Entertainment For Lively Minds
Jake Thackray
Posted by Twangothan on 20 November 2011 - 5:44pm.
Just listening to "Scran", acquired at the recent London Mingle, reminds me how much I love Jake Thackray, especially on a cold Sunday in front of the fire. This is from "Jake's Progress" which he recorded with a superbly understated jazz trio. Love those lyrics, their slightly subversive nature hidden by Jake's droll delivery. Enjoy!
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Seconded
Word-ers of my generation will remember fondly his dour, witty appearances on That's Life.
His bitter, romantic lyrics repay attention and the guitar work's often unexpectedly interesting.
Glad to say I rediscovered an interest in time to catch him play live (Red Lion, Kings Heath, fact-fans)
Braden's Week
I remember him on Braden's Week which is where my Dad saw him and subsequently bought the albums.
Anyone remember him
in a kids program called Tickertape ?
Jake
A true genius. He's the Noel Coward of the working classes. Or is Noel Coward the Jake of the upper classes? He was also a pretty handy guitarist. My dad used to play this constantly when we were kids...
Oddly, muchas I adore Jake
I actually prefer this version of Bantam Cock. I think the delivery of this is even better than the original
Pleased you like 'Scran'
Or at least the Jake Thackray track.
This is my favourite. Mainly for the opening line.
Scran
I like all of it. Top compilation! Good work.
Jake
was a class act
Love Jake
He was the English Georges Brassens. Or maybe George Brassens was the French Jake Thackray.
I'm ashamed to say that when he did his songs on "That's Life" I wasn't bowled over. I suppose I was a bit young at the time.
I can certainly recommend the 4CD "Jake in a Box" collection, which gathers all of his EMI recordings in one handy place.
My favourite Jake track? Well, that's a hard one. I think Lah-Di-Dah is a wonderful piece of songwriting. And of course "The Brigadier" is a hoot. And I love "The Last Will and Testament" and "The Kirkstall Road Girl".
But right now I might have to go with this late-period masterpiece: "The Bull".
I adore that
Really rather scathing, but capturing a kind of mordant world-weary resignation of the world around him. I've only ever seen this YouTube clip (which I've downloaded and squirelled away). Where can you actually get your hands on the song itself?
Indeed
It doesn't seem to be on any of the available albums! You could always download the audio from the YouTube clip...
lah-di-dah indeed
Or "The Statues". endlessly lovely, funny, idiosyncratic, moving.
What was the name of the 1970s BBC2 liv performance folk series which always ended with them all singing 'As soon As This pub closes the revolution starts' - JT was in that sometimes- and I have a nasty feeling the Alex who led it all was from up here and I should know this (but I am only a Fake Geordie)
Get the Drift...
...it was called featuring Henry Livings and Alex Glasgow who was indeed from Gateshead. Best known for singing the theme tune for (and writing episodes of) 'When the Boat Comes In', but a fine songwriter in his own right, if not quite of JT's calibre.
Marve
Thanks very much for that its genuinely been in the back of my mind for decades to make the effort to dig out that info - will now set off in search of traces - cheers!
Permit me another
True romance, Thackray style? Try to ignore the dreadful video. But fine guitar work from Jake and Ike Isaacs.
Live at the Unicorn, 30 September 1989 DVD
For any Jake fans, I can recommend the website dedicated to the great man:
http://www.jakethackray.com/
From there I ordered the "Live at the Unicorn" DVD
The image and audio quality are rather basic, but hey! it's still a video of a Jake Thakray live perfromance. And I'd rather have a rudimentary video of Jake than a state-of-the-art 5.1 audio DVD of an artist who didn't have Jake's magic.