One of the early troubadours of the British 60`s folk movement American singer songwriter Jackson C Frank released this incredibly rare self titled LP on the Blue/Black Columbia label (33SX 1788) in 1965 (read below for his amazing story) overlooked on it`s release his influence stretches to several well-known singer-songwriters such as Paul Simon, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch and Nick Drake. Top Mono 1st press copies at present are fetching up to £700 (however in 2009 a NM copy sold for 1320 British pounds), the white rear sleeve suffers from wear/ageing so a real top Mint copy would be a real find....good hunting, I regularly add rare items why not subscribe.
Side 1
1 Blues Run The Game
2 Don't Look Back
3 Kimbie
4 Yellow Walls
5 Here Come The Blues
Side 2
1 Milk And Honey
2 My Name Is Carnival
3 Dialogue (I Want To Be Alone)
4 Just Like Anything
5 You Never Wanted Me
When Jackson Frank was 11, a furnace exploded at his school. The fire killed fifteen of his fellow students, including Marlene du Pont, Frank's then girlfriend. Frank survived, but suffered severe burns it was during his hospital stay he was introduced to music, when a teacher brought Frank an acoustic guitar. When he was 21, he received an insurance check of $110,500 for his injuries, enough for him to \"catch a boat to England.\"
His eponymous 1965 album, Jackson C. Frank, was produced by Paul Simon while the two of them were living in England immersed in the burgeoning local folk scene. Frank was so shy during the recording that he asked to be shielded by screens so that Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Al Stewart could not see him, claiming 'I can't play. You're looking at me.' The best-known track from the sessions, \"Blues Run the Game\", was covered by Simon and Garfunkel, and later by Wizz Jones, Counting Crows, John Mayer, Mark Lanegan, Headless Heroes, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Eddi Reader, 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 her nursing profession to concentrate on music full-time.
In 1966 things took a turn for the worse as his mental health began to unravel he decided to go back to the United States for two years. When he returned to England in 1968 he seemed a different person to his friends. His depression, stemming from the childhood trauma of the classroom fire, had grown worse, and he had completely lost whatever little self-confidence he once possessed. Al Stewart recalled that:
\"He 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. he moved back to Woodstock again.\"
While in Woodstock, he married an English former model Elaine Sedgwick . They had a son and later a daughter after his son died of cystic fibrosis, Frank went into a period of even greater depression and was ultimately committed to a mental institution. Frank went to New York City in a desperate bid to find Paul Simon, but ended up homeless and sleeping on the sidewalk. During this time he found himself in and out of various psychiatric institutions.
Frank died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on March 3, 1999, at the age of 56.
