- This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
It is generally agreed, I think, that the very best of Jake on TV was in his BBC 2 series from 1980, Jake Thackray and Songs – a series of six half-hours recorded live in small venues around the Midlands by BBC Bristol. Each programme included a guest – Alex Glasgow, Ralph McTell, Richard Thompson etc – and Jake was accompanied in each by his bass player Alan Williams.
For a long time it was thought that the BBC had wiped the tapes of these programmes, but this has since proved to be quite untrue. In the light of the up-coming tribute documentary to Jake on BBCtv (still no date, but can’t be long!), and the release by EMI of the four-CD box set and the 2-CD Live at the QEH set (both scheduled for this month), I wrote to Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, suggesting/requesting that the BBC should release Jake Thackray and Songs commercially on DVD.
I’ve now had a letter back from Mark Thompson telling me that the commercial music team at BBC Worldwide is currently considering the suggestion and will respond "as soon as they are in a position to do so." In the light of this, can I suggest that it might do no harm if everyone who reads this were to write to Jason Blain at BBC Worldwide, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0TT, urging him to look kindly upon the idea and convincing him that such a DVD release would be bound to have excellent sales?
Ian WInteresting how the passage of time changes things. When I wrote to BBC Worldwide several times in the past the response was distinctly more hardnosed – give us money and we’ll let you have the rights!
Ian
At last, the BBC may be coming to their senses!
My letter has just been sent. It’d be great if all 1247 of us wrote. I’m sure many Richard Thompson fans are completists and would buy it too.
Cheers
PhilIf all else fails and the BBC fail to deliver the goods, all is not lost – whilst searching through my loft I came across some audio cassettes with all six episodes – a bit crackly since I remember taping from a hand held microphone next to the tv while everyone else in the room had to be quiet! Jake did indeed have a different guest each week – Maddy Prior Band, Richard Thompson and his guest on Programme 4 was a young lad from the north east called Pete Scott – I wonder whatever happened to him. I thought he was quite good and original.
Steve
At least one home video recording of the show exists – I have a copy but it is fairly low res. The key issue is with the rights. The BBC are prepared to be very helpful with licencing but on commercial terms (the fact that we knew precisely where it was in their archives and they didn’t seemed to pass unremarked). I have also written to them again suggesting that if they don’t want to release it themselves then they should give us a copy from the vaults and a licence to do it ourselves on much more preferable terms.
The proceeds from the last Jakefest in Edinburgh and any profits from the Live in Germany cd have gone into a pot to form the beginnings of a fund for future releases. I have a mental list of things which could be done but for now am ready to revel in the releases from EMI.
More on this later, depending on the Beeb’s response.
Cheers
Ian
<typo corrected after posting>
Post edited by: aliasmacalias, at: 2006/04/21 10:11
I have just received a letter from BBC Worldwide stating that they must ‘confirm sadly there are no current plans to release a Jake Thackray DVD. From time to time, however, we do license material to third party record labels, such as EMI, and if there are any proposed releases including any specific archive material, we can of course keep you posted of developments (e-Mail: simon.gurney@bbc.co.uk).’
Six new CDs from EMI, rave reviews in The Guardian and Mojo, SJKTH in development, a BBC4 documentary imminent: when is the BBC going to wake up to what is happening?!
Mr Gurney must clearly be our next target for campaigning.
šæPaul
My personal eMail refers!
I’d be grateful if anyone reading this with experience of licencing of material and DVD production could get in touch with me privately at ian <dot> burdon <at> gmail <dot> com
I’m going got be out of the country for a few days but hopefully will have internet access.
Thanks
Ian
Post edited by: aliasmacalias, at: 2006/06/01 19:19
Belatedly picking up on the Pete Scott thread, I was so impressed with his performance on "..and Songs" that I sought out his album;it’s in my loft collection as,unfortunately,I didn’t care for it. Neither of the featured,excellent songs he did on the show were on the album and I thought that it was somewhat over-produced. From memory it was titled "Jimmy The Moonlight" but if anyone wants more details let me know and I’ll go upstairs and dig it out. By the way,I may be mistaken but I’m fairly certain I heard Roger Whittaker sing a cover of the song about Edith Piaf.
Hi Hugh
Pete Scott has recently re-emerged into the public spotlight – website here: http://www.petescott.co.uk/
As regards the original question of a DVD of the series, keep your eyes on this space.
Ian
speaking as someone who works for the beeb and is also a jake fan i think the bbc’s lack of plans for not releasing a jake dvd are totally understandable. there are hundreds of brilliant perfomrers who have recorded sterling work for the bbc and those artists no doubt have their own dedicated fans who would love the bbc to make that work commercially available. but the bbc cant make them all commercially available and can only choose to release so many dvds and sadly a jake thackray dvd would be very low down the list for them as it really wouldn’t sell many copies in relative terms. (sad but true)
A very good point postcardged. I think there is a hope that after last night’s documentary, the bbc will be flooded by requests for more ‘footage’ – namely the ‘and songs’ series, and may then show them in the near future. So come on everyone, flood the beeb!
Having seen some other stuff that gets aired I would hope Jake wouldn’t be too far down the list. And if the beeb doesn’t show it, there are plans in the pipeline…Copied from the yahoogroups message board – I’m sure ‘Paul’ won’t mind!
"I thought last night’s programmes were great, and long overdue. I have
just posted a message on the BBC4 ‘Have Your Say’ section on the bbc
website saying how great the programmes were, and urging the bbc to
show them on BBC2. Could I urge other people to lobby the corporation
in the same way?Paul"
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.