AMBLING sleepily on stage alone and late at the City Varieties in Leeds, bassist Mick Grondahl lost in action somewhere, Jeff Buckley conjured a version of The Way Young Lovers Do. "I haven’t done that for ages," he apologised, but those 1995 moments were still electric.

These newly released early Columbia recordings capture that solo intimacy. Having won the bidding war for the Buckley voice and his seemingly limitless potential, the label gave their protégé time to find his direction. Still minus a band, in February 1993 Buckley was recorded over the space of three days and these 36 minutes are the result.

Before Grace, Buckley was first and foremost an interpreter of other people’s songs, and You And I preserves some of those covers. Dylan’s Just Like A Woman is searing, tearing the soul from the song. As with the expanded version of Live At Sin-E, we also get to hear Buckley trying on other people’s voices including Robert Plant and bluesman Bukka White.

Even Sly Stone gets a shake down. Buckley's attempts to add histrionics to Morrissey are only partly successful, although fans will get a frisson as he sings "Mother I can feel the soil falling over my head" on I Know It’s Over; another early intimation of what was to come.

The title track is elusive, a sketch at best, but a startling early version of Grace (which he had been performing with Gods And Monsters, alongside co-writer Gary Lucas) is wonderful; the sound of a musical thoroughbred already in full stride.

Reconsidered 19 years since he drowned, Buckley’s voice remains unsurpassed, flighty, octave hopping and heart-breaking but suffers from having spawned so many overblown imitators. You And I is the sound of the Buckley barrel being scraped, and while it has its sublime moments, this is unequivocally not the second coming of Grace.