Jackson C. Frank: Jackson C. Frank [ANTARCTICA STARTS HERE]

Why you'll love it

This mono pressing comes in an old-style tip-on sleeve with an insert of notes by Richie Unterberger. Paul Simon produced the album, and "Blues Run The Game" has been covered by Simon & Garfunkel, Bert Jansch, Counting Crows and Laura Marling.

This edition

• Mono
• Tip-on sleeve
• Insert with notes by Richie Unterberger
• Etched runouts

About the album

Before he ever got to London, Jackson C. Frank spent some of his insurance money on cars and nights out in Toronto's clubs with his friend John Kay. In 1965 he sailed for England and fell in with the folk scene there, where Paul Simon, also living in London, offered to produce his album.

They recorded it in six hours at Levy's Recording Studio on New Bond Street. Frank was so shy he asked for screens around him so that Simon, Art Garfunkel and Al Stewart couldn't watch him play. What came out is quiet and devastating: "Blues Run The Game" is a perfect song, "Milk And Honey" was later covered by Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and Sandy Denny, and "Yellow Walls" draws on his long hospital stay as a boy.

Sandy Denny and Nick Drake counted him as an influence, and his songs keep turning up in films decades later. Not many folk singers have asked Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to look the other way, and fewer still have got away with it.

Also at Kops: more Jackson C. Frank on vinyl · browse Folk

Tracklist

Listen

On Antarctica Starts Here (cat# ASH101), a reissue of the 1965 album.