Personnel: Jeff Buckley (guitar, dulcimer, harmonica, harmonium, organ, tabla); Gary Lucas , Michael Tighe (guitar); Karl Berger (strings); Loris Holland (organ); Matt Johnson (vibraphone, drums, percussion); Misha Masud (tabla).

Audio Mixer: Andy Wallace.

Photographers: David Gahr; Merri Cyr.

A mercurial talent snuffed out all too soon by a tragic early death, Jeff Buckley seemed poised to carry the singer-songwriter tradition into the new millennium when he released his one and only studio album, 1994's GRACE. With his inventive jazz-influenced phrasing and sweeping, wraith-like vocals, Buckley defied easy comparisons to his late-father, `70s cult troubadour Tim Buckley. While the flurry of reissues and rehashes that have emerged after Jeff Buckley's death have generally done little to add to his legacy, GRACE AROUND THE WORLD, a collection of live recordings approximating the track list from GRACE, comes across as more than mere barrel scrapings.

Assembled from previously unreleased live concert and television appearances from locales ranging from the U.S. and U.K. to France, Germany, and Japan, the multi-disc collection provides perhaps the most comprehensive musical portrait of Buckley yet. From Buckley-penned originals ("Last Goodbye," "Grace," "Mojo Pin"), to his signature cover of Lenoard Cohen's "Hallelujah," to the seldom-performed Qawwali-influenced "What Will You Say," the powerful performances on offer are every bit as thrilling as the studio versions. And with a companion DVD interspersed with revealing behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, a more intimate portrait of the artist is unlikely to be found.

Jeff Buckley didn't leave behind an extensive body of work: a live EP; his debut LP, Grace; a handful of B-sides; plus an unfinished album. After his untimely death, all this material has seen reissue in some form -- a deluxe version of the debut, a posthumous collection of the incomplete sophomore album -- which meant the only things still left in the vault were more live performances, specifically the ones he gave for TV stations across the globe. Sony/Legacy's 2009 set Grace: Live Around the World rounds up the bulk of these performances and offers them as a CD/DVD set, with the CD offering 12 of the 14 performances on the DVD (a "Last Goodbye" from a January 1995 session for MTV's 120 Minutes and "Vancouver" from the U.K. MTV's Most Wanted from two months later being the tunes left behind). The DVD also has a music video of "Hallelujah," a VH1 Behind the Scenes "Star Tours," and an interview, making this a clearinghouse of most of the existing broadcast footage of Buckley from the first months of 1995, something that by its very definition is designed for diehards, the diehards who will also appreciate the addition of the very good hourlong documentary Amazing Grace on the one-CD/two-DVD deluxe version of Grace: Live Around the World, especially as it focuses on his music more than his myth. The same could be said of this set at large: it captures him as a working musician, pushing his first album hard, trying to get his name and music known, not caring about anything outside of the moment -- all things that offer a potent, stirring reminder of Buckley's power and grace. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Jeff Buckley was many things, but humble wasn't one of them. Grace is an audacious debut album, filled with sweeping choruses, bombastic arrangements, searching lyrics, and above all, the richly textured voice of Buckley himself, which resembled a cross between Robert Plant, Van Morrison, and his father Tim. And that's a fair starting point for his music: Grace sounds like a Led Zeppelin album written by an ambitious folkie with a fondness for lounge jazz. At his best -- the soaring title track, "Last Goodbye," and the mournful "Lover, You Should've Come Over" -- Buckley's grasp met his reach with startling results; at its worst, Grace is merely promising. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

With GRACE, his first full-length statement as a bandleader, songwriter/guitarist Jeff Buckley sets out upon a road less travelled, avoiding the safe and predictable in favor of the ecstatic and the personal. Not that such obvious influences as the Beatles and Led Zeppelin have disappeared from this young talent's music. Buckley's voice is an exquisite, malleable instrument, and from his daring vaults into the upper registers to his long, enraptured middle-register ornaments and moans, he suggests the breakthroughs of a young Robert Plant or Van Morrison.

Songs like "The Last Goodbye" (with its coy slide intro and ragaish string backgrounds) and "Lover, You Should've Come Over" (with its late Beatles harmonies and Edith Piaf vocal ornaments) are powerful evocations of failing relationships ("too young to hold on, and too old to just break free and run"). "Lilac Wine" and "Hallelujah" feature his glassy, translucent guitar and poignant vocals in mystical, folkish settings, while "Dream Brother" achieves an almost Doors-like melancholy. Elsewhere, Buckley showcases his new band's power on "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal Life," which draw upon blues imagery and metaphors to create a subtle, hard-rocking atmosphere.