THE BARGAIN BUY: Jeff Buckley; Mystery White Boy (Sony)

Jeff Buckley -- who died in '97 -- didn't have much time to make an impression, but the scant recorded evidence in his lifetime was enormously impressive. And of course posthumous releases like the So Real album, and these live tracks taken from shows on his world tour in '95 and '96 confirmed the feeling that we had lost a wonderful, if possibly still unfocussed, talent.

Buckley was trying to decide which (of the many possible) direction he should go in when he went for a swim in one of the most dirty and trecherous parts of the river in Memphis.

Certainly he had the range -- from grunge rock to hushed balladry and an octave-denying voice -- and these songs are listened to with something approcahing reverence by his audiences.

(If they'd recorded him at the St James in Auckland they would have heard some jerk yell out "hippie" when he lit incense to get rid of the smell of the old theatre.)

But here he is on a nine minute version of Dream Brother, his signature song Hallelujah (coupled with a snippet of The Smiths' I Know It's Over), Mojo Pin, Lilac Wine, Last Goodbye and Eternal Life which were on his album Grace. And a 10 minute treatment of Alex Chilton's Kanga Roo (always a live favourite), Moodswing Whiskey which sounds improvised, largely unaccompanied on Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin's The Man That Got Away and others.

It also comes with a bonus disc with live versions of That's All I Ask, Lover You Should Have Come Over and the soaring So Real.

This came out in 2000, so why should we mention it now?

Aside from it being quite extraordinary -- that voice! that voice! -- it is now only $10 at JB Hi-Fi stores here.

Arguably essential, but undeniably a recommended Bargain Buy.