Last May, Jeff Buckley went missing from the banks of the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. Less than a week later, the singer/songwriter was found drowned at the foot of Beale Street. He was 30-years-old.

To celebrate this gifted singer, MTV News dipped into the archives to share one of our last conversations with him. On January 10th, 1995, Buckley and his bass player Mick Grondahl sat down for an interview for MTV's 120 Minutes. Here is that interview in its entirety.

MTV: Can you just talk briefly, I mean with your father, and mother was actually a classical pianist and...

Jeff: Yeah, I was basically raised by my mother. Me, my little brother and she. I was raised by my mother's side of the family and there was music all the time. And my grandmother, she had this acoustic guitar, this gut string, in her closet. And I found it and I claimed it for my own. And that's how I started playing. But I really didn't start playing, really getting proficient until I was about thirteen, and that was about when I got my first electric guitar. Electric guitar. You know how that goes. An electric guitar comes into a kid's life, it'll just... the potential is like to take him away forever. And that's what happened. [500k QuickTime]

MTV: And that's about when you started your first songs, at thirteen?

Jeff: Fourteen.

MTV: Were you in bands growing up...

Jeff: All the time. All the time. Somehow, you know? We moved, moved around a lot, so it was always, constantly settling down and picking up. So if I got anything happening, it ah, you know, had to leave it.

MTV: And then you moved to Hollywood?

Jeff: I let my mom move on when I was about seventeen. And I uh stayed where I was and finished high school and then I went to Los Angeles. Lived in Hollywood.

MTV: And how many, where you in bands then? Is that when you started...

Jeff: No, just basically scuffled around. And I was in projects, just trying to keep afloat. Little home recording sessions for friends and stuff like that. When I met Mickey is basically the first really good band I'd ever been in. Ever.

MTV: And this is really the first, 'cause you, you were solo for such a long time.

Jeff: I went solo in order to get somebody like Mickey to come around. I found Matt. And I had always known Michael, the guitar player. It all came together like three weeks before the recording of Grace. About three weeks?

Mick: Three to six weeks.

Jeff: Three to six weeks.

Mick: Not much.

Jeff: So basically I came in like a whirlwind and ruined their lives. For the better, I think?

Mick: Yes.

Jeff: But since it's like ruining your life for the better, that's what I did.