Jackson C. Frank in Bloomington, MN

Jackson C. Frank
's original 1965 album is a lost classic, daringly complex and honest, filled with virtuoso playing that is all the more impressive for the offhanded way that
Frank
makes it look so easy. There is a convergence of elements here that may confuse the uninitiated, because of their seeming contradictions -- a flashiness and assertiveness on the acoustic guitars and the approach to singing on numbers like
"Don't Look Back"
and
"Yellow Walls"
that are byproducts of
's early history as a rock & roller, a depth and complexity of
blues
playing that derives from life as much as from talent and dexterity; and the meld of American and English
folk
sounds is like nothing that any listener has heard from either side of the Atlantic anywhere else. Derived from a song bag that included
"Blues Run the Game,"
"Yellow Walls,"
"My Name Is Carnival,"
"You Never Wanted Me,"
the album is kind of overpowering -- rather ironically, it's the downbeat nature of those same songs that likely would have prevented
from being anything much more than a major cult favorite; even
for all of its beauty, has an underlying sadness that makes it difficult to hear, at least in its album version. [The 2002 reissue by
Castle Records
has five bonus tracks from an attempted 1975 comeback by
, which are still extremely impressive and perhaps even more attractive in their lyrical and musical complexity. This expanded album was later folded into the
double-CD anthology titled
Blues Run the Game
, from
Sanctuary Records
.] ~ Bruce Eder