91 N Rembert St Memphis

 

Last year I made it a point to be in Memphis on the anniversary of Jeff's death, a fan pilgrimage of sorts. This year I was driving through and by chance was there at the same time. These are some pictures I took of his house on Rembert St. No one lives there so I went around back and took a look through the windows. I wonder what the neighbors think haha!

it was like watching van gogh

“I was the only songwriter in Nashville allowed in at the time. There were police round the building. Bob was doing a great thing for Nashville, giving it credibility. I never said a word to him - I didn’t dare - but I spoke to his wife and son. In Nashville at the time, if you didn’t cut three songs in three hours, you were being extravagant and wasteful. He just went in there and sat down at the piano, all by himself, and wrote all night long. The band were playing ping pong and waiting for him. I’d never seen anything like it. I respected him. To me, he lifted songwriting up to an art form that was worth committing your life to, like poetry... To me, it was like watching Van Gogh go through different stages of his painting and his inspiration. He’s working all the time now, Bob is.”

Kris Kristofferson was a janitor at Columbia Studio in Nashville when Dylan was recording Blonde on Blonde

Memphis

In February 1997, Jeff and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where their attempts to record proved futile. Still feeling creatively blocked, he stayed on in Memphis after the band returned to New York and secured a Monday night gig at a bar called Barrister's, where he worked on new songs. Things looked like they were finally coming together - Jeff was playing and, he said, coming to terms with his father's legacy. Happy with his new songs, on May 29, 1997, Jeff's band returned to Memphis to work. But it was not to be. Within five minutes of them walking into Jeff's one-bedroom house, the phone rang. It was Jeff's friend, Keith Foti.

According to Browne, Jeff and Keith had driven to nearby Mud Island River Park to play music and watch the sunset. Just after 9pm, Jeff decided to take a swim - fully clothed and still wearing his boots - in the Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi, known by locals to be a dangerous swimming spot. Minutes later, he was floating, singing Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". Keith stayed ashore and, after moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake of a passing boat, looked up to real-ise that Jeff was gone. He wouldn't be seen again until his body was found on June 4.

Initial speculation was that he'd committed suicide, but the autopsy confirmed that he had no illegal drugs in his system, and his estate insists it was simply a tragic accident. When Jeff had read his father's obituaries in 1975, he'd been devastated to see no mention of himself. Little did he know that, after just six years of fame, his own tributes would far outshine those of his dad. Mourning the lost of a huge talent, U2's Bono stated, 

"Jeff was a pure drop in an ocean of noise."

The Haunted Rock Star, Marie Claire (Australia), October 2001