Jackson C. Frank ... writings and reminiscences

Jackson B. Frank: Chronology | London 1968 | Writings & Reminiscences

Jackson C. Frank 1965

Crippled Singer .... Looking back at Jackson C. Frank

The following is a compilation of various articles and reminiscences pertaining to the American singer songwriter Jackson C. Frank, including works by him.

* Liner notes by the artist to his self-titled album Jackson C. Frank, EMI-Columbia, UK, December 1965:

In the field of creative endeavour, anything that can confuse us totally is generally given over to rejection or abject praise. Since I am confused half of the time and rejected the other, as any normal person, I don't think I quite know what to say next….

Today, I talked to a very rich man, who wants to be me but not really; yesterday I talked to someone who envies me for everything he can't stand about me; cross the two and you've got me. I like jaguars real and steel; old Martin guitars; money; unraveling ribbons; misplaced mystique; windmills; dead guns; Polaroid film; popcorn; rusty, boilers; porpoises and harbor seals; every color by itself; broken pianos; and cellars….

I am afraid of the ocean as much as the possibility it is really my mother. I hate venerated stupidity and stupider veneration and am yet paranoiac. I love all dogs and quadrupeds and whoever will love me back totally…. Songs that I write aren't mind to admit to. They dwell a little too heavily on the grey area behind my eyes to become my friends, and with that pat explanation you can judge them yourselves. Nothing of this stares me down in the hall mirror; none of it carries my baggage or pays my food bills; the face of self-knowledge looks like itself and nobody else. This may be a saving grace but so are genocide fanatics’ wars - nobody wins trying to stain the other green so he'll stand out in the normal savagery of concrete trees and bowling pin statistics more than the soiler. I'd work with my hands but it isn't done anymore. Sing, enjoy, talk and die out like the sounds on the disc and you'll never know me as I do till it's impossibly twilight too late to do anything about it. Don't ask me what I'm trying to say, ever. I'm busy floating a lease on life and my mouth is full of carpet tacks and dead gum so I couldn't make myself understood a second time to anybody …

When I “went away to school”, (in truth, I disappeared for two years), I was introduced to independent love, and that's what You Never Wanted Me is all about on this album - puppy love turned rabid. I then began the nocturnal vigil of all “beats” and was proud that I knew so little about so much, which, in fact, is the safest course of action in any case. This led to a euphoria of epoch proportion and, after petering out, to Here Comes the Blues, which may be a laboured comparison to you but was at least twice that to me. At the ripe age of 20 I wrote Milk and Honey and thought seriously of retiring along with J. Paul Getty. Then I came to England to hide …

When I reached London I went into retreat in a hotel in the Strand for three months, snarling at people I didn't want to know and pretending to be lost to the world. One day I did get lost and wandered outdoors, never to return - I began a “get to know yourself” campaign that resulted in getting to know a little about everyone else but me, as I had suspected. I wrote Don't Look Back after seeing that a murderer in Alabama had gone free, whoever he was. Logically or not, this leads to Blues Run the Game and onward even deeper into the newspaper obituary of my inner self.

I suppose I have awakened with a sibling start and cannot stop. I want to share with you some of the incredible binds I have seen myself walk into and crawl away from, more from knowing instinctively that each of us does the same thing than for any particular pride in the manner I personally have or have not survived. To sing is a state of mind that can include all “frames of mind”, and therein lies the danger in communicating through song alone. The contents of this cover are, to some extent, extremely personal, for they are my own “contents”. I cannot defend and will not your or my own judgments of them, for they are only a passing opinion, statements given in absence. To this end I wrote them, to this end only can they stand. If they communicate to you any measure of something valued, or remembered, or recognized in the streets you have just walked, then they are a success within very limited qualifications; that is, you and I have met once more …. Jackson C. Frank

Blues Run the Game

Unlike most blues, this one will not beat back the feeling once it's sung. It wasn't meant to. It is a more or less complete comment on the facts accomplished and the need, no matter how unpromising, to keep the game running. "Living is a gamble ... loving's much the same ..." There's always the change to break even.

Don't Look Back

Don't think of this as anything like "just another freedom song" for the simple reason that it doesn't say "go out and win your place in the sun", spiritually or otherwise. This song is a warning to those that will listen that murder cannot be tolerated any longer for whatever reason. This killing for minor reasoning is not specifically a malaise of southern America. It exists everywhere and will use anything as an argument of justification, to propagate itself and re-write human dignity in its own terms.

Kimbie

This is a more or less traditional song about someone wanting something he know he shouldn't have, in this case the woman who may easily have put him in the "state pen" to begin with. It is still a song of love, however, and in the last verse the singer speaks of his frustration with all the "natural" results of the situation and, perhaps, the society upon which it is based.

Yellow Walls (2nd guitar : Al Stewart)

How many of us are running without moving, hiding behind walls grown from the dim recesses of birth? How many of us believe, when hidden, that we truly cannot be seen, and seen through, at that? I would have to admit to the whole paradox, where I asked, and I think the song is asking us exactly that, nothing more or less.

Here Come the Blues

We all would like to get above the common denominator of the blues. All we can do, however, is try to keep them at a distance, that is at least practical. This song says: "Here they come", and why, but by no means allows any escape: "no bottle of pills can cure my pain ...."

Milk and Honey

A word-picture poem again, dealing with a man's inability to face the reality behind that which he had accepted as a game. The more the game has meant the greater is one's inability to face even the simplest truth, in this case the loss of love, love of life and of a woman that is inevitable as love's meaning itself changes.

My Name is Carnival

Carnival is universal. This song speaks in many voices but comes closest to being that of its own "shadow lion". Only the rules we can see will checkmate the rules we live by in secret.

I Want to Be Alone (Dialogue)

Originally titled Dialogue for Four Voices this is probably closest to the writer's heart, fir it speaks of a dire necessity too often misunderstood for comfort. One must be alone by choice or he cannot give of himself to anything or anyone. To stand apart at least once in each moment of life gives that moment reality and man his soul. To lose that ability is to lose the rest.

Just Like Anything

This is not a children's song, don't think it is anywhere near that. The song is almost another voice to Carnival and shares much the same reasons for having been written. It doesn't want to be completely captured, however, and presented to us on a silver platter, for that would mean the destruction of its existence - it would no longer be "just like anything" then.

You Never Wanted Me

It's very hard to admit to your own failing in a love affair that is ended, and thereby retain perspective, and this work says so, very plainly. Just as we seek to blame anything other that ourselves it turns to a somewhat bitter-sweet ending that is more compromise than truth - "You never wanted me, and now I feel the same ..." A hopeless self-justification with you "back against the wall."

C.G.J.

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* Jackson Carey Frank, Mojo magazine, 186, May 2009. Includes an interview with his former girlfriend Katherine Wright.

Jackson Carey Frank (March 2, 1943 – March 3, 1999) ... though American, he is usually listed with English folk artists. Despite the fact that 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."

The Strange Tale Of Jackson C. Frank

His debut 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.

Andrew Male: How did you first meet Jackson?

Katherine Wright: 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.

AM: What were your first impressions of him? What made you feel you could talk to this guy?

KW: 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.

AM: What look was he wearing?

KW: 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 centering around the fact that he was a singer and a performer and I was his girlfriend.

AM: Did he tell you straight after that he was a singer?

KW: 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.

AM: 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?

KW: 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.

AM: That voice was there from the start, the first time you saw him?

KW: 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.

AM: How did that manifest itself?

KW: 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.

AM: What was behind Jackson's decision to go to England?

KW: 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.

AM: Weren't you both travelling to England?

KW: 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...

AM: What was behind that gesture?

KW: 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.

AM: How long did you stay in England?

KW: Until the 2nd of June. We had arrived in February. I was there for just four months.

AM: Did you see Jackson begin to make his way in the music scene?

KW: 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.

AM: Is it true he wrote Blues Run The Game on the boat to Britain?

KW: 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.

AM: The story is that it was the first song he wrote. Were there songs before that?

KW: 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.

AM: When you were in England did you see his character changing/evolving? How was he during those months?

KW: 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.

AM: How did your relationship develop?

KW: 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. 

AM: It's a lovely picture. You both look fantastic.

KW: I think I might have been pregnant at that point.

AM: Was it boredom or the knowledge that you were pregnant that brought you home from England?

KW: 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.

AM: After he'd gone back to England when did you hear from him again?

KW: 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.

AM: So in later years there was no contact?

KW: 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.

AM: There were no flickers of the Jackson you once knew?

KW: 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 flat-lined 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.

AM: 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...

KW: 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.

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* Jackson and John Kaye of Steppenwolf fame, SignedRW posting, 11 July 2013.

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 referred 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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* Art Garfunkel reminisces on Jackson C. Frank, radio interview with Vin Scelsa (extract), Art Garfunkel [website], 7 December 1997.

VS: There's a song on this new box set that was an outtake from The Sounds of Silence sessions that has never appeared before. It was recorded in December, actually, of 1965. It's a song called Blues Run The Game. It's not a Paul Simon song. It's a song written by someone named Jackson C. Frank. Can you tell us about Jackson C. Frank?

AG: He's a part of my memories of the days we were in England. He lived with us in Judith [Piepe]'s house in the East End, the poor part of town, because we all had no money, and he was a...

VS: In who's house? I'm sorry.

AG: There was this woman in England, a sort of religious, quasi-social worker. A German émigré from Berlin who transplanted to England, did a lot of work with the church and with radio, and was a wonderful kind of Gertrude Stein-Bohemian-daring soul, with a very good ear to who had talent. And she picked up on Paul [Simon], and then we together began to stay at Judith's house. She would put us up in the back room, and she would collect all kinds of disenfranchised people - from hookers and drug addicts - and she would let them stay at her house for awhile, and we were sort of the mainstays sharing the back room. And she would help Paul get on this religious radio show. And Jackson was part of our lives then. She helped him, and he was a wonderful writer - a wonderful songwriter.

VS: An Englishman? An American? What?

AG: He was an American who was living there. He was a burn victim. He had - much of his face was burnt, and he was collecting money from insurance, driving an Aston Martin, writing these great songs. And he fit into these years, 1963-64 [1965-66]. We took a trip with Jackson on the Continent - me and Jackson and Paul and Kathy - and we did our street singing in Paris, Geneva, Nice. We'd pull into town, and we'd sing in restaurants or on the sidewalk with our heads looking over to see if the cops were going to stop us, and collect money and move on. So I have great memories, because those are those, you know, when you're in your early twenties it's a very impressionable, romantic part of life.

VS: Well, here's that song which now finally surfaces on this new 3-CD box set. The song is called Blues Run The Game....  Jackson C. Frank is the composer's name and in the liner notes written by our friend, David Fricke, he talks about the fact that Jackson Frank recorded an album which was never released here in the States, but which has been reissued in England, and is evidently enjoying a bit of underground popularity. So maybe one of these days it'll surface here.

AG: I hope so.

VS: Yeah. But that's nice to have that finally captured on CD - recorded back in '65.

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* Extracts from the Unofficial Jackson C. Frank Homepage 1997+, comprising personal reminiscences of encounters with the artist.

Bob Enge, 5 April 2011: I was born two months before the Cleveland Hill fire. We lived in the Kensington Village apartments in Cheektowaga. One of the neighbors in our building was a boy named Jackie Frank. Although I was not yet three years old when we left Cheektowaga for Tonawanda, I still remember Jackie, and his spread, stiff-legged gait, "because of the fire." I must have heard a lot of talk about that horrible tragedy, because it still seems deeply rooted in my psyche. After the move, our mothers stayed in touch for a few years, and then we lost contact. I never heard another word about him until your review, which led me to do some internet research on the fire and Jackson C. Frank. There were tears. A bit of related trivia: Kirk Douglas came to our building to visit Jackie after he was home from the hospital. I was just a baby, but my older sister met him, and (legend has it) sat in his lap.

Jim Abbott, 16 June 2001: As for a CD, there isn't much left to release that is worth anything. A few old scratchy records of imitation Elvis, some lousy home recordings from 1965 recorded by Judith Piepe, a college radio track and one real treasure--a song written for Art Garfunkel, [Juliette] that Jackson made a demo of but that never got recorded by AG. That one might be the best song Jackson ever wrote, and I am keeping that one for myself.

Joe Boyd: One evening in the eventful month of June '67, I went to hear Sandy Denny at Les Cousins in Soho. I still wasn't convinced: she insisted on performing songs by her American ex-boyfriend Jackson C. Frank and other undistinguished singer-songwriters. [NB: For some reason, it appears that Boyd did not like his American compatriot.]

Tom Nusbaumer: In the early 1970s, I was living in Woodstock, NY. I had a had rented a house, and Jackson lived in the house with me and another person. Before I rented the house, I shared a room with Jackson in Joan's boarding house also on Tinker Street. We used to stay up all night listening to music and write. It was a great time. When I rented the house, Jackson rented a room in the house. But soon he ran out of money, and then slept in the living room. Finally, I told him to leave. Soon, I remember this like it was yesterday, I saw him on the street during a snowstorm, his beard covered in snow and ice, he was standing up against a building trying to protect himself from the cold wind. It was so sad. I of course allowed him to return to the house and live there for free for the rest of the winter. Then I moved from Woodstock to New York City and never saw him again. But I have often wondered what happened to Jackson. Jackson was a tormented man, as, at the time, I was. I had come back from Vietnam disabled, and was bitter. Jackson and I had something in common, we had both survived a horror, but the legacy continued to give us great pain. He was a good man and I am sad to hear he is gone.

Opher Goodwin: I am playing this Jackson tape and thought I'd send you my bit of reminiscence. I was introduced to Jackson in 65 while I was at school. My friend Robert Ede had the album and I was knocked out by it. This was when I was sixteen and considered myself pretty weird and cool. I was also getting into Bert Jansch, John Renbourn but had not yet discovered Roy Harper and co. I immediately bought the album and still have it - a bit nackered. When I went off to Barking college in 68 to spend three years having a great time in London catching hundreds of gigs and rarely eating, I met up with Pete Smith. We sampled everything on offer from Harper to Strawbs to Hendrix and Floyd. On the way we saw Jackson play at the room above the Angel pub in the High Street in Ilford. I believe it was in 69. There were about fifty people there and we sat at a table at the front and clapped loudly after each song. Afterwards we stayed and had a long talk with Jackson. He was looking a bit unkempt and rough but sang and played beautifully. I don't remember him doing anything other than stuff off the album. He was an incredibly warm and friendly guy and was easy to talk to. He was extremely shy and appreciative of our encouragement which was strange for someone who was so extraordinarily good. He was with a tall thin guy with long dark hair and a big hat. He was due to play a guest appearance at Roy Harper's big gig at St Pancreas a couple of weeks later. I'd already talked to Roy about this and I mentioned it to Jackson. He was really keen and looking forward to it. I looked out for him at the Harper gig but he never showed up. I saw his friend there and he told me Jackson was ill. I never saw him again. Occasionally I noticed his name was used in the New Musical Express sample print adverts but he never gigged again. He disappeared forever. A lovely guy. Great songs. A great loss. There should have been another 30 albums and a million gigs.

David Nottingham: I found your website this evening following a conversation with friends about music experiences from the 60's. The most significant experiences for me happened around Les Cousins in 1966 and it was there that I first heard Jackson. C. Frank. I heard saw him perform many times over the next few years. Sometime in early 1969, Jackson did an evening gig at some south London college and I met him in the foyer afterwards waiting for a taxi. He was singing at Les Cousins later the same night so I was able to give him a lift and spend some time talking with him at the club. He was a lovely man, open and friendly and a songwriter and singer of great talent. I am privileged to have heard him sing and to have spent a little time with him. Thank you for your website.

Chris Jones: I used to be a regular visitor to Les Cousins. I remember coming up by train from Southend on sea on Saturday evening and being torn whether to see an all star Folk Concert at The Royal Festival Hall or going to Les Cousins to see [Martin] Carthy and Swarbrick. Fortunately I went to The Festival Hall, mainly to see Joni Mitchell. It was basically a platform as I remember to help promote Al Stewart after releasing Love Chronicles. I think there were others including The Johnsons? Not sure. The concert was turned on its head by the appearance of Jackson. I'd never heard of the guy up 'til then but from that fateful night onwards he made a huge impact on my music. He was 'awesome'. The guy was absolutely stunning. His songs were utterly brilliant, yet to me at that time I knew nothing about him. After the concert I walked up to Cousins hoping to catch the end of the Carthy and Swarbrick set and to my amazement who was there at the bottom of the steps but the great man himself. On passing him I congratulated him on his remarkable performance. He was genuinely humbled at such comments. Hell, he deserved them to say the least. The following morning I remember picking up my dads Daily Telegraph to read a rave revue of Jackson's appearance the previous evening. A compliment indeed from that paper at the time. Yeah, I've still got my original Colombia vinyl release of his first album and no, it's not for sale. It's still gets played and is treasured. Jack may no longer be around but his musical influences live on.

David Freeman: I was in London / Richmond / Soho during 65/66. One evening I was performing playing blues at Les Cousins. Al Stewart was also playing that night - and after my set I was approached by the legendary Judith Piepe who asked me to move in with her, Paul Simon, Al Stewart - and Jackson C Frank. For reasons that now escape me I said 'No' - I must have been mad. This was before the album but after Bert and John had started singing 'Blues Run the Game'. I used to hang around Potters Music Shop at the bottom of Richmond Hill where Jackson used to trade guitars. One of my friends bought one of his Martins. I remember a particular night at Maria Grey College in St Margaret's. The star performer was Tom Paxton and I found myself standing next to Jackson in a very crowded room. I was struck by the severity of his scars - and suddenly he turned to me and said that he just had to get out - NOW. It seemed to me at the time that he was claustrophobic - at the time I put it down to the effect of the fire. This was a golden time .... Jackson, Paul Simon, Bert, John, Beverley ( who went on to marry John Martyn), Spider John Koerner, Elyse Weinberg ................ and on the other side of the electric divide Eric Clapton.

Joergen Larsen: I met Jackson C. Frank in London in the winter and spring of 65/66. He appeared several times in a small folk-club that I went to regularly (almost lived there in fact) called "Les Cousins" in Greek Street in Soho. Many people used to play there - Bert and John of course, and another interesting American called Sandy Bull - and also Jackson C. Frank. The small smoke-filled basement-club was stuffed with people and although people were chatting a lot they became silent the moment Jackson came on. We could all feel his power and intensity when he played. Of course his "Catch a boat to England baby..." was very popular but also "Just like anything - to sing - is a state of mind" was a great hit with all of us. I loved him a lot. We all knew he was having some troubles at home also and were sad when he had to go back. I still have his first LP - great songs still.

Peter Thompson: I can't remember what year it was, but probably 1967. I'd come down to London fresh from the folk clubs of the North and was busking one Saturday with a friend in the tunnel to Tottenham Court Road tube station. After the theatre crowds had gone we were playing on raw bone and singing through sandpaper so we decide to pack it in. I want to see if we could play at a club which was a bit of a legend called Les Cousins and I really wanted to meet Bert Jansch who was a big hero, so we set off on the short walk to Greek Street. Short way, maybe, but there were a lot of drinking dens to pass and we had busking money in our pockets and a big thirst. So it was a couple of sorry characters who crashed into Les Cousins much later, waving a pre-war five string and a battered old Harmony Sovereign. I can't really remember if we got to play (hope not!) and we didn't meet Bert but what we did see was this amazing guy with rat-tail hair singing "I see your face in every place that I've been going. I read your words like black hungry birds read every sowing." For days afterwards I was haunted by the songs and the voice. It was like I'd been part of a strange dream, then my buddy rushes into the sleazy Notting Hill basement we shared for the next three years and he's waving a Jackson C Frank album. We learnt the songs and played them all the time. Then life took over and it wasn't until over thirty years later that I turned on the radio and heard Bert singing Carnival and, suddenly, it all came rushing back....

Jim, February 2003: Look for a new reissue of the album this summer on Castle with many more extra songs and some recent demos, rough but interesting.

Roy Harper: I once wrote a song for Jackson, just before he left one time. I thought he was going for good, and I was quite sad because we were very close. He did come back after that but I was touring the world by then. The reason I'm writing is that I'm looking for a decent pic of him. Something that has a good focus. I'm putting my book together and I would very much like to include Jackson.

Jeff P. Wales, 29 January 2003: I and about 10,000 others were introduced to Jackson last night at a brilliant concert in Cardiff, Wales, by the Counting Crows. I wish I had got the name of the song (about living in cheap hotels etc.) but it was superb (just vocal and guitar), and the Counting Crows gave us a little potted Jackson Frank history too! So, I've got to find his album and add it to my collection. You might want to add the Counting Crows to your covers list now, sorry I just don't know the song title.

Nick McIver: Some years ago I saw another musician from my old folk club days, one Mr Renbourn. He was playing in Salisbury. The audience was poor, the sound system f****d . John was, if he can be, at his wits end. He saved the day. There was a guy, he said, from some years back, don't know where he is now, but he sang a song. And he played The Blues Run The Game. Magic. Ta Mr Frank.

Brian: Just found your JCF page by accident - great tribute! I used to watch him at Cousins in the 60s, and remember once that Bert Jansch (for some reason) borrowed his guitar, and had trouble playing it, complaining that it was strung too tight!

Bert Jansch: Jackson was an extraordinary guy. He only produced one album, but it had such an effect on singer-songwriters, the way they actually wrote songs. The whole album is actually beautiful. Really fine, fine songs.

Chris Fowler: Great to find your Jackson C. Frank site and very glad that someone has done one at last!  I'm way too young to have any memories of Jackson, but a few years a go I put on a series of gigs here in Cardiff (S.Wales) under the name 'Folk Heroes' and after Bert Jansch played he was talking a lot about him when we asked.  He rates him in a very big way. 

Paul: I heard and met J. Frank on a number of occasions in "Les Cousins" club in Greek Street - the general meeting place for singer-songwriters around 1966. I had a residency there at one time with John Martyn. My impression was of this rather fiercely proud character, with the build of an American footballer, who could be quite fierce and acidic when in conversation (and drinking), yet singing these poignant, vulnerable songs with an almost choirboy clarity....."Blues Run the Game" is the one song everyone knew and played. I think it felt like a link between the Hemingway/Kerouac beats from America and the emerging UK identity of singer  songwriters. If Jackson represented the American pole at that moment, Bert Jansch represented the UK pole.

Rod Warner: I saw Jackson many times at the Cousins all those years ago (often with my late wife Barbara van Loren/Warner who knew Jackson) when I was a young idiot feeling my own way into music... I have never forgotten the power and the delicacy of his performances... to me he was one of the true greats... ironically I sang Blues Run The Game for years (and still do!) and remember the many occasions when people would ask me - 'Who wrote that song!'

Peter Feltham: I used to see Jackson all the time at Les Cousins - thanks for doing that page on him. He was a beautiful human being, sad, but kind. And an extraordinary musician and singer.

Gordon: In 1969 I hit the proverbial "road" and decided to spend the winter discovering "America", "Canada" and "myself" (how cliche). However, one early morning in October, I loaded up my Austin Mini, and headed out with the basic route planned to include visits to old Coffee House friends (Bell, Book and Candle)  I knew were living along the way. My first stop was at Hamilton College in N.Y. state with Norm Boggs and he mentioned that Jackson was down in Woodstock N.Y. where he was working in a Leather Shop.  When  I pulled into town,  I had no idea where to find him, however (as it was back then) a few inquiries on the busy street started the ball rolling. About an hour later, after sitting in my car on the main street, there was a tap at my window and Jackson was standing there ready to chat. For the next three days we hung out together, staying at various  places... (he had at that time just broken up with his wife and was sort of on his own). My visit with him ended after a Halloween party somewhere in the hills south of Woodstock in an absolutely amazing house... his wife was living there and they seemed to be getting back together as  I left. I did take a few photos of his daughter (about a year old?) in this house, and seem to remember maybe a shot of the three of them (my photo files were destroyed in a flood about 13 years ago...along with my journal that  I kept of the trip....).

Hugo: I used to go to a folk club in Greek St, London Called 'Les Cousins' where people like Paul Simon used to pop in and sing (without Garfunkel), Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton. It was there 'Jackson C Frank' performed. I remember he hobbled up to the stage (he had a dodgy foot) and blew everybody away. I remember saving up for 2 weeks and buying his album. God knows where that is now. Got married got older had kids etc. forgot all about JCF, then remembered recently, looked him up on the web, and behold there are others out there like me, must try to remember some other artist at les cousins...............

Claire: I just found your site as, on a whim, I searched for JCF's name late one night. So sad to learn he died last year. I often wondered what happened to him, since I hadn't seen any more albums or heard anything. Over the years I've sung his songs to myself many times--used to know almost the whole album and had figured out some easy chords for "Milk & Honey". He knew stuff, that man! I'm sitting here looking at my copy of his album and just noticed he autographed it to me!

Pete Smith: Just stumbled across your site. I didn't know that he had died! But I do have very fond memories of him in the old 'Cousins days. Think I also saw him (looking pretty unwell) but sounding beautiful at a club in Ilford about 1970? Over the last 30 years or so Carnival, Just Like Anything or  Blues Run the Game still pop out of my guitar entirely of their own volition from time to time. Just when I'm doodling, no conscious effort at recall.  

Anth Ginn: I lived in Nottingham, England in the 60s, and bought a copy of Jackson's album. It did the rounds of all my friends and we loved it. People like Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton had been to the local folk club, and for a while, folk music was what all the hippest cats in town were into. We were all around 16 or 17 years old. Then somehow, in 1966 we found out Jackson was playing at a folk club in London, so four of us piled into a friends rattling Morris 1000 and drove down to his gig. It may have been at Les Cousins, but I can't remember. It was a great night and Jackson made a big impression on us all. We went back to Nottingham, inspired and high on our adventure. Then my friend Pete Hollingsworth left my Jackson album in a phone box. We waited for another one - nothing was ever released. We waited for more gigs, but heard nothing. Then the album was released on CD a few years ago and Jackson's songs came back into my life, just as fine and fresh as ever they were.

Meic Stevens 6 April 2000: I knew Jackson way back in the Les Cousins days where I would perform from time to time along with the likes of Jansch, Renbourn, Alex Campbell, Ann Briggs and Derroll Adams. Derroll has only recently died and was cremated in Antwerp where his friends filled his coffin with marijuana so you could only make out his face and moustache! One would often see Donovan or Paul Simon in the front row at Les Cousins soaking up the guitar techniques especially of J.C.F. He was Martin mad and had about six 28's which we would all loan from him because most of us were pretty penniless at the time. I think Paul Simon owes a hell of a lot to J.C.F.'s picking style. I was one of a few who had "The Blues Run The Game" in their repertoire. I did the folk circuit for many years and did the second and third Cambridge Festivals headlining where I also sang the song. In those days we all knew each other really well and would stay in each other's homes which were usually rather dingy crash pads.  We didn't care about material things. The last time I saw him many years ago was when he was with his mother who was on a visit to London. Besides guitars he liked cars as well. He was driving an Aston Martin with the hood down and he had three Martins stuffed behind the seats. That was in Old Compton Street, Soho, just around the corner from Les Cousins. He pulled up for a chat with me and my friend Gary Farr. Les Cousins was the H.Q. for all the best folk musicians in those days: Sandy Denny, The Young Tradition, Ralph McTell and of course J.C.F. I particularly remember Dominic Beehan who always seemed to be pissed. I could tell you dozens of hilarious stories about that era. Even Bob Dylan went down there. They were great days and produced some of the greatest music of modern times. I've released a full band version of "Blues Run The Game" which is on a C.D. entitled "Voodoo Blues" on Blue Tit Records. I'm very sad to hear of J.C.F's death but he'll always be with us as long as we sing his songs.

Jonah Israel: "If I had a penny I'd throw it in the sea / to see if it would float away/ or grow a penny tree." Sitting at the computer on a sunny (too) hot afternoon in Israel and you tap in the name of one of you favorite singers and zap!!! the hair (the little you have) on your head stands up and your eyes sting just a little -after all it was a long time ago- Jackson c frank is no more........ I was lucky enough to see and meet Jackson in 1966 in Richmond, England, and as a direct result I may be the only person in this part of the world who has a copy of his original album. In the 60's there were a lot of 'folk singers' in the style of Bert Jansch, Tom Paxton and Julie Felix who sang in great style, songs of war and peace, love and hate, but not many sang in a voice that could cover your body in goose bumps and make you feel as if it was 'your' song he was singing. In the 33 years since I saw him, a lot has happened in my life, and more than once, in times of sorrow or despair I have put on the album, poured a drink and known that I'm not the only one who has cried alone in the night. Jackson said: "if they (my songs) communicate to you any measure of something valued,or remembered, or recognized in the streets you have just walked, then they are a success within very limited qualifications: that is, you and I have met before..." I think I'll pour a drink and raise a toast to someone who didn't know my name, but was, for all that a 'friend'

John Boylan, Los Angeles, California: I was sad to hear of Jack's death this year. I have often wondered what he was doing and would certainly love to get a copy of his album. I have been a fan and a fellow performer for over thirty years. I first met him in 1961 in Buffalo. It was hoot night at the Limelight, a legendary place in Buffalo's hip Allentown district, owned by Jerry Raven, and Jack asked if he could sit in. Shortly after that he was playing the club as a paid performer, and later formed a folk group with three other people who were regulars there. I remember a number of performers from that time and place as well: Eric Andersen, Doug Brown, Paul Siebel, Lisa Kindred, Dave Wiffen, John Kay, Gene Michaels, Hackett and Raven, Bob Kilheffer, my brother Terence and others. It was a magic time for me. Over the next two years, Jack was as an active player in the burgeoning folk scene in Buffalo, and in nearby Canada, where a lot of us also played at a club called the Bell, Book, and Candle run by a wonderful woman named Ruth Swayze. In 1964, I left for New York to seek my fortune and became a record producer. Jack went to England, where he ran across Paul Simon and other members of the British folk scene at the time. He told me all about it when I ran across him later in Woodstock, where he lived for a while. With a glint in his eye, he explained how you could make back your airfare to London by bringing a Martin D-28 with you and selling it there for a large profit. The overwhelming impression of him that stays with me was that he was a performer of unparalleled commitment to whatever he was singing. You could tell that he felt every word and every note. I will miss him.

Julius: I just found out that Jackson has died so sorry I hadn't known how he lived since I last worked with him. It was only through an attempt to reconstruct my own past and thus making some inquires about Jacksons whereabouts that I discovered he had just died. Do you know where his wife is ? Jackson and I ran what were called Woodstock Sound Festivals back in 1967 & 68 . The, " if you can remember you weren't there" thing kind of applies to me. But at any rate Jackson also played there and was also responsible for our presenting Cream for their first US appearance which was a disaster.

Peter Yearsley: ...I heard him sing at Les Cousins folk club in London (in the sixties), and bought his album ... and still have it! I vaguely looked in a record collector's catalogue recently and saw how much it was worth, and thought I'd try and find out why. I just bumped into the report of his death, too. Sad. It's odd, watching yourself age by seeing the people you've encountered die. Sandy Denny, too. I'd once asked her to sing "Blues Run the Game" when she sang at the opening of a (short-lived) folk club in Woolwich (in London) ... without knowing that there was any connection between the two of them

David Anderson: I just thought you might like to know that the college professor referred to in the following passages. Then a couple of years ago Abbott was talking to a teacher at a local college he was attending. They had a mutual interest in folk music, and out of the blue, Abbott says, he asked the teacher whether he'd heard of Jackson C Frank. "I hadn't even thought about it for a couple of years," Abbott admits, "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?" ' Jackson had known the teacher in school and, in an attempt to leave New York City, had written to ask if there was a place he could stay in Woodstock. is my father, Mark Anderson! Did you know that, sadly, Jackson passed away of Pneumonia on March third? Thought you might like to mention it in your page. Thanks for the web page!

Nick 'Rolo' Rowland: I used to see him, Harper, Al Stewart et al at Les Cousins (back in the days of 'fat tony' and 'old meg') Greek St. Recently went back to where Les Cousins used to be - its now a food storage/basement to a restaurant , but the owner let us in to look around. I remember him as a really nice, if slightly shy, friendly guy, as were Harper, Stewart, Jansch, and, of course Alexis Korner. These guys would talk, smoke with you and show you how they played certain bits of their songs.

Good times...

Jim Abbott: ... Jackson always told me that Bert was angry at him for the guitar riff in Carnival because Bert couldn't figure out how it was played. He showed me. and it is actually very simple once you realize that the chord he is playing is an unusual one. I can't wait to hear how he did with it!

T.J. McGrath: Jackson is gratified that people enjoy his music and he's always amazed that people really enjoy his songwriting. I don't think he has a clue as to how much of an influence he was on the English folk scene back in the '60s. What a nice tribute to Jackson! I'm sure he'll be very pleased about your web page. I will contact him through a friend and make sure he hears about it!

Best!

David Mercer: ...I used to watch him perform at the Folk Barge in Kingston, Surrey. It was a low-cost arrangement based on twice weekly performances in an old Dutch sailing barge moored on the Thames. There were resident musicians and some guests. Jackson was fairly regular as a guest for a while, although the confined atmosphere below deck did not suit him due to the extensive burns he had suffered, and he usually had to break off after a few songs to go up into the night air. He never said much to the audience, perhaps he was nervous, but I remember that he found it harder to decide on the titles of his songs than to write them. I recall strongly his performances of "The Coal Tattoo", which was really a country tune from Billy Ed Wheeler, but Jackson's delivery with a pounding twelve string gave the song a different drama and life. I wish he had recorded that!!

-------------------------

* T.J. McGrath, Rumours, Dirty Linen, 57, April/May 1995

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. 

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* Jackson C. Frank bio, Pop Culture Wiki, 10 July 2013.

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 to 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, disheveled.” 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".

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* Jeff Miers, Buffalo's Jackson C. Frank, a folk hero long forgotten, reenters the spotlight, Buffalo News, 22 October 2018.

It's hard to blame the rest of the world for remaining largely oblivious to the work of Jackson C. Frank. After all, here in his hometown, the man and his music remain obscure at best, unknown or forgotten at worst. And yet … Stop by YouTube, and you’ll find an all but endless list of singers — young, old, obscure, famous, male, female — pouring their hearts into their own interpretations of the closest thing Frank ever had to a hit, the 1965 tune “Blues Run the Game.” The likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Mayer, Bert Jansch, the Counting Crows, Mark Lanegan and Laura Marling have recorded their own versions of Frank’s melancholic folk-blues. Frank’s masterpiece has even broached the mainstream. A "Blues Run the Game" cover by Janileigh Cohen was used to dramatic effect on the hit television show “This is Us, ” and the song is also featured in "The Old Man & the Gun," the recently released film that is possibly Robert Redford's last as an actor. Though he was greatly admired by his musical peers and seemed poised for significant notoriety at a young age, Frank saw little success in his lifetime. He made one album, which was produced by a young Paul Simon and released in 1965. He lived a relatively short and deeply troubled life. But somehow, his music continues to resonate across generations, long after his death in 1999 at the age of 56.

An 'ethereal darkness'

“To me, he’s the most organic, melancholic, honest writer,” said Buffalo singer, songwriter, guitarist and — since 2012 — backing vocalist for Joan Baez, Grace Stumberg. “He sings about the painful parts of love and life — the parts so many would prefer to avoid. When I hear him, it’s like, ‘Yeah, man. You get it.’ He goes straight into the soul. He’s got that ethereal darkness of the heart that I can relate to.” That “ethereal darkness” has its roots in the devastating fire that claimed the lives of 15 sixth-graders and injured 20 others at the Cleveland Hill School in 1954. The dead were Frank’s classmates. He numbered among the injured, suffering severe burns that would remain as scars for the rest of his life. Those scars were not solely physical. Frank was haunted by his memories of the fire, which resulted from an explosion that occurred while the 11-year-old was in the middle of music class. 

For Frank, his greatest love — music — would always be suffused with an air of suffering. This was the essence of Frank’s understanding of the blues, a feeling that, as he makes plain in “Blues Run the Game,” followed him wherever he went and tainted all his experience. It was this sense of heavy tragedy, so evident in his gorgeous, haunted singing voice, and hanging like a thick, velvet curtain around Frank’s music and life, that attracted an independent French filmmaker with a love for tales of enigmatic, under-appreciated figures in the world of the arts. Damien Aimé Dupont had already earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in cinema and worked for a few years in television in Paris when he first heard Frank’s music and felt compelled to investigate him further. “When you hear for the first time ‘Blues Run the Game,’ ‘Milk & Honey,’ ‘Dialogue,’ ‘Marlene’ and others, his tremendous talent is obvious,” Dupont said. “After that, you want to know who is behind these songs, because they say something about his life. "When I started to find out about him, there was almost nothing on the web and no book. He was almost unknown. But I managed to find some information about the Cleveland Hill school fire, his friendship with Paul Simon, his importance in the English folk scene and his tragic ending. I wanted to know more about him and tell his story.”

Dupont set out to do just that by financing a documentary he’s calling, fittingly, “Blues Run the Game.” He has traveled to Western New York several times over the past 18 months, interviewing Frank’s surviving family, friends and peers. Along the way, perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s run out of money. A trailer for the film offers a riveting suggestion of what the finished product might look like. But Dupont and his crew are relying on a crowd-funding campaign to raise the funds necessary to see the project through to completion. “We want to finish this movie, for Jackson and his relatives,” Dupont said. “Making this film is a struggle because, except us, nobody wanted to invest in this production. With my own money, we traveled the USA and UK several times to investigate and meet Jackson’s friends. "We have to say that the people of Buffalo were always a great help for the movie. We have wonderful images and very emotionally charged interviews. The rushes are simply exceptional. We managed to obtain unique files that, until now, have been unreleased to the public.”

'Catch a boat to England, baby'

It’s quite possible the settlement Frank eventually received years after the Cleveland Hill fire did him more harm than good. After a few years kicking around Buffalo, gigging at long-gone haunts like the Limelight Gallery on Edward Street, and waiting for his check to come in — the settlement was reportedly for $80,000 in 1964 dollars, which would be worth around $640,000 today — Frank met a Buffalo woman who would become one of his first serious loves. Katherine Wright was a major factor in Frank’s decision to move to England and pursue a life in music. “He kinda had an authority and a sense of being older, probably from what he'd been through,” Wright told British music bible MOJO in 2009, recalling her initial impressions of Frank. “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.”

Jeff Simon, former News arts and books editor, had just started his lengthy career at The News when he met Frank. “I was a copy boy and Jack was a dictation clerk back then," Simon recalled. "He had thoughts of becoming a reporter, if they'd let him. We bonded as guys with writerly ambitions. He was only here for a few months. He was waiting for his insurance settlement, which he blew through relatively quickly on a car and going to Europe, among other things. “And then, in England, came the album.”

Vibrant scene in London

Frank reportedly booked his transit to England as a response to Wright’s doing the same — according to the MOJO article, she was doing so in order to extricate herself from what had become a deeply conflicted relationship. Despite their problems, the two set up house in the London suburb of Twickenham, but headed back stateside a few months later, when Wright became pregnant. The birth was aborted, and shortly thereafter, Frank set sail for England again, according to legend, composing “Blues Run the Game” during the boat crossing. This time, Frank avoided the suburbs and set his sights on the vibrant folk scene in London. His striking singing and game-changing songwriting turned heads. "Artists like Nick Drake, John Renbourn and Sandy Denny have aspects of Jackson Frank in their music,” Dupont said, recalling the folk music milieu in which Frank found himself in London. “Paul Simon and Frank influenced each other. Art Garfunkel asked Jackson to write songs for his first album. Sandy Denny and Roy Harper wrote songs about Frank.

"In England in 1965, he was one of the first to write his own songs. We talked with Al Stewart and Renbourn for the film, and based on what they said, it's obvious that he had a fundamental influence on folk music.” With Paul Simon on board to produce his debut album, and EMI/Columbia set to release it, Frank stood poised to become a major star. The album was strikingly stark, beautifully sung, Frank’s nimble finger-picked acoustic guitar virtuosic and elegant, his sparse, smartly observed lyrics incisive in their clarity. “Jackson C. Frank” is a stunning debut album. It would be the only album Frank ever recorded.

'Too much darkness'

Why was Frank was unable to capitalize on the opportunities he’d found in England? “Too much tragedy, too much darkness,” Dupont said. “Frank couldn't make a career in music. He had to struggle with his life, his voices and all the dead people around him. It was impossible for him to record a second album. "The saddest part is that the English musicians were sure that he was going to become famous. Recording an album was a big thing in 1965. But we know now that he was already ill. He began to hear voices and he was hospitalized in England. After that, he had to go back to the U.S.” When he did, shortly after marrying an English model named Elaine Sedgwick, things went downhill quickly for Frank. He ended up in the mountains surrounding Woodstock. The couple's first child, a boy, died of cystic fibrosis. The money from the settlement was gone. The album didn’t sell. His marriage fell apart. He crashed on various friends’ couches, and eventually moved back to his mother’s home in Buffalo, where he began pawning his record collection for cash.

The popular story has Frank impulsively leaving Buffalo in 1984 for New York City — while his mother was in the hospital undergoing heart surgery — thinking he might be able to get his career going again, with the help of Paul Simon. It’s unclear what happened, but Frank ended up homeless and destitute. “Yes, this is the true story,” Dupont insisted. “He begged in the streets not far from Paul Simon's office, but the hardness of the street life made him unrecognizable. He stayed in New York for 10 years. Ten years in hell, with nothing.” Things began to look up a bit, briefly, when a Woodstock-based fan and musician named Jim Abbott happened upon Frank through a mutual acquaintance. Abbott quickly made helping Frank a major focus of his life. He found him at an assisted living residence in New York, then helped him move back to Woodstock when it became clear that city life was detrimental to Frank’s health. Abbott, who published the 2014 biography “Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius,” urged Frank to begin writing and performing again. It would all prove to be too little, too late, sadly. Frank, his body worn down by pneumonia and badly bloated due to a thyroid disorder, suffered a heart attack and died the day after his 56th birthday.

'How could it be otherwise?'

In the end, the Cleveland Hill fire never stopped tormenting Frank. “I have to say that I think he probably didn't have a chance of escaping the effects of the fire he was in,” Wright, one of Frank's first serious loves, told MOJO in 2009. “If I had to put a name to what I think was the problem, I'd say he was manic-depressive.” “He was haunted by this tragic event for his whole life,” Dupont said. “Half of his classmates died in this fire. Twenty-two years later, he wrote a song about his friend, Marlene Du Pont, who also died in the fire. He was disabled, heavily scarred, walked with a limp. He couldn't move around comfortably or raise his arms. Of course, he was haunted. How could it be otherwise?” Out of that ceaseless suffering, the sole good that seems to have emerged is Frank’s music, that single album, a collection of songs that twist tragedy and sadness into something beautiful and enduring. “I appreciate his music because he sang and played with such honesty, with no filter,” the songwriter Stumberg said. “He goes down to the depths for you, so that you can join him there. I love that in a writer.” For Dupont, still hoping to gain the funding necessary to complete his film, the fact that Frank remains a virtual unknown is an unconscionable situation. “Jackson Frank deserves to be known in his own country,” Dupont said. “Take 10 minutes and just listen to three songs and you will know what I mean.”

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Jackson B. Frank: Chronology | London 1968 | Writings & Reminiscences |

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Last Updated: 23 April 2024

Michael Organ, Australia