Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Well, Santa’s played a blinder and I’ve loved immersing myself in these treasures over the past few days.
It’s great to see all the Braden’s / That’s Life stuff together of course, with a few little surprises in the form of musical or lyrical variations from the versions we’re familiar with. And really pleasing to see a bit more of the backing musicians – Alan obviously, but Ike Isaacs and the others were also terrific musical foils for Jake and, going by their demeanor throughout, clearly had a lot of respect and affection for him.
As Tampenny says, Our Dog is a real unexpected treat, and again quite different from the other versions we have. And I unexpectedly found myself rather enjoying the 1983 version of Ladies Basic Freedoms Polka – probably my least favourite Jake song, but the extra verse lends it some extra depth.
The real gold is on disc 2 though – in particular The Camera and the Song and the brilliant performance at Cambridge. Two very different sides to Jake’s work, and taken together a pretty good summation of what made him so special.
An excellent end to a vintage year for us Thackoraks – much of which is down to the heroic work of Paul and others behind the scenes. Chapeau!
Can’t wait to get my hands on this. Hats massively off to all involved, pulling all this together has clearly been a major piece of work! A few later gems that I hadn’t even suspected the existence of, and no doubt the more obvious ’60s and ’70s material will be great.
(Paul, are we fighting a losing battle to keep the forum alive here?!)
I’m not sure even EMI’s paperwork would necessarily reveal the names of the musicians. There’s a book called Random Precision by David Parker which exhaustively documents Syd Barrett’s recordings for EMI, which took place contemporaneously with Jake’s. David had full access to the archives and none of the session players are named at any point – the booking forms mention the number of players (members of the “orchestra/chorus”, in EMI’s delightfully quaint terms), but not who they are.
I guess the documentation you found for Braden’s Week didn’t have any indication of who the.musicians were?
Hello Malcy! If I may, I’d like to echo this request, but for the Cenotaph which also seems to have dropped off the end of the internet…
A brilliant day and night – massive tip of the hat to Paul and co-conspirators for putting it all together. Some great performances, and the sneak peek at the new DVD was a lovely bonus. Some tantalising news about possible future projects too!
Was also really nice to say hello to a few names from this forum. See you all next time, by which point I may even have got a couple of songs up to snuff myself…
Just to belatedly add my voice to this thread – I’m taking my time ploughing through the book and savouring every bit. It really is a fantastic piece of work. Impeccably researched and extremely well written, the overall readability never suffering as a result of the phenomenal amount of detail and new information (especially for what I assume are 2 first-time authors – having been there myself, it’s not as easy as it looks!).
Every page is full of fascinating new insights into both Jake’s work and his life, from his family background, through his Leeds childhood, years in Durham and France, and the more familiar territory after that. It’s by far the biggest advance in the field of Jakeology since the BBC4 documentary. Hats off to John and Paul, all the plaudits the book has been receiving are well deserved.
Of course as I’m reading through, it’s giving rise to lots of trainspotterish questions and observations on my part, but I’m holding them in till I’ve fnished it!
Jake recorded there himself in the 90s – a version of Our Dog that he did as a private birthday present for his niece I believe, and a remake of Lah di Dah. A snippet of the latter was played on the Cerys Matthews Radio 2 documentary a few years ago with a nice lyrical ad lib – “I’ll bill and coo with your appalling Auntie Brenda…”
On a more downbeat note, there’s a reference (albeit an unattributed one) to Jake and Rockfield in this article – https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-legend-of-jake-490086.html
“In his last years, Thackray led a solitary life in Monmouth, semi-estranged from his family, his despairing fans and the people who wanted to help him. Whatever shadows closed in around him, they remained private ones. Occasionally, rock musicians working in nearby Rockfield Studios would relate poignant tales of sighting him coming out of a shop with a carrier bag full of the alcohol with which he buttressed himself during his long “retirement”.”
My pleasure! I do like digging up forgotten bits of trivia like this (you may have noticed).
Certain other members of this forum have good form when it comes to actually excavating such things from the archives, so who knows….
(And… does this qualify this thread for a promotion from the off-topic section to the Jake section?)
A bit of Googling reveals that not only does Jake’s appearance on TISWAS exist, it was shown at a Kaleidoscope (organisation that specialises in dusting down lost and forgotten TV archives) event 7 years ago!
https://missingepisodes.proboards.com/thread/8588/june-2013-kaleidoscope-music-event
The episode was from 28th Feb 1981, and is also referenced here:
http://www.tvpopdiaries.co.uk/1981.html
This would have been from towards the end of the programme’s run, after Tarrant had left. There’s a bit of chat here that suggests latterday presenter Gordon Astley was a Jake fan, so that may have been the link: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59996.30
Now, how do we get hold of a copy…
It’s a shame all the same – most of us being kinder judges of Jake’s dregs than Jake himself!
I suppose chances of any episodes ever being found are pretty remote – it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would have been sold overseas, which is how wiped episodes of things like Doctor Who tend to get recovered. The only vague possibility could be if anyone involved with the programme managed to get hold of a copy for their own use, and it’s somehow survived in a personal archive somewhere – maybe Bernard Bresslaw or the producer David Coulter, or one of the guests like Ray Davies. Improbable, but stranger things happen..
Thanks Paul. I’m guessing nothing at all survives of Tickertape? All I could find online was a list of episode dates from 1968 – 16 episodes, all of which are apparently lost.
