Anecdote – Jackson C Frank at a small club on Ilford High Street in 1969
Jackson C Frank at a small club on Ilford High Street in 1969
Jackson C frank was a major singer-songwriter from the sixties though not too many people would know that. He was a regular at Les Cousin, partnered Sandy Denny and persuaded her to give up her job and sing full time, was a close friend of Roy Harper (who wrote the song My Friend for him) and was a great influence on all those songwriters of that era. His first album, recorded in 1965, being groundbreaking. A beautiful, melodic album of well-crafted introspective songs that are haunting.
The Contemporary Folk scene had taken off in a big way in England. Donovan had popularised it and Dylan’s success had made acoustic music a viable commercial exercise but the whole scene had blossomed underground with the likes of Davy Graham, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. It had different roots to that of Greenwich Village in America, although there was a lot of overlap.
I stumbled across this folk phenomenon via a number of sources. When I was fourteen I had been introduced to Woody Guthrie and Big Bill Broonzy by a girlfriend of mine. Then Donovan had started playing on Ready Steady Go. It seemed to fit together. Donovan at the time put the same sign on his guitar that he’d stolen from Woody – ‘This machine kills fascists’. I liked that.
Then Robert Ede and Neil Furby played a part in my education. They were two school-mates. Neil nicked one of my girlfriends but he introduced me to Bert Jansch and John Rebourn, so I suppose that was a fair exchange. Bob had bought the Jackson album the day it came out (he was way ahead of the game) and lent it to me. I loved it. I was hooked right from that first hearing. It was perfect – the voice, guitar, melodies and lyrics all gelled for me. I immediately went out and bought my own copy.
So contemporary Folk Music became a big part of my life.
The final culmination of that time was to discover Roy Harper in Les Cousins with his first album. That blew them all away. But that’s another story.
Back in those halcyon days of the mid-sixties, 1965-66, prior to the advent of Roy, I spent a lot of time in my room with my old dansette record player, playing those first albums by Bert and John. I just loved the passion, integrity and guitar. But the album I played most was Jackson’s. Those songs were absorbed into my being. I knew them inside out.
For over three years I enjoyed that album. When I went to college I met up with Pete and we roomed together for two years. It was a delight to discover that he not only also adored Jackson but could play all his songs. Pete was an outstanding guitarist.
Most of the time in London I never saw Jackson advertised anywhere though he did play the folk scene and was a regular at Les Cousins where I went quite often. I looked out for him without success. But there was so much going on in the Folk and Rock scene that it was not foremost in my mind.
Then in 1969 Pete and I discovered Jackson billed at the Angel in Ilford High Street. The Angel was a pub with a room above it for small music events.
We arrived early. It was set out with a number of round tables with chairs around them. We purloined a table at the front. There were only about thirty people in the Audience. Jackson was quiet and softly spoken, very laid back. He played his songs faultlessly. They were all the songs from that album with nothing new. We clapped each rendition madly. It was brilliant to see him in the flesh. His playing was faultless. His personality shone and those songs were sparkling diamonds.
I would have loved to have heard some other new songs as well though. We were hungry for more of these extraordinary compositions. It was not to be.
After the concert everybody else left but we stayed behind and chatted. Jackson was very friendly and appreciative. He told us that there was no fabled second album or live performance. He said he had not written any other songs but that turned out not to be quite true. The song Golden Mirror, which has just been discovered from a TV programme, is from that period. I do not think he had the confidence in his new material.
Jackson left Pete and I with the sense of a really warm and shy character who was very approachable. We both thought he was a genius.
The next week he was supposed to have turned up for a guest appearance (the only guest – an honoured spot) at Roy Harper’s fabled St Pancras Town Hall gig. He never showed up. I asked the guy he had been with in Ilford, who did turn up to the Roy gig. He informed that Jackson would have come but he was unwell.
I never saw him advertised again. He seemed to evaporate into the night.
I spoke to Roy about it much later and he sadly shook his head and told me he had not seen him again either.
It was only long afterwards when the CD, with those later recordings, came out in the 1990s that I became aware of his tragic fate.
I remember Jackson fondly. He was a sweet, pleasant man, full of emotion and compassion. He wrote songs and music that were so touching and beautiful that they still haunt me.
I think he suffered. He was too kind and vulnerable. Fears robbed him of his potential. The terrible memories of that High School fire in which he was burnt and his girlfriend and fourteen others died, haunted him. It created a mental anguish that he never recovered from. Nobody deserved to suffer the way he did. He was a genius who impacted on the music and songwriting of so many others – including Roy, Sandy, Bert, John and the Fairports. He should have been lauded to the rafters. Instead he is largely forgotten.
I’ll never forget that night in Ilford. That might have been his last gig.
From his picture he looked a gentle soul and you were lucky to witness such a genius at work. What was his tragic fate. To hear music that still haunts you to this day is so very special. I lived in Ilford that is where I was brought up. Woody Guthrie/Dylan, say no more.
He ended up on the streets in New York as a down-and-out. Had his eye shot out and became an alcoholic wreck. Died in obscurity and abject poverty in a home.
That is so tragic and such a waste of a great talent like you told, absolutely tragic. How was his eye shot out? For such a genius like that to end like that, you must treasure your memory of seeing him. Is his music still available to buy? Jonathan loves Woody Guthrie and Dylan well he has seen him twice.
Yep – his stuff is on Amazon. There was only one album released but there’s a number of later recordings and things. That first album was so beautiful. I bought it in 1965. The music is haunting and the guy was such a quiet, thoughtful and gentle man.
I will go and have a look. As I said he looked such a gentle soul you can always tell – just look at the eyes, the sadness behind.
He was very influential.
Just purchased the cover you have above, is that the good one?
Possibly. I think they’ve used it on a couple. One was early stuff recorded on a tape recorder that is not so good.
1. Blues Run The Game
2. Don’t Look Back
3. Kimbie
4. Yellow Walls
5. Here Come The Blues
6. Milk And Honey
7. My Name Is Carnival
8. I Want To Be Alone (Dialogue)
9. Just Like Anything
10. You Never Wanted Me
Those are the crucial tracks.
I was transfixed by that performance in Ilford. I think I internalised most of the songs in one exposure. Even now I can recall the gig and that gentle soul with total clarity. Ophers copy of the album – I don’t have a copy – but we played it again and again. Embedded. Xxxx
Me too Pete – Me too!! Good to hear from you!!
Yes I can well imagine that.
Such a nice guy. It’s tragic what happened to him. I think he was very shy and could not cope.
I’m glad you bought it. I think you’ll like the gentleness of some of the songs – Dialogue, just like anything, you never wanted me. The second side is your side.
I so look forward to it. Do you know Opher people who are shy in particular Men, suffer so much. My Father was so reserved, very shy to the point some thought him rude and because he was a very quietly spoken Irishman they could not understand that he did not drink. He did smoke regrettably, died of Lung Cancer in 1978, Jonathan was born 1979. Daddy would have been a wonderful Grandfather. I miss him to this day. Never knew how much he loved me until he told me a few days before he died, terribly sad. I will let you know what I think of the CD, so looking forward to it.
Yes – I’ve always suffered because I’m so shy.
My Dad died of lung cancer too, in 1981. it had spread to his liver. Very sad
I am sorry about your Father, it’s hard to lose someone like that. I never know if you are serious, are you shy?
Blimey Opher, I could hardly call him a “major singer-songwriter”, that’s completely inappropriate. Bob Dylan was and I think there lies the proof.
This Jackson character, I don’t know, I don’t want to seem too hard on the guy but I think some sympathy is somewhat ill-founded.
Of course his serious accident as a kid at school when the boiler blew up and burned him on 50% of his body was horrific and no doubt scarred him mentally, too, as was obviously the case later.
But when he turned 21 in 1964, he received a huge payout of $110,500. That was about £60 thousand in our money, in 1964! So in 1965 he arrived in the UK, guitar in hand. Blasted the shit out of himself with drink and drugs and by 1966 was running out of money so he returned home. He returned back to UK in 1968 in a shocking manic depressive state, couldn’t get his act together at all, couldn’t write anything and his few gigs were disasterous. He went back to US, somehow got married and unfortunately his son died of cystic fibrosis. Subsequently Jackson drifted into the world of mental institutions back and forth between his parents home, but refused to accept that anything was wrong with him and all his depression problems as he saw it were down to the accident. In the 1980s he arrived in New York looking for Paul Simon! That’s where his head was at and immediately wound up sleeping rough. He was a full on paranoid schizophrenic. Bumming around in Queen’s (nowhere near where he could have found Paul Simon) he was shot in the eye with a pellet gun by some kids.
He had all the traits of acute drug damage of others such as Syd Barrett and Peter Green, but he never had anything like their talent or support foundation and he slipped through the net into obscurity. But so did a whole host of others, too. Judy Sill, for instance, What a life she had had as a teenager, yet managed to pull herself out of that. Sadly she too loved hard drugs too much, similarly with Tim Hardin, whose song-writing way surpassed Jackson’s.
Well yes and no. Your times are a little out. He arrived in England in 1964, cash in hand, to buy up loads of classic cars. He’d written those songs that became his first album – a brilliant album unlike anything else.
He had lots of mental probs and lack of confidence – partially I would suspect from the trauma and huge scars on his body.
His genius was to influence the likes of Roy Harper (a close personal friend), Al Stewart (second guitar on his album), Bert Jansch and John Renbourn (regulars with him at Les Cousins) and through them to the later emerging scene of Pentangle, Fairport Convention etc. Despite only one album in 1965 his influence was immense and those songs amazing. I rate him much more highly than you. I saw him in 1969 and he was brilliant and blew us away. But he was, like Nick Drake, extremely shy and not suited to performing in front of large crowds.
Talking to Roy and Bert about him they both acknowledge his influence.
Tim Hardin was good but I would not personally rate him in the same category as Jackson. I loved Jackson from the moment I put that album on my record deck in 1965 at the age of sixteen. That was the start of the progressive Folk movement in England. Jackson had a big impact on it.
OK, so if my times are a little out and he arrived in `64, what’s the difference? It actually makes for an even worse case synopsis as the guy was in even worse shape than I had originally perceived. He recorded that album in July `65 and it was released the following December. I’m sure Al Stewart played back-up guitar on just 1 song, Yellow Walls and not the entire album and I really don’t think that Al was anything to write home about in 1965! Good grief, no!.
Still, it’s very strange that in all that time Jackson was completely unable to come up with anther note? I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but there’s a school of thought wondering if they were in fact his own songs as anything that subsequently came from his muse wasn’t a patch on the 3 or so really good songs contained on his only album.
It was all so amateur and naïve in those days and I suppose anybody with an American accent would be an attraction.
I’m not surprised that Bert was influenced as here was a guy recording his album at CBS Studios in London and getting released on the Columbia label. It didn’t get bigger than that.
Meanwhile Bert was recording in his manager’s kitchen on a duff old reel-to-reel. Similarly with Roy – he’d only just found out that a guitar had 6 strings during this period.
Didn’t Roy admit in the sleeve notes to his early archive collection “Today Is Yesterday” that his tape recorder had been sitting on the kitchen floor! I mean you couldn’t write the script here. It was all just so naïve. Roy subsequently went on to cite Albert Ayler as a major musical influence. I don’t think I could stomach Albert for more than a few minutes. But there you go.
Sure, Jackson’s album had its moments but really in terms of brilliant albums with brilliant songs, I think either of Dylan’s Freewheelin or Times They Are A-Changin’ knock the spots off it. Just start with Masters of War from the former, it doesn’t get better and there’s at least another 11 brilliant songs between these albums that have since been recorded by more people than I’ve had hot dinners. And then there were the songs of Jimmy Webb, with his “Eve Of Destruction”. Jackson’s stuff just seems so twee and inconsequential in comparison to all this.
Getting to the point that I attempted and failed to make….
I’d have to disagree with your belief that Jackson was the start of the progressive folk movement – or at least he definitely wasn’t for me and I can tell you why. Whilst I can’t speak for England, the first artist to explode onto the mainstream with folk songs backed with an acoustic guitar was the brilliant Joan Baez in 1960. Although her first album didn’t sell much, her next 2 albums got to an incredible 13 and 10 respectively in the main US charts. She was hugely influential. But I guess because she was a girl, then there was some kind of acceptance barrier existing. Similarly with the brilliant and absolutely original stalwart folkies, Ann Briggs and also The Waterson’s. There was loads of hard-boiled folk stuff happening in the real folk music territories around Britain and it absolutely wasn’t just like the likes of Mojo magazine or Wikipedia would have one believe as solely “happening” in clubs in London. Blimey, far, far from it.
Even Bert Jansch’s earliest recordings are from a Glasgow folk club in 1962 and his core influences ran wide and varied. But if there was just one player from the UK (and he just happened to be Scottish) who could play the spots off any of these young guys, it would be Owen Hand. Just listen to his 1965 self-penned instrumental “She Likes It” and it’s all there in spades. Nobody ever talks about Owen Hand, for several reasons – they’ve never even heard of him, he didn’t die a tragic death, he wasn’t a poseur, he didn’t have a reputation for drugging and drinking, he never had a hit record, his ego remained in tact and not least, he didn’t shimmy around more celebrated characters in order to get noticed. All counts that would go against any potential for being celebrated by legions of sycophants. He’s a bit like Eric Clapton versus Albert Lee. I wonder who in actual fact by a country mile is the better player? It’s like so many things in life, credit is never given where it’s due.
Oh – I can see that you hold the wonderful Jackson in lower esteem than me. I think he was wonderful. But that might be a little bit of nostalgia. I play his songs regularly and they still stack up for me. I felt privileged to have met him. He was a very special person and great songwriter.
The whole contemporary Folk scene, as you rightly say, started with the renaissance created by Joan Baez. She was it in the late fifties early sixties.
The Greenwich Village Scene was very uncommercial with a range of old Blues guys and singer-songwriters under the auspices of Dave Van Ronk. There were the old Guthrie followers of Tom Paxton and Rambling Jack Elliott and even Pete Seeger. But then Dylan exploded on the scene with Phil Ochs, David Blue, Peter, Paul and Mary, Buffy St Marie and the rest. He lifted it to a different dimension in 1963.
In England it was Donovan who led the scene commercially. But he’d come out of a scene that was largely based on English Folk songs with the Young Tradition, Ann Briggs, and Martyn Carthy.
The Folk Scene had been run by Ewan McColl (father of Kirsty) and still had those remnants of traditional music. The person that blew that open was Davy Graham. He opened the door for Bert Jansch and John Rebourn to break through.
That London scene was very important for the Americans. Both Dylan and Paul Simon came over and ripped off the old melodies from people like Martyn Carthy.
By 1965 you had the Young Tradition (and people like Alex Campbell) going one way and Bert, Davy and John striking out in a more contemporary fashion. Then there was Whizz Jones and the like in the background.
In 1965 Jackson came over from Canada and produced that special album. It was different.
Then in 1966/67 people like Roy Harper, Al Stewart, Michael Chapman, Ralph McTell and John Martyn started taking it in different directions.
Yes it was very amateurish in terms of recording. Roy’s first album, which has some great tracks on, was recorded in a garage studion with dubious money. I don’t think he was inept then. I saw him live and he could knock spots off most. John Renbourn was the master but Roy was very innovative and could have developed more instrumentally if the lyrics had not dominated.
There was a huge amount of cross-fertilisation with people like John Fahey and Stefan Grossman coming across.
The Folk-rock scene took off in the late sixties – Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The Glasgow scene gave rise to the Incredible String Band.
It all became complicated, subsumed and interesting. I used to go along to Les Cousins, the Barge in Kingston and Bunjies to catch all the acts. It was an incredible time. At the time it was about integrity, authenticity and originality. I liked either Blues or original material and wasn’t so keen, at the time for trafditional Folk songs.
At the end of the day it’s a matter of taste. I still contend that Jackson had a huge impact beyond his success and lack of output. Bert and Roy both spoke very highly of him to me. I, and my friends, adored him and cherished that album. My only regret is that he was incapable of doing more. The guy was in constant pain from his burns, psychological stress from his deformities and probably Post Traumatic Stress (though we did not know about that then). He was a damaged soul like Nick Drake.
I don’t rate either Judy Sill or Tim Hardin all that much (love the Nice’s version of Hang On To a Dream) but I did like Phil Ochs a lot and rated the first albums by Tim Rose and Tom Rush. I even like Eric Von Schmitt and loved the Native American Indian Peter Lafarge. Richard and Mimi Farina were my favourites outside of Dylan. I’ve everything they’ve done.
Joan Baez is iconic and I’ve seen her a few times but I don’t take to her higher register. Now Joni Mitchell and Buffy St Maries I adore.
But I always go back to Jackson. Roy in my foremost artist of all-time on a par with Bob but Jackson has my affection. I just adore that album. It is melodic, beautiful and way ahead of its time.
You’re so right about there being little justice. So many great talents never got ignited or developed. But that’s life. Nick Drake has only fairly recently received recognition.
I don’t quite know what to make of the above. It can’t possibly be a reply, can it? It’s more akin to Part 2 of a blog – it’s cliché after cliché, like a mini quick-user friendly-ready reckoner that one would find on Wikipedia or such. It contains not an original thought or even pause for one.
Are you seriously going to bounce all that crap onto me here? Like I just discovered folk music last week? You must be taking the complete piss. I know you are. But that’s alright – I can hold my own, and some, too.
It’s similar to young Martin Carthy’s claim that Dylan and Simon stole his one and only melody – Scarborough Fair, oh, never mind the centuries old lyrics Martin, that’s just a mere technicality isn’t it? Such a silly, silly arse for making such a play on something that everybody did and particularly Martin Carthy himself, who has seldom written anything quite as interesting very often in 53 years since the “theft” by Dylan in January 1963.
Opher, man, have you made a mistake here and a whopping fucking big one, too. I’m one of these anoraks who used to spend his empty hours on his week days off from work (working on articles for my folk fanzine, “Cold Strings”) round at Cecil Sharp House, pouring through pages of ancient text from centuries past in attempt to establish origins and connections to what I was in the main listening to the most. People like Shirley Collins, Tim Hart and Ashley Hutchings. Your above list of tawdry Americans wouldn’t get one past the threshold. And it couldn’t get more LCD than that Greenwich Village scene. It was just pretender after pretender with not a scoobie as to the origins of their warbling’s. You must have listed about every American that ever recorded with an acoustic guitar, regardless of originality, ability, credibility or whatever. I can’t think what any of them had to do with the progressive folk movement in Britain. None of these people could compete with Shirley & Dolly Collins, Tim Hart & Maddy Prior (check out their 2-volume “Folk Songs of Olde England” sets from 1968, that I’m sure you will never have heard and you’ll get the picture to what I’m referring to) Ashley Hutchings, The Watersons etc. These were the crew, not the Al Stewarts, Roy Harpers, John Martyns etc. As much as I like and know like the back of my hand, all of their records, these guys didn’t come close to authenticity of the genre. I would also concur that it was in fact Steeleye Span that led the way and not The Pentangle or Fairport Convention – doing Dylan covers in French really doesn’t cut the mustard. One absolute pinnacle of the UK folk revival would have to be Steeleye Span’s “Hark! The Village Wait” album. Just the title alone should be sending the uninitiated scurrying along to Cecil Sharp House just to find out what it means. Their following two, “Please To See The King” and “Ten Man Mop” have just recently been re-mastered and re-released and sound utterly incredible. No wonder Sandy Denny’s Fotheringay packed it in around that time – what was the point, they could not compete with that. And unbelievably it got even better with subsequent albums “Below The Salt” – again a visit to Sharp House is required – and the seminal “Parcel Of Rogues”. This is real British folk music to the max, all these American tossers can go home.
For whom and where exactly did Ewan McColl run the folk scene? Maybe in his own wee back yard but certainly not anywhere else. If one were to study the demographics of the folk scene of the nation as a whole, you’d find the south east to be in a very lowly position, as is the case with total music sales of this genre. You’ve simply lifted a caption out from Uncut or something, such very lazy and inaccurate journalism. McColl was finger-in-the-ear with an Arran jumper stuff. Just ghastly and I can smell the moth balls from here. I hated his stuff and all he represented.
Donovan – leading the commercial scene in England? Just England? Nowhere else? To whom was he appealing to, what sort of age group were they that were buying his “Catch The Wind” 45rpm single? What utter and contrite bilge.
There were real folk artists selling LP’s in the thousands up and down the country, but they weren’t 19 years old on Top of the bloody Pops! Take your rose-tinted spectacles off!
Nick Drake has in fact been getting a great deal of recognition for at least 30 years. It’s not a recent situation as you assume. 1986 was the year that Rykodisc / Hannibal Records first produced the “Fruit Tree” Box set, with his 3 albums plus an outtakes collection, “Time Of No Reply”. It’s since been issued a further twice since then on Island, as have all the 3 proper albums – they too are now on their 3rd reprint on CD, since 1986. Several outtakes and demos collections have also been released but with nothing that hasn’t already been included on the Aix-en-Provence or Tanworth-in-Arden “Time Has Told Me Vols 1-3” bootlegs. Plus two documentary films have been commissioned. The BBC’s, the most well known, “A Stranger Among Us”, first screened in 1998. At least two radio documentaries have been made also by the BBC, the most recent in 2004, “Lost Boy”, narrated by Brad Pitt, no less. His records have been fleshed out yet again most recently on another collector’s type 5 disc box set as “Tuckbox”. Worry ye not, Nick is well catered to.
We differ on two folds – your Englishness is your fucking nemesis here. It’s totally strangling your outlook on the broad spectrum of origin. Secondly, you seem to take what you read as verbatim the truth. I don’t. I always question the source info, the origin of fact, the events that lead to a viable conclusion.
That’s why my letters get printed fairly regularly in Record Collector and Mojo, or at least as often as I bother to write in.
My most recent in January’s RC, where I felt compelled to put the paid journalist straight with his article on the point of the origins of where David Bowie got the name “Ziggy” from. Not exactly a minor detail, one would think in the world of all things Bowie. But in fact nobody has ever before in any of the umpteen biography’s explained this. I received – unusually as it never happened before – an email from the editor thanking me and informing me that he was printing it.
Enough already – back to the music….
Now then Andrew – keep your hair on. I wasn’t intending to wind you up. There’s more than just you who reads the blog and replies. I like to put my opinion in as to what was going on from my perspective. As a young lad living through it and quite heavily involved I tell it like I see it. I was a regular at Les Cousins, Bunjies and the Barge. I loved Dylan, Ochs, Buffy and Farina and followed what went on in New York. I agree with you that there was a lot of people who did not have the talent. We just probably disagree on who they were.
I was never into Folk Music per se – my scene was the contemporary singer-songwriters that came out of it. Traditional English Folk music is OK but not my scene – probably why I didn’t go a load on Steeleye Span. I was heavily into Roy Harper, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie (who I wouldn’t really classify as a Folkiie) and Jackson C Frank. I’m not hung up on the expertise. I like fine playing if it makes the performance better but sometimes it can become sterile. Watching Davy Graham, who was technically brilliant, was like watching paint dry. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani leave me cold whereas the Kingsmen doing Louie Louie I find scintillating even though they can hardly play.
Who would have thought that poor old Jackson would have provoked such an outpouring.
Now reading between the expletives I’m not sure what you are taking issue with.
You didn’t like me using the answer to give people an overview?
You didn’t think that Ewan McColl had as much influence in the fifties?
You didn’t think that Dylan and Simon nicked melodies?
You thought that everything I said was cliché?
You think Steeleye Span were better than Pentangle and Fairport?
You didn’t think that Donovan was the big commercial breakthrough for the Folk scene? Whereas the others sold a few hundred or thousand he sold bucket loads. It created huge interest even if it was poppy.
As far as I was concerned the traditional Folk Music scene was left behind by the contemporary singer-songwriters. Dylan blew that scene. Joan was popular doing the old traditional numbers. Dylan created a new lexicon. Roy harper took it a few stages further in Britain.
For me it was about lyrics, sentiments, poetry and then music.
I was into Guthrie when I was 14 in 1964 (along with blues) and progressed to Bert, Jackson and John before discovering Roy. As far as I was concerned the rest were way behind.
Anyway, I’m grateful for your extensive knowledge and am sure everyone who reads this would benefit from it.