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Jackson C Frank: The Clear Hard Light of Genius
The story of Jackson C. Frank is tragic. The victim of a school fire in his youth, struggling with homelessness and mental illness throughout his life, half-blinded in old age before his death in 1999, Frank met continuous obstacles. And yet he enjoyed a shining moment with the release of Jackson C. Frank on Columbia Records in 1965. The album would go on to be seen as one of the greatest folk albums of the decade maybe of all time and its opening track Blues Run the Game has become a standard covered by hundreds. Jim Abbott s book is the result of years of research piecing together evidence, relations and apocryphal stories from Frank s life. It is also part memoir, as Abbott cared for Frank through the final decade of his life. Their friendship was fraught with difficulties, which Abbott portrays with the honesty of a journalist. In doing so, he draws a portrait of a uniquely gifted songwriter, blessed with talent and besotted by demons. At 250 pages, Abbott s memoir shows a flawed and caring individual whose struggle was best depicted in his songs. Following the release of Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius, Ba Da Bing will release three volumes of Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings in early 2015, compiling work from throughout his life, including unreleased material.
- GenresMusic
250 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2014
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134 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 7, 2014
"She was a beautiful blonde. He was a scarred, burnt, limping paranoid schizophrenic genius."
April 17, 2017
Speaking as a repeat offender for patting himself on the back for his 60s classic rock knowledge, I often fall under the pretentious, misguided impression that I have heard it all. The Beatles? Duh. CSNY? Of course. The Mothers of Invention? Check. Moby Grape? Sure. Gandalf? Yes, both Gandalf and Gandalf II. Despite (over)confidence in my aural oeuvre, the first of many pertinent questions I had upon first hearing Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game” was: How have I never listened to this guy before?
I first discovered Jackson C. Frank in the digital wilderness that is YouTube. As with any jungle there are sundry poisonous berries, but occasionally the inexhaustible explorer – albeit with the assistance of the recommended videos list and auto-play – stumbles upon a secret garden. While Frank’s music is indeed such a windfall, it is hardly a garden of plenty. Frank recorded only one bona fide album (Jackson C. Frank, 1965) and left behind a flock of covers, a modest time capsule featuring early recordings of varying audio quality, and a handful of properly recorded originals that would have been the pillars of his sophomore effort.
A second question arises: Why only one album? For a man who lived until the late 1990s, his self-titled 1965 record (originally released only in the UK) should not have been Frank’s only contribution to the folk scene. Upon further investigation (for starters, Bob Stanley’s 2014 Guardian article), it became apparent that the pain of being a Jackson C. Frank fan lusting for a more prolific discography is nothing compared to the pain of the artist himself: A wayward folk legend forged in flame. Enticed, I hunted down a copy of this book, the only published work to date resembling a comprehensive Frank biography. Regardless of the apt title for a deserving subject, Jim Abbott’s The Clear, Hard Light of Genius all too often keeps readers in the dark.
Clear, Hard Light’s problems begin with a crisis of identity. The cover of the few available editions claim it is Jim Abbott’s memoir about Jackson C. Frank. But if this is the case, why does he spend the first ¾ of the book writing about Frank’s life from birth to the 1980s? Abbott did not meet Frank until 1992. Last I checked, one typically has to be present, or at least born, in order to write a true memoir. To further muddy the waters, Abbott himself both loosely and explicitly stakes his claim as Frank’s biographer within the text: “While it is the job of a biographer, who also happened to be a friend to the subject at hand, to detail the goodness of someone, it would be not honest to exclude the bad deeds of that person as well, and when Jackson went to New York, he did a very bad thing” (173). This passage is not only symptomatic of the book’s identity crisis but also chooses to conclude with three basic words that I forbid my writing students from using in their papers.
To be fair, I could be splitting hairs here. Just because I have a personal bias against writing with overused, informal words does not mean that the entire book deserves a scathing review. There are other aspects of the Clear, Hard Light, characteristics far more concerning than a few less-than-choice words, that serve as the book’s true Achille’s Heel.
The crises of style and genre identity bleed into one another throughout CHL. A memoir is allowed to be more informal, less academic, but a biography demands reliability and sources. However, Abbott seems to have no issues (despite staking his claim as biographer) letting himself off the hook when it comes to these responsibilities. Abbott attempts to ward off criticism for possible inconsistencies with what can only be described as The Sixties Defense. “The sixties being the sixties,” spouts Abbott, “nobody can remember exactly who was where and when they were wherever they were, but it is certain that at one time or another, simultaneously or not, but within a few months either way, Jackson C. Frank, Al Stewart, Art Garfunkel, and Sandy Denny were all residents of Judith’s three bedroom flat in Dellow Street” (72). Seldom have I encountered a more unruly, indefinite sentence in a professionally published piece of work.
Abbott’s consistent inexactitudes are made all the more frustrating by his lack of self-awareness. At one point, he comments on the journalistic quality of a Woodstock-based paper that once employed Frank: “[…] the level of writing, by Jackson and others, is generally of the highest order, and reveals an attention to detail missing from most of today’s journalism” (121). While there is no doubt that Abbott, like Nabokov, enjoys fondling details, Abbott often chooses to focus on details that are inconsequential to the mission of truly bringing the personality, times, and work of Jackson C. Frank to life on the page.
At one point, Abbott goes on a page-long tangent about a song, “Four O’ Clock in the Morning” that may have been written by Frank. He starts off by recounting the flimsy anecdote (the only evidence for his hunch) and, after a rambling explanation, concludes that another songwriter appears to have actually written it. A fun piece of trivia? Perhaps. Vital to the mission at hand? Absolutely not. It was the closest I have ever come to saying, “Cool story, bro” to an inanimate object. A centrifugal lack of focus is only effective in a sprawling Pynchon fiction, not in a book that claims to be part biography and part memoir – even if it is something of a Frankenstein-brand centaur.
Both memoir and biography, any form or writing for that matter, demand focus. Was Abbott aware that a persistent lack of focus would eventually mar the final product? His color commentary on the style an unearthed Frank letter says it all: “The letter meanders all over the map, often into the ozone at times. There are many vagaries and some exaggerations” (160). Apparently, Abbott is not in the business of applying his own critiques to his own writing.
At this point, this review may read like the trolling of a nitpicking naysayer. “So what if there is a blend of nonfiction genres; aren’t genres just restrictive constructs upheld by suits in publishing company board rooms?” “So what if there are a few tangents once in a while? A few fun facts never hurt anybody.” All reasonable challenges. If my problems with CHL were relegated to only the technical qualms that I have shared above, I would not have given it this low of a score. Going forward, I will restrain myself from going off on an extended tangent about Abbott’s poorly masked, ultimately un-substantive hatred of Paul Simon, but I will not hold back when it comes to his treatment of the subject: Jackson C. Frank.
The dynamic between author and subject in CHL is fascinating, but not in the ways that Abbott intended it to be. At times, the relationship even takes on some creepy Kinbote/Shade-esque undercurrents. Abbott even shares at one point that his obsession with Frank may have cost him a marriage: “Our marriage was about over and in fact ended in a couple of months, when she showed me the door. A lot of our problems weren’t related to Jackson, but then again, a lot of them were” (219).
It appears, either through lightly veiled intention or unintended connotations, that Abbott wants to be considered the hero in Frank’s story. He has no problem deifying himself while setting the stage for when Frank meets him: “[Frank] eventually made it out of the big institution into a smaller, less regulated halfway house […]. It was then that the person looking for him managed to ask the right question to the right person and tiny speck of daylight could be seen in the tunnel” (179). The mysterious person looking for the dejected, defeated Frank? None other than Jim Abbott, of course.
Self-indulgent heavenly imagery aside, Abbott certainly deserves a heap of credit for what could be considered Frank’s late period rejuvenation. Abbott advocated for Frank; he even became his legal guardian. Despite Abbott’s intimate level of companionship with and responsibility for his subject, there are moments throughout CHL that sound less like the voice of a caretaker and more like shrieks of a carnival gawker. I cannot think of a truly viable artistic reason for the following sentences to be included in the book:
“Naked, [Frank’s] appearance was very grotesque, in part because of the fat. He also looked almost translucent in an odd way. His skin, especially on his back and his limbs, was so severely scarred from the fire that it wouldn’t grow in the way normal skin would to accommodate weight gain. Instead it stretched, growing thinner and showing his veins and the subcutaneous layers of fat, yellow and rippled. It was a while before I got used to seeing him that way, and it still disturbs me a bit to this day.” (208-209)
The appearance of Frank’s body is not what made me gag while re-reading and typing this passage, but the sheer unethical nature of the paragraph’s existence. Somehow, Abbott deemed it necessary to share with readers what Jackson looked like naked after decades of homelessness and paranoid schizophrenia. I once spent the better half of a year taking care of four men with paranoid schizophrenia. Never once would I dream of publishing something like this about any of them. I was merely a temporary hire at a group home, Abbott was Frank’s legal guardian. It is classless and ethically abominable passages like this that suggest Abbott would feel more at home with TMZ than a publishing house.
There is even evidence to suggest that Abbott did not grasp the full gravity of being Jackson’s primary caretaker. When Frank is in a state that required a clear-headed adult to help him make healthy decisions, Abbott instead chooses to sit at the sidelines at the risk of offending his hero turned ward:
“I remember in a moment of clarity one day when it occurred to me that his life was never going to get any better, so let him enjoy himself. In a way, he deserved it. He had survived so much to get here – who was I to tell him to lose weight and stop smoking?” (209).
Although meant to as a rhetorical device, the answer to Mr. Abbott’s question is that he was, in fact, Frank’s legal guardian. Abbott alone was in the position to assist the dilapidated singer with living healthier. Taking on the pessimistic, uninformed, laissez-faire attitude towards improving the quality of life for a person with mental illness is exactly what is wrong with so many sectors the American health care system that Abbott makes time to criticize throughout the book.
Other moments combine both Abbott’s tactless writing and betray his inept understanding of people with mental illness:
“On one particular night [Frank] wet the bed while asleep. Instead of getting up and changing the sheets (which would have been hard for him to anyway) or moving to the couch to sleep, he flung his wet comforter over the heater to dry. You would think that someone so damaged by fire and its effects would be careful, but not Jackson.” (214)
To be clear, I do not necessarily have a problem with sharing the account of the bed comforter incident. From a narrative point of view, it is the catalyst for yet another location change in Frank’s wandering life, even if there are better options than “he wet the bed” to word it. But the last sentence’s confounding insensitivity positively irks me. Did Abbott (Frank’s legal guardian, sole protector and benefactor) mean to make Frank sound stupid and helpless? Probably not, but that is exactly what he accomplished with that last sentence. The passage reads like a transcript of someone with no sensitivity towards people with mental illness gossiping about an accident involving somebody with a mental illness. Moments like this are condescending towards Frank, infuriating for the reader, and in a perfect world, they would be equally embarrassing for Abbott.
Even if readers put Abbott’s tone-deafness and uncalculated diction aside, he rarely sheds any meaningful light on Frank’s lyrics and is unable to craft a convincing argument to assert Frank’s widespread influence. In the book’s postscript, Abbott fumbles when he tries to extrapolate evidence of Frank’s influence from the work of his more popular contemporaries: “Jackson’s influence, with themes of loneliness and solitude can be heard in many of the songs in the Simon and Garfunkel albums that came later, and a jaunty song like ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ almost certainly has its roots in [Frank’s] ‘Just Like Anything’ ” (222). Upon listening to both of these songs back to back, even listeners and readers unfamiliar with the work of both artists will see through the gossamer comparison that Abbott futilely makes here.
Reading CHL as a biography, Abbott’s lack of tact and thoughtful craft prevents the reader from feeling they truly know Jackson C. Frank, the textures of his era, and the inspirations behind his music. Reading CHL as a memoir, Abbott’s inability to share how his experiences with Frank changed his own life in any poignant way prevent it from making an affecting impact on the reader’s own life journey. Whatever The Clear, Hard Light of Genius was fighting to be, memoir or biography, it does not succeed on either front.
As for the book’s strengths, the accounts of Jackson’s childhood and accident in the fire are well done and are built on the book’s most grounded sources. The passage about Frank’s song “Marlene” is one of the few times that the book comes close to offering any captivating insight on the folkie’s work. Hardcore Frank fans may still want to by the book for an appendix that features a small selection of unrecorded lyrics (which Abbott invites interested readers to “add their own melodies to”). Abbott is able to integrate trivia about and at times maintain the basic chronology of Frank’s life (i.e. the sophistication required of a middle school-level, history report) but he never truly cracks beneath the mythic surface of his intriguing subject. Unfortunately, after all is said and done, the fact that it is the only Jackson C. Frank book available is CHL’s most valuable asset. Here’s hoping a more patiently composed book about Frank will come along one day to run the game.
I first discovered Jackson C. Frank in the digital wilderness that is YouTube. As with any jungle there are sundry poisonous berries, but occasionally the inexhaustible explorer – albeit with the assistance of the recommended videos list and auto-play – stumbles upon a secret garden. While Frank’s music is indeed such a windfall, it is hardly a garden of plenty. Frank recorded only one bona fide album (Jackson C. Frank, 1965) and left behind a flock of covers, a modest time capsule featuring early recordings of varying audio quality, and a handful of properly recorded originals that would have been the pillars of his sophomore effort.
A second question arises: Why only one album? For a man who lived until the late 1990s, his self-titled 1965 record (originally released only in the UK) should not have been Frank’s only contribution to the folk scene. Upon further investigation (for starters, Bob Stanley’s 2014 Guardian article), it became apparent that the pain of being a Jackson C. Frank fan lusting for a more prolific discography is nothing compared to the pain of the artist himself: A wayward folk legend forged in flame. Enticed, I hunted down a copy of this book, the only published work to date resembling a comprehensive Frank biography. Regardless of the apt title for a deserving subject, Jim Abbott’s The Clear, Hard Light of Genius all too often keeps readers in the dark.
Clear, Hard Light’s problems begin with a crisis of identity. The cover of the few available editions claim it is Jim Abbott’s memoir about Jackson C. Frank. But if this is the case, why does he spend the first ¾ of the book writing about Frank’s life from birth to the 1980s? Abbott did not meet Frank until 1992. Last I checked, one typically has to be present, or at least born, in order to write a true memoir. To further muddy the waters, Abbott himself both loosely and explicitly stakes his claim as Frank’s biographer within the text: “While it is the job of a biographer, who also happened to be a friend to the subject at hand, to detail the goodness of someone, it would be not honest to exclude the bad deeds of that person as well, and when Jackson went to New York, he did a very bad thing” (173). This passage is not only symptomatic of the book’s identity crisis but also chooses to conclude with three basic words that I forbid my writing students from using in their papers.
To be fair, I could be splitting hairs here. Just because I have a personal bias against writing with overused, informal words does not mean that the entire book deserves a scathing review. There are other aspects of the Clear, Hard Light, characteristics far more concerning than a few less-than-choice words, that serve as the book’s true Achille’s Heel.
The crises of style and genre identity bleed into one another throughout CHL. A memoir is allowed to be more informal, less academic, but a biography demands reliability and sources. However, Abbott seems to have no issues (despite staking his claim as biographer) letting himself off the hook when it comes to these responsibilities. Abbott attempts to ward off criticism for possible inconsistencies with what can only be described as The Sixties Defense. “The sixties being the sixties,” spouts Abbott, “nobody can remember exactly who was where and when they were wherever they were, but it is certain that at one time or another, simultaneously or not, but within a few months either way, Jackson C. Frank, Al Stewart, Art Garfunkel, and Sandy Denny were all residents of Judith’s three bedroom flat in Dellow Street” (72). Seldom have I encountered a more unruly, indefinite sentence in a professionally published piece of work.
Abbott’s consistent inexactitudes are made all the more frustrating by his lack of self-awareness. At one point, he comments on the journalistic quality of a Woodstock-based paper that once employed Frank: “[…] the level of writing, by Jackson and others, is generally of the highest order, and reveals an attention to detail missing from most of today’s journalism” (121). While there is no doubt that Abbott, like Nabokov, enjoys fondling details, Abbott often chooses to focus on details that are inconsequential to the mission of truly bringing the personality, times, and work of Jackson C. Frank to life on the page.
At one point, Abbott goes on a page-long tangent about a song, “Four O’ Clock in the Morning” that may have been written by Frank. He starts off by recounting the flimsy anecdote (the only evidence for his hunch) and, after a rambling explanation, concludes that another songwriter appears to have actually written it. A fun piece of trivia? Perhaps. Vital to the mission at hand? Absolutely not. It was the closest I have ever come to saying, “Cool story, bro” to an inanimate object. A centrifugal lack of focus is only effective in a sprawling Pynchon fiction, not in a book that claims to be part biography and part memoir – even if it is something of a Frankenstein-brand centaur.
Both memoir and biography, any form or writing for that matter, demand focus. Was Abbott aware that a persistent lack of focus would eventually mar the final product? His color commentary on the style an unearthed Frank letter says it all: “The letter meanders all over the map, often into the ozone at times. There are many vagaries and some exaggerations” (160). Apparently, Abbott is not in the business of applying his own critiques to his own writing.
At this point, this review may read like the trolling of a nitpicking naysayer. “So what if there is a blend of nonfiction genres; aren’t genres just restrictive constructs upheld by suits in publishing company board rooms?” “So what if there are a few tangents once in a while? A few fun facts never hurt anybody.” All reasonable challenges. If my problems with CHL were relegated to only the technical qualms that I have shared above, I would not have given it this low of a score. Going forward, I will restrain myself from going off on an extended tangent about Abbott’s poorly masked, ultimately un-substantive hatred of Paul Simon, but I will not hold back when it comes to his treatment of the subject: Jackson C. Frank.
The dynamic between author and subject in CHL is fascinating, but not in the ways that Abbott intended it to be. At times, the relationship even takes on some creepy Kinbote/Shade-esque undercurrents. Abbott even shares at one point that his obsession with Frank may have cost him a marriage: “Our marriage was about over and in fact ended in a couple of months, when she showed me the door. A lot of our problems weren’t related to Jackson, but then again, a lot of them were” (219).
It appears, either through lightly veiled intention or unintended connotations, that Abbott wants to be considered the hero in Frank’s story. He has no problem deifying himself while setting the stage for when Frank meets him: “[Frank] eventually made it out of the big institution into a smaller, less regulated halfway house […]. It was then that the person looking for him managed to ask the right question to the right person and tiny speck of daylight could be seen in the tunnel” (179). The mysterious person looking for the dejected, defeated Frank? None other than Jim Abbott, of course.
Self-indulgent heavenly imagery aside, Abbott certainly deserves a heap of credit for what could be considered Frank’s late period rejuvenation. Abbott advocated for Frank; he even became his legal guardian. Despite Abbott’s intimate level of companionship with and responsibility for his subject, there are moments throughout CHL that sound less like the voice of a caretaker and more like shrieks of a carnival gawker. I cannot think of a truly viable artistic reason for the following sentences to be included in the book:
“Naked, [Frank’s] appearance was very grotesque, in part because of the fat. He also looked almost translucent in an odd way. His skin, especially on his back and his limbs, was so severely scarred from the fire that it wouldn’t grow in the way normal skin would to accommodate weight gain. Instead it stretched, growing thinner and showing his veins and the subcutaneous layers of fat, yellow and rippled. It was a while before I got used to seeing him that way, and it still disturbs me a bit to this day.” (208-209)
The appearance of Frank’s body is not what made me gag while re-reading and typing this passage, but the sheer unethical nature of the paragraph’s existence. Somehow, Abbott deemed it necessary to share with readers what Jackson looked like naked after decades of homelessness and paranoid schizophrenia. I once spent the better half of a year taking care of four men with paranoid schizophrenia. Never once would I dream of publishing something like this about any of them. I was merely a temporary hire at a group home, Abbott was Frank’s legal guardian. It is classless and ethically abominable passages like this that suggest Abbott would feel more at home with TMZ than a publishing house.
There is even evidence to suggest that Abbott did not grasp the full gravity of being Jackson’s primary caretaker. When Frank is in a state that required a clear-headed adult to help him make healthy decisions, Abbott instead chooses to sit at the sidelines at the risk of offending his hero turned ward:
“I remember in a moment of clarity one day when it occurred to me that his life was never going to get any better, so let him enjoy himself. In a way, he deserved it. He had survived so much to get here – who was I to tell him to lose weight and stop smoking?” (209).
Although meant to as a rhetorical device, the answer to Mr. Abbott’s question is that he was, in fact, Frank’s legal guardian. Abbott alone was in the position to assist the dilapidated singer with living healthier. Taking on the pessimistic, uninformed, laissez-faire attitude towards improving the quality of life for a person with mental illness is exactly what is wrong with so many sectors the American health care system that Abbott makes time to criticize throughout the book.
Other moments combine both Abbott’s tactless writing and betray his inept understanding of people with mental illness:
“On one particular night [Frank] wet the bed while asleep. Instead of getting up and changing the sheets (which would have been hard for him to anyway) or moving to the couch to sleep, he flung his wet comforter over the heater to dry. You would think that someone so damaged by fire and its effects would be careful, but not Jackson.” (214)
To be clear, I do not necessarily have a problem with sharing the account of the bed comforter incident. From a narrative point of view, it is the catalyst for yet another location change in Frank’s wandering life, even if there are better options than “he wet the bed” to word it. But the last sentence’s confounding insensitivity positively irks me. Did Abbott (Frank’s legal guardian, sole protector and benefactor) mean to make Frank sound stupid and helpless? Probably not, but that is exactly what he accomplished with that last sentence. The passage reads like a transcript of someone with no sensitivity towards people with mental illness gossiping about an accident involving somebody with a mental illness. Moments like this are condescending towards Frank, infuriating for the reader, and in a perfect world, they would be equally embarrassing for Abbott.
Even if readers put Abbott’s tone-deafness and uncalculated diction aside, he rarely sheds any meaningful light on Frank’s lyrics and is unable to craft a convincing argument to assert Frank’s widespread influence. In the book’s postscript, Abbott fumbles when he tries to extrapolate evidence of Frank’s influence from the work of his more popular contemporaries: “Jackson’s influence, with themes of loneliness and solitude can be heard in many of the songs in the Simon and Garfunkel albums that came later, and a jaunty song like ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ almost certainly has its roots in [Frank’s] ‘Just Like Anything’ ” (222). Upon listening to both of these songs back to back, even listeners and readers unfamiliar with the work of both artists will see through the gossamer comparison that Abbott futilely makes here.
Reading CHL as a biography, Abbott’s lack of tact and thoughtful craft prevents the reader from feeling they truly know Jackson C. Frank, the textures of his era, and the inspirations behind his music. Reading CHL as a memoir, Abbott’s inability to share how his experiences with Frank changed his own life in any poignant way prevent it from making an affecting impact on the reader’s own life journey. Whatever The Clear, Hard Light of Genius was fighting to be, memoir or biography, it does not succeed on either front.
As for the book’s strengths, the accounts of Jackson’s childhood and accident in the fire are well done and are built on the book’s most grounded sources. The passage about Frank’s song “Marlene” is one of the few times that the book comes close to offering any captivating insight on the folkie’s work. Hardcore Frank fans may still want to by the book for an appendix that features a small selection of unrecorded lyrics (which Abbott invites interested readers to “add their own melodies to”). Abbott is able to integrate trivia about and at times maintain the basic chronology of Frank’s life (i.e. the sophistication required of a middle school-level, history report) but he never truly cracks beneath the mythic surface of his intriguing subject. Unfortunately, after all is said and done, the fact that it is the only Jackson C. Frank book available is CHL’s most valuable asset. Here’s hoping a more patiently composed book about Frank will come along one day to run the game.
August 31, 2017
Possibly one of the most fascinating and tragic stories of contemporary popular music. This book would have benefitted from the help of an outside editor, but as this will likely be the only book to be written about Jackson C. Frank, I'm just grateful that it exists at all. Jim Abbott is part of Jackson Frank's story and best suited to write this biography/memoir. Honest and told with love and sensitivity for its subject. Recommended to anyone with an interest in rock lore.
January 11, 2021
Jackson C Frank is one of the greatest of the 60’s folk singers. Unfortunately his life and work were cut short by a genuinely horrendous string of tragedies. I’ve always felt that Frank was a musical genius who under different circumstances might have been a superstar, and at the very minimum deserved far more credit.
Frank influenced musicians like: Bert Jansch, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Wizz Jones, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny. However he suffered from lifelong mental instability following a school fire that killed many of his friends and left much of his body with burn scars.
The book is written by a man named Jim Abbott who also knew JCF personally. He is the person who helped to rescue the troubled folk singer from homelessness after years on the street. Abbott made his last few years a lot better. He also has been largely responsible for keeping JCF’s legacy alive. A fact that music history geeks like myself are hugely grateful for. My only real problems with the book can be summed up as: a very informal writing style and some digressions that really should have been footnotes to streamline the narrative.
All told I greatly enjoyed the books perspective on the 60’s music scene in London. Abbott paints a vivid picture. Fans and scholars of Jackson C Frank will certainly come back to this book for years due to Abbott’s contributions. I sincerely hope other biographers and historians follow up and continue the research into this mysterious cult classic figure in the world of 1960’s folk music.
Frank influenced musicians like: Bert Jansch, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Wizz Jones, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny. However he suffered from lifelong mental instability following a school fire that killed many of his friends and left much of his body with burn scars.
The book is written by a man named Jim Abbott who also knew JCF personally. He is the person who helped to rescue the troubled folk singer from homelessness after years on the street. Abbott made his last few years a lot better. He also has been largely responsible for keeping JCF’s legacy alive. A fact that music history geeks like myself are hugely grateful for. My only real problems with the book can be summed up as: a very informal writing style and some digressions that really should have been footnotes to streamline the narrative.
All told I greatly enjoyed the books perspective on the 60’s music scene in London. Abbott paints a vivid picture. Fans and scholars of Jackson C Frank will certainly come back to this book for years due to Abbott’s contributions. I sincerely hope other biographers and historians follow up and continue the research into this mysterious cult classic figure in the world of 1960’s folk music.
January 13, 2023
For the most part, this was a beautifully pieced-together collage of Jackson C Frank's life. There was an obvious warmheartedness towards him on Jim Abbott's part; as he details, the pair were close late in Jackson's life, and Jim did all he could to make sure Jackson was safe and comfortable, despite the challenges he was facing. It's an impeccably researched book, and there are some beautiful moments in the testimony of the people, including Jim, who loved him. There were a couple of things that nagged at me though. One of them was how much Jackson's facial scarring was referred to- I thought it was odd, considering that Jim knew him personally, that he would consistently draw so much attention to this throughout the entire book; especially considering the amount of trauma and suffering Jackson went through as a result of the fire that caused it. It became distracting, and seemed to get in the way of what could have been more insightful descriptions of his demeanour or character. The other issue I had, which is linked with this, is how many times Jackson's life was described as "tragic". There are a great many events that happened in his life that were awful, granted. But again, I wondered if Jackson C Frank would feel a little, I don't know... "*eyeroll*", to know how many times the descriptor "tragic" has been used to describe his life. He lived it, after all.
May 22, 2021
After reading this book on Jackson C Frank, quite frankly I didn't feel as sorry for him as I thought I would. I could understand the hardships he went through being in a fire as a child, (which he received quite a substantial amount of money for when he came of age) his wife's still births, and the ultimate death of an infant. But the man stupidly pissed away all his money, was not very nice to people, and seemed to expect others to support him without helping himself. Why the author went out of his way to help this ingrate of a man I will never know. I thought he was a brilliant writer and put out some excellent music but ultimately I couldn't help but think of him as just a loser that expected others to do everything for him. The author even admitted that his marriage suffered for all the time he spent with this man, ultimately ending in divorce. It seemed to be quite an obsession with him. Anyway, it was a very interesting book and I can't fault it for that, but I came out not feeling as sorry for him as I thought I would.
July 12, 2023
This book offers an intimate and lo-fi tour of the life of a man who, if it weren't for the author, the world might not have known. Before being rediscovered by Abbott, Jackson C Frank released one relatively unknown album at a local recording studio, in London, during the 1960's. It was an uncanny fate that led to Abbott rediscovering Jackson, and I don't like imagining if he hadn't. This rediscovery not only led to the publishing of his music, which we're all lucky to have, but to Abbot providing care, advocacy, and friendship through a vulnerable period of Jackson's life. If you want to know more about Jackson C Frank this is the one place, and I couldn't imagine a more fitting way for his story to be told.
January 8, 2021
Excellent book about the hauntingly brilliant and ultimately tragic singer, poet, writer and musician Jackson C. Frank.
The love and admiration of the author for his subject is wedded to an unflinching honesty about his sad decline into homelessness and squalor.
I hope someone will republish it in book form as the only copies available are in the $500 range.
In the meantime it is available for a few dollars in digital format.
I plan on reading it again.
Recommended.
The love and admiration of the author for his subject is wedded to an unflinching honesty about his sad decline into homelessness and squalor.
I hope someone will republish it in book form as the only copies available are in the $500 range.
In the meantime it is available for a few dollars in digital format.
I plan on reading it again.
Recommended.
December 30, 2019
Interesting story of a largely overlooked musician and the myriad difficulties of his life. I swear I heard that Paul Simon had somehow sabotaged the release of his first album. Evidently I was wrong, but a discussion of the record company and promotion of the LP would’ve been a welcome addition to the book. Some story repetition brought my rating down.
August 29, 2024
I read this book on the run up to a tribute show myself and a friend are playing to the music of Jackson C Frank and Nick Drake. As a disabled musician myself it is a book that I related to strongly and it is incredibly well written. It is also without a doubt the saddest book I have ever read. May Jackson’s memory and music long live on.
May 4, 2022
Sixto Rodriguez
Nick Drake
Jackson C Frank
We danced like two snowflakes in the falling wind,
in the wind
Nick Drake
Jackson C Frank
We danced like two snowflakes in the falling wind,
in the wind
November 13, 2025
an interesting look into a man with an album and a legacy and i guess what more can you want except for it to work out in the end (it didn't, well maybe kinda)
September 20, 2018
Ik herinner me nog levendig het moment waarop ik Jackson C. Frank (of toch zijn muziek) leerde kennen. Het was begin jaren '90 en mijn collega in studie wijsbegeerte én muziek Benjamin Steegen speelde een "just like anything" op zijn gitaar. Meteen geïntrigeerd door het nummer hoorde ik het bizarre verhaal van Jackson en ontdekte hoe moeilijk het was om zijn muziek te kopen. Een internationale bestelling via een obscure muziekwinkel en weken wachten later ('t schijnt dat het internet nog niet bestond) was ik de trotse bezitter van 's mans enige plaat (in tot de verbeelding sprekende omstandigheden opgenomen door niemand minder dan Paul Simon - ook een groot fan van de man). Jackson C. Frank werd meteen mijn lievelings-singer-wongwriter.
Ik leerde een hoop nummers van de cd spelen en bleef een fan. Jacskon C. Frank leefde nog, maar was verdwenen in de nevelen van het leven. Jim Abbott kwam ook op een eigen manier op het spoor van de zanger met meer brandwonden dan liedjes en besloot hem op te zoeken. Dit boek is het relaas van zijn -moeilijke- zoektocht om de levende maar verdwenen legende te vinden. Intussen reconstrueert hij het verhaal van Jackson en zijn muziek. Gruwelijk verbrand in een schoolbrand, meer dan een jaar herstellend in het ziekenhuis waar hij extra gepijnigd werd door personeel maar waar hij wel gitaar leert spelen, tot in het volwassen leven waar hij zijn grote som schadeloosstelling in korte tijd verbrast aan dure auto's en feestjes. Tussendoor neemt hij een geniale cd op met zijn roommate Paul Simon en gaat dan mentaal steeds meer afbrokkelen tot hij uiteindelijk een onherkenbare halfblinde obese dakloze zwerver wordt.
Aangrijpend verhaal. Niet altijd even vlot verteld door Abbott en met soms eens en neiging om zijn eigen rol extra mooi in de verf te zetten. Daarom maar 3 sterren. Wel zeer blij dat ik het verhaal te lezen kreeg (Abbott ging kennelijk door een hoop miserie voor het eindresultaat).
Ik leerde een hoop nummers van de cd spelen en bleef een fan. Jacskon C. Frank leefde nog, maar was verdwenen in de nevelen van het leven. Jim Abbott kwam ook op een eigen manier op het spoor van de zanger met meer brandwonden dan liedjes en besloot hem op te zoeken. Dit boek is het relaas van zijn -moeilijke- zoektocht om de levende maar verdwenen legende te vinden. Intussen reconstrueert hij het verhaal van Jackson en zijn muziek. Gruwelijk verbrand in een schoolbrand, meer dan een jaar herstellend in het ziekenhuis waar hij extra gepijnigd werd door personeel maar waar hij wel gitaar leert spelen, tot in het volwassen leven waar hij zijn grote som schadeloosstelling in korte tijd verbrast aan dure auto's en feestjes. Tussendoor neemt hij een geniale cd op met zijn roommate Paul Simon en gaat dan mentaal steeds meer afbrokkelen tot hij uiteindelijk een onherkenbare halfblinde obese dakloze zwerver wordt.
Aangrijpend verhaal. Niet altijd even vlot verteld door Abbott en met soms eens en neiging om zijn eigen rol extra mooi in de verf te zetten. Daarom maar 3 sterren. Wel zeer blij dat ik het verhaal te lezen kreeg (Abbott ging kennelijk door een hoop miserie voor het eindresultaat).
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