Uncovering Jeff Buckley's Latino roots

The late rock star's Panamanian mother, Mary Guibert, gets her due in a new doc.

- BY SUZY EXPOSITO

JEFF BUCKLEY with his mother, Mary Guibert.

Their relationship is at the core of "It's Never Over."

Mamá... you got some f—ing cojones, baby.

These were some of the last words that legendary singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley left for his mother on an answering machine — not long before he tragically drowned in a river in Memphis, Tenn., in the spring of 1997.

Just three years earlier, Buckley, a staple of New York’s downtown coffeehouse scene, had released his debut album, “Grace” — a collection of eclectic guitar confessionals and cover songs, propelled by the androgyne elasticity of his four-octave vocal range. The orchestral rock elegance of “Grace” drew a stark contrast from the grunge fare that conquered the airwaves in the early '90s.

It would also be the only full-length album he released while alive.

GUIBERT and a young Jeff Buckley sing along to a Spanish nursery rhyme, "Que Lindo Los Manitos."

Helmed by Academy Award-nominated director Amy Berg, the new documentary “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” recalls the story of Buckley's life and death, primarily and most intimately by the women who loved him most: his former partners, artists Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser; and of course, his mother, Mary Guibert.

Buckley was born on Nov. 17, 1966, to Guibert and her high school sweetheart, who became the beloved antiwar folk singer Tim Buckley. Yet before the release of “It’s Never Over,” Buckley's Latino heritage had long been eclipsed in the media by that of his famous, yet estranged father.

“There’s somuch emphasis on the Buckley side of things,” says Guibert, who calls me from her home in Northern California. “But [Tim was] just somebody flying through the night.”