Jackson C. Frank - Sailing to England

The story we want to tell you begins in 1964 aboard a ship, the one carrying New Yorker Jackson C. Frank and his girlfriend Katherine to England. The ship isthe Queen Elizabeth, and the young man in question is a twenty-one-year-old with a suitcase full of dollars, determined to buythe car of his dreams. So far, it might sound like the ordinary story of a spoiled upper-class kid, but the money that young man had came at the cost of a carefree childhood.

Living is a gamble

Jackson Carey Frank was born in 1943 in Buffalo, New York. The only son of Marilyn Rochefort and Jack Jones, he soon took the surname of his stepfather, army officer Elmer Frank. At the age of eleven, Jackson's life changed forever when he found himself caught up in the devastating fire at Cheektowaga elementary school, on the outskirts of Buffalo. It was the morning of March 31, 1954, when, after a powerful explosion from the boiler room, fire began to spread through the school building, which quickly turned into a deathtrap. Fifteen children lost their lives, and many others suffered injuries of varying severity. When they saw him stumble out through the flames, Jackson's classmates desperately tried to put out the fire with snow, but it was too late: the boy had already suffered burns over half of his body.

Ironically, the class had been in the middle of a music lesson when the fire broke out. It's understandable, then, that for a while Jackson couldn't even bear to look at an instrument, but during the nine months he spent recovering, his teacher came to visit him and gave him a guitar, helping him through his long physical and psychological recovery. Meanwhile, art helped all the children on the ward get through each day, as they spent their time flipping through comic books and listening to records donated by benefactors. The incident kept drawing media attention, so much so that it led actor Kirk Douglas to visit the hospital. There's a rare photo from the "Buffalo Evening News" (above) of a boy in pajamas meeting the movie star. And that boy was none other than little Jackson C. Frank.

His mother, too, did everything she could to help her only son forget that traumatic experience. It was her idea to take him to Graceland, to peek from outside at the home of his idol Elvis Presley: to everyone's amazement, that day the King of Rock interrupted his swim to invite him into the mansion, introducing him to his entire family. After this encounter, Jackson made lasting peace with music. The first song he recorded was in fact a cover of "Heartbreak Hotel", which he intended to send to his grandparents as a Christmas gift (today it can be heard on posthumous anthologies). His subsequent entry into the folk circuit with the trio the D'Juray Singers, the interest of Eric Andersen, and a sizeable batch of songs (an entire project about the Civil War that was never recorded) didn't seem enough, however, to convince young Jackson to entrust his future to the uncertainty of success as a songwriter, and so, without putting aside his Gretsch Streamliner, he enrolled at Gettysburg College to study journalism. Normality finally seemed to have returned to Frank's life, but the $100,000 settlement for the injuries he suffered in the fire would upend his plans once again.

Catch a boat to England

Now twenty-one and suddenly rich, with his friend John Kay (Steppenwolf) as an accomplice, he threw himself into a life of excess, bought a Jaguar and hung around American blues clubs, meeting John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. Like anyone that age, Jackson was completely unprepared to handle that kind of money: when he read in a newspaper that the best place to make money in the car business was across the ocean, he didn't think twice about buying a ticket. It's almost amusing that it was a passion for cars, not music, that was the real reason he set sail for England, but during the crossing, alongside his girlfriend Katherine, he was also keeping company with a guitar, which he'd brought along only to pass the time.

It was aboard the Queen Elizabeth that the song taking shape held all his hopes and illusions — that "Blues Run The Game" which would come to define both his musical and personal story. Once on dry land, the vitality of London quickly swept up the young songwriter, who began timidly performing live. His charming friend Judith Piepe arranged for him to meet his neighbours Al Stewart and Paul Simon, and the latter, struck by his songs, offered to produce his album. An American based in England just like Jackson, Paul Simon was the perfect friend to entrust with producing his record, which was recorded under unusual conditions. The musician couldn't hide his nervousness ("I can't play — you're looking at me"), so Simon came up with the idea of surrounding him with screens to shield him from prying eyes. And so, shut away in a cage like a canary, Jackson began to sing.

The album was recorded in a single three-hour session at CBS Studios in London, with many of the songs already nailed on the first take. As Al Stewart would later say, "it was probably the strangest recording session ever seen". Despite the eccentricities in the studio, the result is an excellent run of deeply evocative melodies, which together form a rare and enchanting songbook. And to think his guitar style had been dictated by necessity: the constant pain in his hand joints (a result of his hyperparathyroidism) forced Jackson to explore alternate tunings, making his  fingerpicking and his warm voice instantly recognizable.

Jackson was an absolute genius. A lot of the music of that period came out of him. "Blues Run The Game" influenced almost everyone who ever heard it. You could say he changed the face of songwriting.

(Bert Jansch)

1965 marked the start of a new era for folk music: on the wave of the splendid "Folk Roots, New Routes" (1964, Shirley Collins and Davy Graham), albums such as "Fairytale" and "What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid" by Donovan, Mick Softley's "Songs For Swingin' Survivors", Bert Jansch's self-titled debut (and shortly after, the album by young John Renbourn would also appear) and, of course, Jackson C. Frank were released. Stylistically, the record is an exquisite, introspective folk-blues of confessional, autobiographical tones, one that anticipates Tim Hardin more than the often-cited Nick Drake. The musician's personality shines through without hesitation; the harmony-rich sadness of "Blues Run The Game" captivated the London scene: the ballad became the manifesto of a generation discovering the new horizons of the musical revolution and beginning to learn the hardships of social reality. The firm, confident touch of his guitar (he now owned a Martin alongside his Gretsch) and the weighty tone of his voice are the mark of a maturity that seems at odds with his young age; the look on his face in the cover photo is not that of a novice — suffering already marks his features, hinting too at the torments still to come.

To sing is a state of mind

The thread running through the record is a subtle melancholy, never indulgent or saccharine, the same melancholy that marks the album's signature track, "Blues Run The Game". But that's not all there is to it; every track on Jackson C. Frank has its own emotional pulse, its own distinct identity: while the delicate "Milk And Honey" flows like a timeless ballad (it would be Sandy Denny who made it even more intense on her 1967 album, "It's Sandy Denny"), the dark irony of "Yellow Walls" makes for a lovely duet between the author and Al Stewart, inspired by Frank's long hospital stay, staring for months at the wallpaper and the hallway lights.

There's also room for the album's only protest song, "Don't Look Back", which highlights Jackson C. Frank's sensitivity toward minorities and injustice. But what sets the record apart from its contemporaries is the depth of its tones and the perfect blend of English and American folk: the blues roots are never abandoned, surfacing in the spare, gripping "Here Comes The Blues" and in the enchanting rendition of "Kimbie" (based on the traditional "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground"), while the world of the circus and its symbolism appear in the visionary "My Name Is Carnival", one of the most modern and innovative tracks on the record, one that still holds that singular appeal of the classics today.

The graceful lilt of "Just Like Anything" is skillfully placed between the two most painful songs the author ever wrote. The first, "Dialogue (I Want To Be Alone)", strays into Tim Buckley territory, delivering an intense moment of melancholy folk, far removed from the identically titled song recorded that same year by Vashti Bunyan with a woman's self-awareness. "You Never Wanted Me", on the other hand, lays bare the difficulties and doubts around having a stable romantic life; his frail health and a pathological insecurity would be a constant in his relationships with women.

After the album's recording sessions, Jackson encouraged his new girlfriend, Sandy Denny, to leave her job as a nurse for music, giving her her recording debut on the B-side of the single "Blues Run The Game/ Can't Get Away From My Love", where she's credited on tambourine. Together they watched the folk scene's success unfold throughout those years, before their paths diverged, each heading down equally tragic roads. Jackson played the clubs, crossing paths with the leading figures of the American musical invasion, and spent his last savings on an Aston Martin and a Bentley. Inspiration, however, vanished as quickly as the money, and the musician found himself facing his first creative block: rock had forcefully taken over, and it was becoming increasingly hard for folksingers to find a record label. Jackson C. Frank's introverted folk didn't have the strength to ride out the Woodstock era; the most intimate, private emotions had become outdated material, everything sacrificed in the name of the youth revolution.

Despite the beauty of the work and the backing of a major label like Columbia, Frank's debut turned out to be a commercial flop. The songwriter then returned to the United States, with the sole exception of a brief trip to Britain in 1968, when he recorded a session for John Peel and took part in a short tour with Fairport Convention, playing at London's Royal Festival Hall. Having returned to America for good, Jackson C. Frank found a job and married his girlfriend Elaine Sedgwick, a former model and cousin of the better-known actress Edie Sedgwick, with whom he moved to Woodstock during the days of the Summer of Love. Things seemed to go well for a while, but the unexpected death of his youngest son from cystic fibrosis dragged him back into total despair. Jackson would later recount: "It was around 1973, after the divorce. My wife wouldn't let me see the one daughter who had survived. I had an emotional breakdown".

In those years John Renbourn tries to track him down, describing him to people he meets on the street: “I was told there was a strange guy, even by Woodstock standards, who went around staring at traffic lights”. Surprisingly enough it really was Frank, but aside from a brief phone conversation, the two friends never meet again. Meanwhile, everyone who had known of his talent doesn't forget him: John Renbourn often brings his “Blues Run The Game” to the stage, and Sandy Denny records a couple of other Frank compositions, dedicating to him the sweet, unreleased “Next Time Aroud”. And while Roy Harper remembers him in the intimate “My Friend”, even Nick Drake takes notice of the singer-songwriter by then presumed vanished, recording no fewer than three of Jackson's songs in those years (today available on the collection “Family Tree”).

I am a crippled singer

In the Seventies the musician is hospitalized against his will, moving from one clinic to another. When in 1977 he finally seems to have recovered, Frank tries to sell his second album to several record labels, but no one seems interested. Instead of working on new songs and trying to promote them, Frank falls back into depression. In the following decade, after moving back in with his parents in Buffalo, one day he leaves and suddenly vanishes without a trace. During this period his mother is in hospital for surgery, and when she returns home she becomes convinced her son is dead, having noticed there had been no bank transactions for several months. In reality Frank had gone to New York, fixated on the idea of getting back in touch with his old friend Paul Simon, by then an unreachable star. All his attempts prove futile, and he ends up wandering aimlessly, sleeping like a vagrant on the city's park benches.

His psychiatric ordeal then begins: he is treated for a schizophrenia he doesn't have and confined to the Creedmoor institute, where Woody Guthrie had drawn his last breath barely a decade earlier. On top of that, he gains an enormous amount of weight and lets himself be overwhelmed by suffering, until one of his fans, Jim Abbott, manages to track him down after years of searching. The first time Abbott comes across Jackson's name is in 1983, when, flipping through vinyl records in a music shop, he finds a handwritten dedication on Al Stewart's album, “The Year Of The Cat“. It reads: “Greetings to Jackson. Blues Run The Game, Al”. A mysterious phrase that immediately grabs his attention, but the shop owner can't offer any explanation. Abbott then forgets about the anecdote and gets on with his life until a couple of years later he notices “Blues Run The Game” in the tracklist of a John Renbourn album (“So Clear”). After more than five years of extraordinary persistence, through a colleague Abbott manages to get in touch with Jackson C. Frank and arranges a temporary place for him in a retirement home in Woodstock. When Abbott travels to New York to meet him, he's shocked by the person standing before him, having only ever seen him in the cover photo of his album.

In the mid-Nineties, Jackson C. Frank packs his few belongings and is ready to move into his new home. Not before, however, another fateful incident gets in the way of his destiny. In April 1995 a group of teenagers are playing with an air rifle on the streets of Queens, New York, when they spot a homeless man sitting alone on a bench. Without a shred of mercy, one of them takes aim at the man's face and fires a single shot, just for the fun of it. Jackson C. Frank, who had already lost everything, now finds himself without his left eye as well.

Fixin’ to die

Over the years Frank's figure has become familiar to devotees of Anglo-American folk: while Findlay Brown dedicated his entire debut “Separate By The Sea” to him, among the first to take notice of him were, paradoxically, Daft Punk, who included him on the soundtrack of “Electroma”. But tributes have poured in from every corner of the world. His tragic life story has reinforced his image as a forgotten genius crushed by the rules of the rock industry, and today it's easy to find praise and anecdotes about Jackson C. Frank all over the web. His one miraculous record, after a modest 1978 reissue (titled Jackson Again and with a different cover), has carried on into the new millennium through a series of editions packed with unreleased material, up to Earth's vinyl version, which has the merit of adding nothing superfluous to the ten precious tracks of the original project.

Interest over the last few decades, along with the insistence of Abbott (his sole heir), has led to the release of two demo collections (Forest Of Eden and Fixin’ To Die) and two extensive retrospectives. The first is the double compilation Blues Run The Game (2003), which besides his recorded debut also includes the seven songs recorded for the never-released second album, eight unreleased recordings from the Seventies, and a number of songs dating from the years before Frank's death in 1999. The other collection is, to date, the most comprehensive: the three CDs of Jackson C. Frank – The Complete Recordings (2015), released alongside Jim Abbott's book, “Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light Of Genius”, contain as many as 67 tracks, 24 of which previously unreleased. Some tracks don't quite hold up in terms of audio quality, being home recordings, but among the compositions worth noting are the sweet resignation of “Stitch In Time”, the Drake-like “China Blue” (which sounds like it could have come off “Pink Moon“) and the dark-blues stumble of “Child Fixin’ To Die”. There's also room for “Marlene”, recorded in the Seventies for his childhood sweetheart Marlene Dupont, one of the symbolic victims of the school tragedy, so badly burned that she had to be identified by the few scraps of clothing left intact. Jackson offers her an ethereal serenade: the verses describe the fire that left him “a crippled singer”, while the chorus dreams of the two kids together, “dancing like snowflakes”.

Jackson's future had already burned up in that tragedy, whose ghosts would torment him for the rest of his life, though death would not catch up with him until 1999, at age 56. After a life marked by misfortune, his heart finally gave out: the cause was a fatal heart attack.

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