, in 1994, and died in Memphis on 29 May 1997 at 30. Almost three decades on, that one record still sits under half the playlists our readers love: Radiohead's falsetto, Frank Ocean's cracked-open ballads, the whole "sad voice, one guitar" lane. Here is where to go when Grace is worn thin.

The surprise is how far the trail runs. Buckley was not only a rock singer with a Led Zeppelin habit. He loved qawwali, the Sufi devotional music of Pakistan and India, and he said so loudly, calling Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan his Elvis. So this list goes backwards to his father and his folk heroes, and then east.

All the artists like Jeff Buckley live on our Artists like page.

1. Tim Buckley

Start with Tim Buckley, Jeff's father, who died in 1975. Jeff barely knew him, but the voice is unmistakable: a huge, elastic range that treats a melody as something to stretch rather than sing straight. Go to Starsailor (1970) and the song "Song to the Siren". It is the original template for the Buckley ache, and the place to hear what Jeff was working with and against.

2. Nick Drake

Nick Drake recorded Pink Moon in 1972 with almost nothing: a voice, a guitar and one piano overdub. It runs under 30 minutes and every second is quiet. If the stripped-down moments of Grace are what you replay, this is the same intimacy with the volume turned all the way down. Drake died in 1974 at 26.

3. Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith whispers where Buckley soars, but the pull is the same: a beautiful melody carrying something painful. Either/Or (1997) is the one, and "Between the Bars" is the first song to play. Fans of Slowdive and Radiohead usually find a home here quickly.

4. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

This is the line most Buckley fans never follow. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was the Pakistani qawwal whose voice could hold one phrase and spin it for ten minutes, building and building until the room gave way. Buckley sang Nusrat songs in his early New York café days and spoke of him with awe. Nusrat died in August 1997, three months after Buckley. Start with "Allah Hoo Allah Hoo", recorded live at WOMAD Yokohama in 1992.

5. Arooj Aftab

If one living artist closes the loop, it is Arooj Aftab. The Pakistani-born, Brooklyn-based singer has spoken about learning Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" through Buckley's recording, and her own music folds Urdu poetry, jazz and drone into something slow and hypnotic. Her song "Mohabbat" from Vulture Prince (2021) won the Grammy for Best Global Music Performance. Play it late at night.

6. ANOHNI

Before she was ANOHNI, she fronted Antony and the Johnsons, and I Am a Bird Now (2005) won the Mercury Prize. The voice is a tremulous, sacred thing that feels closest to the Buckley of "Lover, You Should've Come Over". "Hope There's Someone" is the song to start with, and it is not for a crowded commute.

7. Sheherazaad

A newer name from our own corner of the map. Sheherazaad writes what we have called Urdu folk-noir, with a debut album landing on 20 November. Her voice has the same hush-to-cry range, and the qawwali and ghazal roots are right there in the phrasing. Read our Artist Spotlight on her and press play on the session below.

Where to go next

Buckley's pull was always that he could make a love song sound like prayer. Follow the prayer and you get Nusrat, Arooj and Sheherazaad. Follow the love song and you get Drake and Smith. Either road is a good Saturday night.