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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9875 Posts |
 Posted - 10/07/2013 : 20:56:57
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JACKSON C. FRANK !1943-1999)
MYSTERY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msWzLvvDutw
- T.J. McGrath (From Dirty Linen #57 April/May '95)
Rumors. There's a new one once a month. He died in a plane crash back in 1967. He fled America for Sweden and married a woman there. He tends bar somewhere in Montana. Or the best one... he's living in Detroit under an assumed name where he manages a gas station.
Jackson C. Frank. He's the most famous folksinger of the 1960s that no one has ever heard of. As an American singer-songwriter looking for adventure, he left for England in 1965 and while in London influenced scores of young, impressionable Brit folkies with his songs and melodies. He played at numerous folk clubs all over England and stories have been told that he was one of the best performers of his time. Landing a quick record deal, he cut an album of his songs with Paul Simon as producer. The album was an immediate hit over in England and Scotland, but when the album was released in the United States it was a commercial disaster. The album, Jackson C. Frank, has long been out-of-print and is impossible to find. Many have heard of Frank by way of Sandy Denny, who covered his material in concert and on record, and who was also an ex-girlfriend of his. Other artists who have tried their hands at "covering" a Frank song include Nick Drake, Tom Paxton, Bert Jansch, and Dave Cousins. David Fricke, music editor at Rolling Stone, calls him one of the best forgotten songwriters of the 1960s. Where is Frank and what has he been doing for the last 30 years?
After numerous phone calls and quite a few dead-end leads, I finally made contact with Frank himself. He was down on his luck and living in a senior center. We immediately made arrangements to do a phone interview.
Because he is severely disabled (both of his legs are crippled and he has lost his eyesight in one eye), he has been living on state aid. For many years, especially in the 1980s, he was homeless and roaming the streets of New York City or in the hospital receiving treatment for depression. For the past year he has been residing in the Woodstock area. He still makes it to a few clubs on occasion.
Frank's voice is steady and his words are clear, direct, and carefully chosen. "I was born in Buffalo, New York in 1943," he said. "We soon moved to Elyria, Ohio, and it was way out in the country. I was headed in the direction of singing as a kid. I had a very high tenor voice, and it was quite beautiful compared to the way I sing now."
He hesitated, just a little, when he talked about the most catastrophic event of his life. "A few years later we moved to an upstate New York town called Cheektowaga, when I was 11. The brand new school there was made out of brick but it had a wooden annex that was used for music instruction. It was heated by a big furnace. One day during music lessons in the annex the furnace blew up. I was almost killed on that day. Most of my classmates were killed in that terrible fire. I still am badly scarred because of that accident. I spent seven months in the hospital recovering from the burns experienced during the fire."
Recovering from the fire was painfully slow for Frank. His school tutor, Charlie Casatelli, came to the hospital to help Frank with his lessons. He brought along an old guitar to help keep his student's spirits up. It was then that Frank decided that he wanted to play the guitar. He bought a Montgomery Ward guitar with some money his mother let him borrow, and he soon knew a few chords. He practiced until he convinced his mother to buy him an electric guitar. With his first "real" guitar -- a Gretsch Streamliner -- under his arm, he was able to learn enough chords to play rock and roll.
Elvis was a major influence on Frank at the time. His mother took him down south and to Graceland when he was 13 to help him recuperate. The King not only came walking down the driveway and shook hands with Frank, he took him inside Graceland to meet his own parents. It was a highlight for Frank, and an experience that stayed with him long after they left Tennessee and headed back to New York State. By the time he was 16 he had hooked up with a drummer and was appearing as a rock and roll duo in small clubs and concerts throughout the Buffalo area.
Frank had an early appreciation and love for folk songs, especially historical folk songs that told a story. "By the time I was seventeen I was recording songs for friends. I had a whole album of Civil War tunes. I began collecting old Civil War songs with a passion, and I would record the ones I could sing. I remember going into a studio back then and cutting a side of tracks for $7."
One little known fact about Frank was his involvement with Steppenwolf's lead singer, John Kay, back in the 1960s. He met Kay through his involvement with The Limelight, a local Buffalo area coffeehouse. The two of them would hang out there and catch the local folk and blues musicians that would drop in. After watching a local favorite, Eric Andersen, make it big as a singer-songwriter, Kay and Frank thought that they, too, could strike it rich on the folk circuit.
But Frank was also practical enough to think about applying to college in case the folk singing career didn't pan out. He was accepted at Gettysburg College and was thinking about majoring in journalism when another event changed his life forever: insurance money poured in to compensate Frank for the injuries he received at the Cheektowaga fire. College and journalism suddenly didn't matter much any more. "When I was 21 years old I was awarded $100,000 in insurance money. At the time, it was a small fortune. John Kay and I took off to Toronto and we tried to spend as much money as fast as possible. I bought a Jaguar straight out of a showroom. We went all over the Northeast dropping into clubs and meeting musicians. We were heavily into the blues back then. We listened a lot to John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, and the Library of Congress collection of blues artists."
Frank headed to England originally not to play music, but to buy a car. He had read in a car journal that the best car values were in England, so he went to London to look for some fancy cars. He brought his guitar along and on board the Queen Elizabeth, Frank began taking his singing and songwriting seriously. As the days went on, Frank found that he had one particular melody in his head. Grabbing his guitar and a notebook, Frank wrote the words and music to "Blues Run the Game," a song that describes how he felt about life and his future at the time. "Blues Run the Game" continues to be, even today, the song that seems to mean the most to Jackson C. Frank fans. The story of a young man haunted by his past with too much money and gin leaves a deep impression.
Arriving in England in 1965 with his guitar, a suitcase of money, and a craving to pick up a new Jaguar, Frank was soon interrupted by the sights and sounds of "Swinging London." He quickly forgot about buying cars and instead concentrated on the folk scene there. Outgoing and friendly, Frank made a number of good contacts while visiting the folk clubs. "I met this wonderful woman named Judith Piepe. She told me she wanted to introduce me to two singers who were staying in her flat. They were Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. By this time I was writing and performing my own material. So I played my stuff for the two of them. Simon liked my songs so much he offered to produce my next record. I quickly said, 'Yes!'
"I recorded my album in under three hours in a CBS studio on New Bond Street in London. I remember hiding behind a screen while I was singing and playing, because I was just a little nervous and I didn't want anyone to see me. 'Blues Run the Game' didn't take long to record. 'Don't Look Back' was inspired by a murder down south and how the criminal was free on bail. Back in the 1960s there was a lot of injustice down in Alabama, so the song deals with white and black issues. It's my one and only protest song.
" 'Kimbie' is a traditional song, and I gave it my own touch. I heard the song a lot when I was traveling up in Canada, so I decided to include it on my album, too. Paul was including a lot of traditional material like 'Parsley, Sage' in his performances, and I wanted to use an old melody, too. 'Yellow Walls' is about an old house I used to live in near Buffalo. It's about leaving home and taking off for the big cities and colored lights. Al Stewart can be heard doodling in the back on guitar. He never received proper credit for that, I'm afraid, but that's him.
" 'Here Come the Blues' is pretty much a straight-ahead attempt at writing a blues song. It's got some good chord changes. I've always liked 'Milk and Honey.' I know Sandy Denny's version, and it's great. If you listen to my recording, you can hear a real blooper. I wanted to say 'four' seasons, but it came out 'three.'
'My Name is Carnival' is one I'm still very proud of. I'm surprised that it wasn't picked up as cover material because it's got a great tune and the lyrics are interesting. The song points out the bittersweet nature of being part of a traveling circus. My first attempt to do a very serious song was 'Dialogue,' a song that seems like cabaret now. I was headed toward a European influence with weighty lyrics. In the other direction, 'Just Like Anything' is a pure nonsense song. I was aiming for a some comic relief after 'Dialogue.' The last song on the album, 'You Never Wanted Me,' is all about a break-up in a relationship."
When Frank's first album came it was enthusiastically received by the folk community. John Peel played it on his BBC radio show quite often, and talked it up. His listeners called so many times that Peel invited Frank to come into his studio to record a live radio show. This was the beginning of a series of radio concerts that Frank did in the United Kingdom. He was also invited to do television shows and play songs from his first album.
Frank also met, around this time, another young folksinger who was trying to strike it big in the coffeehouses. He remembers she had this powerful voice and a real ability to interact with the audience, a special talent for capturing hearts while she sang. Her name was Sandy Denny, and right from the start they became close friends. "When I first met Sandy Denny she was a little insecure and somewhat shy. We were both hanging out at a club in London called Bunjies, which is still there, by the way. Sandy was working as a nurse and she was just starting out on the folk scene. She was learning the ropes about performing in front of an audience and she was building up her songs. She slowly built up confidence and expanded her material. She became my girlfriend and I got her to quit the nursing profession and stick to music full time. I remember Sandy trying out her new songs for me, like 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes' and 'Fotheringay,' and I saw right away that she had tremendous potential."
In 1965, London was the rock music capital of the western world. The rock scene was firmly established by the Beatles and the Stones, and already the word was out that the folk scene was going to be the next happening trend. Dozens of the most influential American folk artists of the day were going to London, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Tim Hardin, and Big Bill Broonzy. Frank managed to rub shoulders with many of them as he made the rounds of folk clubs. "Tom Paxton was another folksinger I met back in 1965. We hung out together. I also recall meeting up with Mike Seeger and Dave Van Ronk, giving them tours of London in my car. I was helping out the owner of the Cousins Club by booking American acts. I met a lot of famous artists and performers just by being involved with Cousins. I remember also booking some of the better known folkies in Great Britain like John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and John Martyn. I tried my best, because I had money at the time, to give some meals to some of the poorer singer-songwriters who came tramping through Cousins."
Frank spent from 1965 to 1967 playing clubs and venues and doing well on the concert circuit. Around 1968, he tried putting together songs for a second album, but he found the audience less attentive and responsive with his new material. The record-buying public was shifting away from quiet and introspective folk songs toward hardcore rock. This trend didn't help his album sales, and soon he found that people simply stopped buying Jackson C. Frank. He was so despondent that he shelved his new songs and any thoughts about making a second album. And the news from America was far from good. The album didn't sell at all, and his management company soon dropped him. By this time, with his insurance money running out, Frank was forced to live on meager wages from playing the occasional gig as an opening act. His songwriting creativity was missing, and songs that at one time took minutes to write were now left incomplete and half scrawled on torn paper. He began a slow slide into despair as he wrestled with problems of depression. He took a bus into New York City, hoping to find Paul Simon, and ended up sleeping on the sidewalks. A series of medical problems struck Frank, which left him destitute. He became a ward of the state, moving from one tenement building to the next. For awhile, his depression became so severe that he was institutionalized. He dropped out of sight completely. Friends from England looking for him were told he was "gone."
By 1977, with his health somewhat improved, his depression under control, and a new outlook on life, Frank tried to release a second album. He tried to market the album to several record companies and publishers, but they were not interested. They told him his songs lacked market appeal and weren't commercial enough. Instead of working on newer and better songs and touring to promote them, Frank fell into a new, harsher depression. His medical problems, initiated by the Cheektowaga fire, got much worse, until he once again was hospitalized for both physical and emotional reasons.
Until Jim Abbott came into his life. A local Woodstock area resident, Jim had heard some of the stories surrounding Frank but assumed, like everyone else, that Frank was no longer alive. His interest in Frank was aroused when, shopping in a small record store, he found an album by Al Stewart bearing the inscription: "To Jackson, all the best, Al Stewart." Making inquiries, he discovered that Frank would come into the store every so often from NYC and sell used records. Abbott was able to make a connection with Frank and bring him out of a state housing project in the Bronx and into a senior center in Woodstock. He also tracked down past royalties owed Frank to help supplement Frank's welfare check.
In January, 1995, Frank made yet another tape of demo material. He is playing open mikes now in the Woodstock area, and is anxious to practice his new songs. He is still picking up some royalty money, very limited, from countries such as England, Germany, and Denmark, where his songs from 1965 still enjoy a measure of success amid singer-songwriters there.
*** Sadly Jackson C. Frank died in 1999 from natural causes.
...................
The opening track on Jackson C. Frank’s Paul Simon-produced debut album is the kind of tune all singer/songwriters wish they had written. Once covered by Simon himself (with Garfunkel!), Bert Jansch, and Nick Drake, “Blues Run the Game” is one of the greatest folk/blues songs of all time and, undoubtedly, the high-water mark on Frank’s legacy.
I don’t foresee it ever happening, but if anyone decides to make a biopic about this man, they’d have plenty of material. Frank’s life was fraught with tragedy, from being severely burned in an accident that left over a dozen of his classmates dead at the age of 11 to being blinded by random gunfire in New York later in his life, the guy was relentlessly stalked by the blues. An intensely shy performer, Frank fought depression, schizophrenia, and career woes until his early death at 56. Sadly, the refrain of a song he wrote at only 22 could be a theme for Frank’s entire life: “Wherever I have played / The blues have run the game.”
We’ve praised Laura Marling, as well as her new record, plenty enough around here, so let’s leave the focus of this post on the great Jackson C. Frank this time. Meanwhile, watch Marling sing her brilliant rendition of “Blues Run the Game,” live from Brooklyn, below-
Blues Run The Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZpDsPb9aZFs |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 11/07/2013 21:52:18 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9875 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2013 : 22:52:02
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Relations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV6fwAvIwws
When Jackson Frank was 11, a furnace exploded at his school, Cleveland Hill Elementary School in Cheektowaga, New York.The fire killed fifteen of his fellow students and Frank suffered over 50% burns. While being treated in hospital he was introduced to playing music, when a teacher, Charlie Castelli, brought in an acoustic guitar to keep Frank occupied during his recovery. When he was 21, he was awarded an insurance check of $110,500 for his injuries, giving him enough to "catch a boat to England."
Music career
His eponymous 1965 album, Jackson C. Frank, was produced by Paul Simon while the two of them were also playing folk clubs in England. Frank was so shy during the recording that he asked to be shielded by screens so that Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Al Stewart (who also attended the recording) could not see him, claiming 'I can't play. You're looking at me.' The most famous track, "Blues Run the Game", was covered by Simon and Garfunkel, and later by Wizz Jones,[2]Counting Crows, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold (White Antelope), while Nick Drake also recorded it privately. Another song, "Milk and Honey", appeared in Vincent Gallo's film The Brown Bunny, and was also covered by Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny, whom he dated for a while. During their relationship, Jackson convinced Sandy to give up nursing (then her profession) and concentrate on music full-time.
Although Frank was well received in England for a while, in 1966 things took a turn for the worse as his mental health began to unravel. At the same time he began to experience writer's block. His insurance payment was running out so he decided to go back to the United States for two years. When he returned to England in 1968 he seemed a different person. His depression, stemming from the childhood trauma of the classroom fire, had increased and he had no self-confidence. Al Stewart recalled that:
"He [Frank] proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don't remember a single word of them, it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist's couch. Then shortly after that, he hightailed it back to Woodstock again, because he wasn't getting any work."
Woodstock 1970s
While in Woodstock, he married Elaine Sedgwick, an English former fashion model. They had a son and later a daughter, Angeline. After his son died of cystic fibrosis, Frank went into a period of great depression and was ultimately committed to an institution. By the early 1970s Frank began to beg aid from friends. Karl Dallas wrote an enthusiastic piece in 1975 in Melody Maker, and in 1978, his 1965 album was re-released as Jackson Frank Again, with a new cover sleeve, although this did not encourage fresh awareness of Frank.
1980s–death
In 1984, Frank took a trip to New York City in a desperate bid to locate Paul Simon, but he ended up sleeping on the sidewalk. His mother, who had been in hospital for open heart surgery, found he had left with no forwarding address when she arrived home. He was living on the street and was frequently admitted and discharged from various institutions. He was treated for paranoid schizophrenia, a diagnosis that was refuted by Frank himself as he had always claimed that he actually had depression caused by the trauma he had experienced as a child. Just as Frank’s prospects seemed to be at their worst, a fan from the area around Woodstock, Jim Abbott, discovered him in the early 1990s. Abbott had been discussing music with Mark Anderson, a teacher at the local college he was attending. The conversation had turned to folk music, which they both enjoyed, when Abbott asked the teacher if he had heard of Frank. He recollected:
"I hadn’t even thought about it for a couple of years, and he goes, ‘Well yes, as a matter of fact, I just got a letter from him. Do you feel like helping a down-on-his-luck folk singer?"
Frank, who had known Anderson from their days at Gettysburg College, had decided to write him to ask if there was anywhere in Woodstock he could stay after he had made up his mind to leave New York City. Abbott phoned Frank, and then organized a temporary placement for him at a senior citizens’ home in Woodstock. Abbott was stunned by what he saw when he travelled to New York to visit Frank.
"When I went down I hadn’t seen a picture of him, except for his album cover. Then, he was thin and young. When I went to see him, there was this heavy guy hobbling down the street, and I thought, ‘That can’t possibly be him’...I just stopped and said ‘Jackson?’ and it was him. My impression was, ‘Oh my God’, it was almost like the elephant man or something. He was so unkempt, dishevelled.” a further side effect of the fire was a thyroid malfunction causing him to put on weight. “He had nothing. It was really sad. We went and had lunch and went back to his room. It almost made me cry, because here was a fifty-year-old man, and all he had to his name was a beat-up old suitcase and a broken pair of glasses. I guess his caseworker had given him a $10 guitar, but it wouldn’t stay in tune. It was one of those hot summer days. He tried to play Blues Run The Game for me, but his voice was pretty much shot."
Soon after this, Frank was sitting on a bench in Queens, New York while awaiting a move to Woodstock, when someone shot him in his left eye and consequently blinded him. At first no details were known, but it was later determined that children from the neighborhood were firing a pellet gun indiscriminately at people and Frank happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Abbott then promptly helped him move to Woodstock. During this time, Frank began recording some demos of new songs. Frank’s resurfacing led to the first CD release of his self-titled album. In some pressings, Frank's later songs were included as a bonus disc with the album.
Frank died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on March 3, 1999, at the age of 56.
Legacy
Though he never achieved fame during his lifetime, his songs have been covered by many well-known artists, including Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold (as White Antelope) of Fleet Foxes.
Frank's song "I Want To Be Alone", also known as "Dialogue," appeared on the soundtrack for the film Daft Punk's Electroma.
Soulsavers covered "Blues Run the Game" on their single "Revival" (7" vinyl, 30 April 2007).
Marianne Faithfull covered Frank's arrangement of a traditional song, "Kimbie" on her 2008 album Easy Come, Easy Go and included the song in the repertoire of her 2009 tour.
Erland & The Carnival also covered "My Name Is Carnival," apparently Frank's favourite song. Bert Jansch also covered this song as a gesture to Frank.
Sandy Denny's song, "Next Time Around," contains coded references to Frank, her ex-boyfriend.
"Marcy's Song" is played by Patrick, John Hawkes' character, in the 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene and "Marlene" plays in the closing credits.
Laura Barton's BBC Radio 4 programme "Blues Run the Game", first broadcast 20th November 2012, included interviews with Al Stewart, John Renbourn, Jim Abbott and John Kay as well as archive material of Jackson C. Frank talking and singing.
South korean jazz singer Na Yoon-sun covers "My Name Is Carnival" on her album "Same Girl" (2010)
Frank's song "Milk and Honey" featured on the soundtrack of Vincent Gallo's 2003 movie "The Brown Bunny" (and prominently in the movie's trailer). It was also sampled by Hidden Orchestra in their track "The Burning Circle" and by Hip Hop artist Nas in his track "Undying Love".
________________________________________________
Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 10/07/2013 23:04:11 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9875 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2013 : 22:52:39
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Whenever Nick Drake comes up in conversation,
Child Fixin' To Die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBmP77AbRuw
...I feel the sudden urge to mention that I prefer Jackson C. Frank’s self-titled album to any of Drake’s studio recordings. Why? Well, Drake was hindered early in his career by heavy-handed producers (see Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter), while Frank’s lone studio album — recorded by Paul Simon, of all people — featured just him, a guitar and a microphone… much like Pink Moon. Another similarity between those two albums is that both were recorded quickly. Pink Moon was put to tape at midnight in 2-two hours sessions, over two days. Jackson C. Frank was recorded in less than three hours at CBS Studios in London. Both are stunning works, but hopefully after hearing this one you’ll agree with me that it’s the superior of the two works.
Of course, my position could very well be influenced by Jackson C. Frank’s life story, which is one of the most tragic I have ever read. If any unsung hero deserves a bio-pic, it’s Frank. **** Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. The following was taken from his Wikipedia entry:
“...Frank was sitting on a bench in NY while awaiting a move to Woodstock, when someone shot him in his left eye, and consequently blinded him. At first no reason was given for this but it was later determined that kids from the neighborhood were firing a pellet gun indiscriminately at people and Jackson happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Abbott then promptly helped him move to Woodstock. During this time, Frank began recording some demos of new songs, but despite some beautiful lyrics and melodies, they were unfortunately disappointing, deficient of the harmonious ease of his original album, although Frank’s resurfacing did lead to the first CD release of Jackson C. Frank.
“Jackson Frank died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on March 3rd, 1999, at the age of fifty-six. Though Frank never achieved fame during his lifetime, his songs have been covered by many well-known artists, including Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, and Bert Jansch.”
Wow.
Tracklisting:
01. Blues Run The Game
02. Don’t Look Back
03. Kimbie
04. Yellow Walls
05. Here Come The Blues
06. Milk And Honey
07. My Name Is Carnival
08. I Want To Be Alone (Dialogue)
09. Just Like Anything
10. You Never Wanted Me
--swanfungus.com
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 11/07/2013 02:11:41 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9875 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2013 : 22:54:10
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Jackson Carey Frank (March 2, 1943 – March 3, 1999) ..though American he is usually listed with English folk artists.
...here is a full MOJO interview, and more...
...was an American folk musician. Although he released only one official album in his lifetime and never achieved much commercial success, he is reported to have influenced several better-known singer-songwriters such as Paul Simon and Nick Drake.
His eponymous 1965 album, Jackson C. Frank, was produced by Paul Simon while the two of them were also playing folk clubs in England. Frank was so shy during the recording that he asked to be shielded by screens so that Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Al Stewart (who also attended the recording) could not see him, claiming 'I can't play. You're looking at me.'
The most famous track, "Blues Run the Game", was covered by Simon and Garfunkel, and later by Wizz Jones, Counting Crows, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold (White Antelope), while Nick Drake also recorded it privately.
Another song, "Milk and Honey", appeared in Vincent Gallo's film The Brown Bunny, and was also covered by Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny, whom he dated for a while. During their relationship, Jackson convinced Sandy to give up nursing (then her profession) and concentrate on music full-time.
Although Frank was well received in England for a while, in 1966 things took a turn for the worse as his mental health began to unravel. At the same time he began to experience writer's block. His insurance payment was running out so he decided to go back to the United States for two years. When he returned to England in 1968 he seemed a different person. His depression, stemming from the childhood trauma of the classroom fire, had increased and he had no self-confidence. Al Stewart recalled that:
"He [Frank] proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don't remember a single word of them, it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist's couch. Then shortly after that, he hightailed it back to Woodstock again, because he wasn't getting any work."
Blues Run The Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgY4GnLGsLQ
Mojo story
The Strange Tale Of Jackson C Frank
3:35 PM GMT 07/04/2009
HIS DEBUT ALBUM album was a touchstone for '60s British folk, but the life of cult American troubadour Jackson C. Frank was one book-ended by great tragedy. Horribly scarred in a school fire at the age of 11, he was tormented by depression and madness in later years.
To coincide with MOJO 186's feature on this lost legend of music Andrew Male spoke to Katherine Wright (née Henry), the woman he caught a boat to England with, who was there when he wrote his landmark classic Blues Run The Game, and who saw how his money, her pregnancy and his crumbling mind changed everything.
How did you first meet Jackson?
Such a strange story. It was very close to Christmas in December 1963. I'm an only child and my parents fought like cat and dog and should have separated long before they did. They never did as a matter of fact. It was one of those occasions when my mother was spending the holidays with relatives in Niagara Falls, which was 30 miles or something away from Buffalo, where we lived. I was gonna stay home and spend the holidays with my dad. We had a fight and I flounced out the door and decided to take a bus to where my mother was. The bus station in Buffalo was close to a few coffee houses and I was early so I though I'd stop in and see if anyone was there. There wasn't much going on. Just one other person. It was Jackson. I don't remember ever meeting him before then. The two of us being thrust together on what I think was Christmas Eve was unusual enough, and we sat around and talked for a while.
What were your first impressions of him? What made you feel you could talk to this guy?
He was very charming. He had a way of encompassing me in a sort of a big warm hug and at the same time he had a sense of his own authority and superiority. I was a very different person as an 18-year-old freshman to the person I am now and he would have been two and a half years older than me. He kinda had an authority and a sense of being older, probably from what he'd been through. He felt somewhat apart from the normal. I'm sure he wanted to seem worldly and intelligent. He'd been to school and left. It's not clear if he quit or was asked to leave. He was working as a copy boy at The Buffalo News
What look was he rocking?
Button-down shirt, sweater over the top. Even before he got terribly heavy he was an incredible clotheshorse, a little better dressed than a lot of people who'd be sitting round a coffee house on their own at Christmas Eve. It was extremely unlikely that either of us would have been in the coffee house without being drunk or high or destitute. The world was a different place back then.
The long and the short of it was that he offered to drive me to Niagara Falls if I would hang about with him for a little bit longer because after a while I'd looked at my watch and said, 'I gotta go, got a bus to catch.' At some absurd hour for an 18-year-old, I wound up in front of my aunt's house in Niagara Falls, and I'm sure I gave him my phone number and we had a number of orthodox kinda dates. I remember the whole relationship centring around the fact that he was a singer and a performer and I was his girlfriend.
Did he tell you straight after that he was a singer?
He must have done. I don't remember seeing him perform before. There were a couple of coffee houses, the Limelight and the Boar's Head. It seems to me we were in the Boar's Head, and I remember at some point in our relationship Jackson playing for a week at a time there. But he must have said right off the bat that he performed. Especially in that setting - it was dark and it wasn't easy to see what his disabilities were - he was perfectly at ease, perfectly charming, as he often was anyway. So, I was smitten right away. Especially with his generosity of just saying, 'I'll drop everything.' Of course it never occurred to me that anything untoward would occur and nothing did. It was just a different time.
I have to say that I think he probably didn't have a chance of escaping the effects of the fire he was in. If I had to put a name to what I think was the problem, I'd say he was manic-depressive. He certainly had more than one personality. The one I saw at first was charming and adorable and funny in that kinda Irish way you have to say with quotes around it. He had an "Irish" sense of humour and a very deep laugh and enormous appreciation of irony and anything funny. He had a twinkle in his eye.
When you saw him for the first time on stage did that add to his character? Was he one of those people who came alive on stage? Or was he shy?
He was not shy at all. I never saw a moment of it. If anything I think there was an incredible release. He had a beautiful voice. He was an amazing guitarist as well, especially given the problems he had with his hands. I see him to this day throwing his head back and singing his heart out.
That voice was there from the start, the first time you saw him?
Absolutely. Given the fact that he was in that fire and there wasn't smoke damage is astonishing. His face probably survived unlike many other parts of his body. I suppose it could be the case that he just didn't suffer the smoke inhalation. Of course he smoked cigarettes, everybody did in those days. He hadn't managed to inflict a lot of damage to his voice. And it was probably some time before I saw the darker side to him, the moodiness.
How did that manifest itself?
It's easy at this point to say that the money he came into was a door that he stepped through and he was a different person on one side than the other. He got the settlement from a lawsuit that his mother and other parents had instigated to recompense for the fire. He came into the money, I think $80,000, and he came into it on his birthday, 2nd March 1964.
I'd known him for four months before he'd had the money - we'd spent every day together - and I would say the paranoia, although that's probably the wrong word, the sense that people were taking advantage of him, started then. We were sitting in a coffee house, he was talking to someone else, and I didn't even hear his conversation. He came storming over to my table and said, 'You're only taking advantage of me in this relationship! You heard me talking about the money I'm coming into.'
That was my first indication, not only that he had that kind of temper, but that it was absolutely tied up with the fact that he was gonna be pretty rich. I'm sure I denied it and there was eye-rolling and arm-crossing and toe-tapping. I somehow talked him down from it. That was the arc of that kind of behaviour all the time - he would explode and had to be cajoled back into another frame of mind.
What was behind Jackson's decision to go to England?
The accepted Wikipedia version of events was that it was Jackson's idea to go to England and buy cars and guitars. The fact of it is that when he went to England it was because I had finally left him after two years of this extremely difficult relationship.
Weren't you both travelling to England?
Absolutely. I decided that the way I was gonna leave Jackson was not to even talk about it. I'd been through arguments with him before and I knew how I could be swayed by him. So I went to a travel agent on Main Street in Buffalo, New York in the middle of the winter and said, I want to go to England. I'd decided to go to England because I was reading Ian Fleming. Why I didn't go to the Caribbean I don't know! This dear woman, the travel agent, said the Queen Elizabeth is sailing from New York and you can get a ticket for $212. So that's what I did. I sold everything I owned and bought a ticket. With the ticket in hand I confronted Jackson and told him I wasn't happy with the relationship and I was going to England. By the next day he was going to England too. I remember being so calm, I wasn't going to shout or scream...
What was behind that gesture?
I thought, Oh my God! If only I'd put my foot down a year and a half ago in this relationship it could have gone completely differently. He was one of those people who seemed to be completely intractable until someone else issued an ultimatum and then all of a sudden he was like, Oh what a fool I've been, I can't live without you! That was seductive at the time.
So I was heading for England - foolishly, as I found out, with no more than $100 in my pocket. I had a passport but I had no idea what requirements there were to get into the UK at the time. As a courtesy of the people who were travelling from New York to Southampton, you got to go through customs in the middle of the North Atlantic. So I knew by the time the boat got to Cherbourg that I had two choices. The UK would not let me into the country with the money I had. They offered either to let me off at Cherbourg or send me home and bill my parents. I couldn't have that.
According to my passport I spent six days there before I took the ferry over to Southampton and met Jackson. But he'd had difficulty accessing his inheritance money, and because we weren't married the customs officials still didn't believe I could pay my way. They wouldn't stamp my passport and it looked like I'd have to go back. Meanwhile, Jackson had taken a room at the Strand Palace. The cool place to stay was the Savoy over the road, where Dylan and Baez were. Buffy Saint Marie was there and I was mistaken for her as I was half Mohawk and half Irish and we were the only two Indian-Americans in all the UK.
How long did you stay in England?
Until the 2nd of June. We had arrived in February. I was there for just four months.
Did you see Jackson begin to make his way in the music scene?
His relationship with the music scene didn't seem to be significantly different from what it was in Buffalo and New York City. He'd auditioned for Albert Grossman [and] it just went nowhere. He sounded fantastic but Grossman just said what people do when they're unimpressed: Thanks for your time. We'll be in touch.
Is it true he wrote Blues Run The Game on the boat to Britain?
He might have, although it seems to me you have to have the experience before you can write about it. It would be extraordinary if he actually wrote it while it was happening to him. We spent a great deal of time in the ship's observation bar where we would get blind drunk so it seems unlikely that there was a lot of songwriting going on. Like most performers he had a guitar in his hand all the time.
The story is that it was the first song he wrote. Were there songs before that?
He was writing a lot of songs that turned up on that album. He was playing around with them, noodling. He would play with several songs at the same time; he wouldn't stick with one until it emerged in its entirety. The music came before the words. Yellow Walls was the only one I remember him talking about, it being a hallucinatory experience of his being in hospital, probably in tremendous pain. It's an amazing song.
When you were in England did you see his character changing/evolving? How was he during those months?
He came into being a wealthy person very quickly, it was absorbed into his personality almost instantly. The year spent in western New York was more difficult for him because it was taken for granted that he would pick up the tab if a group of us went out to dinner. People asked him for money, thousands-of-dollars projects. When we got to England and met other performers such as Tom Paxton and his wife who actually had money, it was as though this was where he belonged, with people who could buy their own dinner and drinks. He was a little more relaxed.
How did your relationship develop?
It settled down into the boredom of a matrimonial relationship. It was not very exciting. That picture that Richard Stanley sent you, we ended up going to the least interesting coast of England and wound up at Whitby. I didn't go to one single museum.
It's a lovely picture. You both look fantastic.
I think I might have been pregnant at that point.
Was it boredom or the knowledge that you were pregnant that brought you home from England?
It was to come back to America to have an illegal abortion. We stayed in New York with an old girlfriend of Jackson's, whom I'd love to find again. Her name is Linda Ffolkes or Ffoulkes. She was a high school student when Jackson was a freshman. They were engaged to be married for a while. That relationship was Jackson's first love. It was Linda who knew a doctor whose licence to practice medicine has been taken away. Just a horrific notion. He was in Washington DC, so we flew back.
It was Jackson's decision to insist that I terminate the pregnancy. It was the right idea, absolutely the right idea. But again, there are a million ways you can go into a situation like that. The impression that I was left with was that not only were we far too young to take on this responsibility, but that the bond between us wasn't strong enough anyway. That's what finished off the relationship. Having risked my life - and that's what it felt like, even though this guy had a doctor's office and was supposed to be competent, it was very scary - I said 'I'm going home' and Jackson went back to England.
It was wonderful for him. It was him being on his own in England that forced him into contact with other people in a way that being part of a couple and living in Twickenham didn't. We lived a kind of suburban life even if we went to coffee houses every night. It wasn't the same thing as being completely on your own. He really immersed himself in the culture a whole lot better without me around.
After he'd gone back to England when did you hear from him again?
We spoke on the phone a lot. I remember calling him a lot. He came back at least once or twice. Then when he came back in the fall I was seeing someone else who was in my apartment. He knocked on my door unexpectedly, I don't know what I said, but I didn't open the door and he went away. At some point he gave me the album and it was inscribed to 'Kathy, who kicked me into England'. I wasn't aware of his relationship with Sandy Denny. Nick Drake was unknown to me until my daughter discovered him in high school, calling me up saying, You know that guy Jackson Frank you mentioned? It might have been then that it became clear that on some minor level, because of the internet maybe, there was a resurgence of interest in him. Around 2000. Right after he died.
So in later years there was no contact?
I called him once. I'm famous for doing this. Waking up and deciding to call someone I haven't spoke to in 20 years. I called Woodstock information and there he was. It must have been '95 or '96. It was a terrible conversation. He knew who I was, or claimed to. One of the first things he said was that the money was all gone. It wasn't like the old Jackson. I'd heard that he'd had a child. I thought we could establish some sort of camaraderie over the fact we had parenthood in common [but] there was no common ground that we could establish because his daughter was not a part of his life. I felt there was no way to establish a relationship with him again.
There were no flickers of the Jackson you once knew?
None. Maybe a chuckle now and again, that deep-throated laugh, but nothing else. Not anything on an intellectual or emotional level. It seemed as though he had flatlined emotionally. No ups and downs or highs and lows. Everything came out at the same register and almost without emotion. Just as though something terrible had happened to his mind. It just wasn't the same person. It was no fun to talk to him, absolutely not.
It is a tragic tale, but it's good to speak to you and hear about his sense of humour and his warmth and personality...
I remember once, he kidnapped me from the common room in the college that I went to, it was hysterical. When he came into this money, he indulged himself in anything he'd ever wanted to and he had one of those old handguns and he walked in with his gun and said, I am capturing this co-ed! I remember the absolute warmth and joy from the man. He was having the time of his life. It's one of my fondest memories of him and it has nothing to do with his music or lyrics.
Interview: Andrew Male
Read the Jackson C. Frank feature in MOJO 186.
Nick's private cover, as we know, is beautiful....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK1-DAgXv1c
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 11/07/2013 02:12:25 |
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SignedRW
Fifth Love
USA
280 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2013 : 01:16:34
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| Nice, informative and revealing interview. And of course, a genuinely sad story. A few months ago, Steppenwolf vocalist John Kay, recently relocated to our coastal California community, came into the the radio station to use our production facilities for an interview with the BBC, for a feature they were doing on Jackson. I'd had no idea that John and Jackson had a connection, but John (a very cool guy, by the way) explained to me that they had indeed been friends and fellow folkies in the Greenwich Village scene prior to Jackson's departure to England. John only refered to Jackson by his full name, Jackson Carey Frank, as if that was what his friends tended to call him, and he spoke very warmly of both the man and his talent. |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9875 Posts |
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JACKSON C. FRANK-tragic folk genius-Drake/Denny
