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Unrepentant, undeterred, she thundered off to cause a stir in poor old bloody…Torrington*
*Yes, I know it doesn’t rhyme…
Hello Alistair,
You’re right, this LP doesn’t appear in the discography on the Project site, but it is, of course, known about. For what it is worth I think that it is the best LP Jake made – a fantastic snapshot of the man at work in the setting in which he was most comfortable. The ‘plastic encore’ monologue and ‘The Bull’ are the two highlights for me.
best wishes
PaulHi James,
As you may already be aware from information on the site, the group has had a number of very successful gatherings and mini-festivals, with a large number of performers doing their own renditions of Jake’s songs. The performances from one of these gatherings (held last November in London) are going to be available soon on CD; not Jake himself, of course, but this might still be of interest. As well as the Very Best of, there is also the Lah-di-dah CD compilation – mostly studio recordings (some with orchestras, which are not to the taste of everyone); you can get this via Amazon pretty easily.
I saw Jake perform several times round about the same time as you – small clubs, top atmosphere, Jake on top form.
Welcome, James. Have a look at the FAQ section of the website – this will deal with some of the issues you raise. The live album you had is brilliant – it’s Jake Thackray and Songs, and was a spin-off from a tv series he had of the same name. The song about the war is The Remembrance. Unfortunately, at present this album is not available on CD, although this group is working hard to ensure that more of Jake’s work does make it to CD. You can pick up a vinyl copy of the album on eBay – there’s one up for bidding at the moment; I’ve picked up a copy for around £10 via this route, although you do need to be careful over condition (excellent or mint will be okay, anything less will probably prove unsatisfactory). Jake’s earlier live album (LIve Performance) is also not available on CD but does turn up regularly on eBay. The Bull was available on an HMV compilation CD, but this has recently been deleted. There is a very good Very Best of available on CD, but there is little live material on it. I believe, however, that a private recording of Jake live may be issued on CD shortly – full details are likely to appear here. If you are a guitarist, have a look at the songs section of this site, as it has all the lyrics as well as tabs for most of Jake’s songs.
Hope that this all proves useful.
Best wishes
PaulActually, the frigging brigadier did put in an appearance, although he didn’t pin any medals on the chests of the children…
We only got to Devon by Saturday afternoon, so others will have to give details about Friday evening and Saturday morning (both of which were wonderful, by all accounts). The afternoon guitarists’ session was great fun, and thanks to Keith I know now what I should be doing with the intro to The Jolly Captain. Seeing and playing Jake’s guitar was a fabulous experience (we all decided that The Man had given us permission…). Meeting Sheila was wonderful, and it was good to learn that she is really comfortable with what we are doing to / with Jake’s songs. Malcy did manage to get The Lodger right and, more to the point, his duet with Ian on I Stayed Off Work Today was a triumph. The old hands who were performing just seem to go from strength to strength, and there were some great new kids (and adults) on the block. Jenny and William loved doing Remember Bethlehem and Tortoise (with props), Clare Morgan and her friend Jane did a great Portishead-style On the Shelf, with Malcy on backing. Bertie (the American spaniel, for those who don’t know him) sat obediently on the stage while having Our Dog sung to him. On Again On Again had a real stageful, and the Topica Ladies did us proud again, emerging clad as witches with hats, cats and nude aprons to flash, while Ladies Magic Circle was busked. It was a great event, and thanks are due to all those (Sarah especially) for all the hard work that went into setting it up. I could ramble on for ages, but Jenny is now demanding access to the computer to contact the Topica Ladies. Still, I hope that this gives some inkling of what Saturday evening was like.
If you click on the reply button and go to the reply screen, replete with emoticons, just beneatht the submit button there is a box labelled ‘select image file to attach’. Find your image file using the browse button to the right, double click on it, and the name of the file should appear in the box just below the submit button. Then press submit (or, if you wish, preview), and voila (minus grave accent). Here’s one that I prepared earlier (for Malcy)…
Hope this helps
PaulMy apologies for the horrifically large (and largely horrific) photo. I didn’t expect it to be quite as big as that…
Paul
To answer Judith’s questions, the performance needs placing in context. The clip is from a show by Noel Edmonds, called something like ‘That was the year’ or ‘What was the year?’. It was on television in the early eighties (roughly 83-84; I remember seeing this clip when it was first shown). Each week the programme would look back at news items, personalities, issues, fashions etc. from a particular year. My guess would be that Jake wrote the additional verses as a special one-off for this particular programme – updating the song and switching between the original and the new performance provided a nice gimmick for the programme. I would doubt therefore whether the song was ever performed in this version again, particularly not as Jake was not particularly fond of ‘point numbers’ like this.
This programme certainly came after the And Songs television series, and this was the last time I saw Jake on television. Does anyone know whether he had any TV appearances after 83-84?
As as aside, Noel was something of a fan of Jake’s, I think. He also had him performing live on his Sunday morning radio 1 programme round about the same time (I remember Noel interrupting On Again On Again, joking that you couldn’t use words like a posteriori on Sunday morning radio).
Hope that this helps!
Paul
