Sunday, November 18, 2007

Jake Thackray: On again



This Sunday's video celebrates the late, great Jake Thackray.

As my readers are so young these days, I had better introduce him with this extract from the biography on a website devoted to him:
Jake Thackray was a singer-songwriter in the French tradition, a "chansonnier" whose songs are nevertheless convincingly and idiosyncratically English. This is scarcely surprising. After graduating from Durham University, Jake spent four years in France as a teacher where the likes of Jaques Brel and his particular hero Georges Brassens made their indelible mark.
The influence of their songs and story telling propelled Jake towards his own writing and singing style. But despite this Gallic background his songs are no mere copies; they are firmly and recognisably rooted in the English countryside, character and language.
They are also painfully funny, sad, tragic, rude, irreverent, incisive and happy, and often enough all these things at the same time. In short, they are unique.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First Brel and Walker and now Jake - Mr Calder, you're spoiling us!