Although it peaked at No. 149 on The Billboard 200 and received most of its contemporary notoriety for the single "Last Goodbye," "Grace" has come to be viewed as one of the most compelling debut albums of the past decade. It has gone on to sell 584,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The album has been digitally remastered by George Marino, who has worked on projects by everyone from AC/DC to Led Zeppelin and Elvis Presley. The 10-track set is presented here in its original sequence of "Mojo Pin," "Grace," "Last Goodbye," "Lilac Wine," "So Real," "Hallelujah," "Lover, You Should've Come Over," "Corpus Christi Carol," "Eternal Life" and "Dream Brother."
At deadline, the second disc is slated to feature 13 tracks, including five solo numbers recorded during the "Grace" sessions at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, N.Y. Those cuts are covers of Hank Williams' "Lost Highway," Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Alligator Wine," Bob Dylan's "Mama, You Been on My Mind," a medley of the blues standards "Parchman Farm Blues" and "Preachin' Blues" and Nina Simone's "The Other Woman."
Rounding out the disc is the previously unreleased "Forget Her," which was intended for "Grace" but replaced on the album by "So Real"; the Nag Champa mix of "Dream Brother" and a cover of Big Star's "Kanga-Roo" from the promo-only "Peyote Radio Theatre" EP; a previously unreleased version of "Dream Brother" with alternate lyrics; unreleased live versions of "Eternal Life" and the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams"; the Shudder To Think collaboration "I Want Someone Badly" from the "First Love, Last Rights" soundtrack; and the unreleased "Strawberry Street," a 1993 rehearsal recording made with bassist Tom Goodkind and drummer John McNally.
Content for the DVD is still taking shape, but it is confimed to include videos for "Eternal Life," "So Real," "Last Goodbye" and "Grace," plus interviews with Buckley's bandmates and participants in the "Grace" sessions. Other footage expected to make the final cut finds Buckley scoring a string section and in-studio takes of "Hallelujah" and "Grace" that first appeared on the electronic press kit used to promte the album.
Since he drowned on May 29, 1997, in Memphis, Buckley has been the subject of a slew of posthumous releases, including last year's Legacy edition of "Live at Sin-e," 2002's five-disc boxed set "The Grace EPs" and 1998's "Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk," which featured material intended for the follow-up to "Grace."


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