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Hi im introducing jake to my finnish friend, we talk about scandanavian design and its simplicity but id like to let him listen to jakes view on the uncomfatable easy chairs in the school he worked in with reggie, i cannot remember if it was a song or just an introduction on one of his live albulms. i think it was the latter but could some one assist me in converting š
It is, indeed, an intro. It’s on ‘Live at the Lobster Pot’ Vol 1. He tells the story before singing the Jolly Captain (Track 8), having earlier given a lengthy intro to Reggie before ‘his’ song, Leopold Alcocks.
Hope it goes down well with your finnish friend!
many thanks for the fast reply, i knew i had heard it before! now to find a you tube video etc, his comments where a little un repeatable but i think now he is a secret fan of Jake!
Thanks, Jamie for this interesting piece of news. I must definitely find and buy this Live at the Lobster Pot vol 1 myself next time I come your side of the Channel !
May I advise Ā«Ā Brother GorillaĀ Ā» to get a copy of LLP vol 2 as well. He’ll certainly admire ( as much as I do !) the brilliant way in which Jake gets out of an unfortunate Ā«Ā trouĀ Ā» ( as we say in French ), encountered at the very end of the performance of his famous English version of ā¦ Le Gorille. This volume 2 also contains Jake’s excellent adaptations of two other songs by Georges Brassens ( Je rejoindrai ma belle and Marinette )ā¦ and a hilarious account of a schooltrip to Wembley with unpredictable Reggie!
Well worth a buy too, this volume 2 …Jake always seemed to maintain that the, Morris Traveller driving, accident prone, Reggie, was an ex-colleague “Reggie Sedgewick”. Who knows, but someone must remember if they had a teacher by that name.
In her introduction to Jake’s book of lyrics (Jake’s Progress), Esther Rantzen intimates that Reggie is fictional but may well be based upon the clumsiness of none other than Jake himself.
Esther Rantzen – couldn’t stand her then and can’t stand the woman now!
Those who remember seeing Jake live will probably recall that he used to tell a long story about Reggie Sedgewick before singing about Leopold Alcocks concluding by saying that he had changed Reggie’s name in the song so nobody would actually know who he was talking about!
I can’t think why Esther Rantzen, or whoever wrote the introduction for her, would have any more idea than anyone else.
Hi, at the Torringfest a family member of Jake said that she believed Leopold Alcocks was based on Jake himself. She then produced one of Jakes old guitars. It had damage to the machine heads where it been dropped. One had been replaced with what looked like the control knob from an old iron, and another had a coin soldered in place. May been been a Greek drachma.
That’s a much better provenance than Esther Rantzen, Bob.
I remember Jake’s guitars to my cost. On one occasion, as the sound-man, I was called upon to do the support act as the second guest hadn’t turned up. The trouble was that I didn’t have an instrument with me so Jake lent me his. Apart from the fact that I’m a steel string player and his was nylon strung, one of the machine heads was bent at right angles to where it should point and it was largely un-tuneable. Whether it was the same guitar, I don’t know but it wasn’t as bad as the one you describe. I remember Jake as a relatively practical person so it doesn’t surprise me. There was one long conversation in the bar after a concert when he was trying to decide the best way to clean his son’s electric train tracks. I think the solution we decided came to was coca cola.
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