sjosephine
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Personal memories - 2004/06/16 10:29
I don't know how old I was when I went to see Jake live but in my 20's and I'd been watching him on That's Life, a programme I hated, but I never missed when Jake was peforming.
There were many reasons why I loved Jake from the first.
No.1 had to be his music and everything about his idiosyncratic performance, there was no one like him and no one has ever come close. I like the unusual and for that alone he first appealed.
Then strangely enough, Jake looked like members of my family, his very characteristic drooping eyes are what we have always known as 'Radley eyes', so Jake has a very strong look of my father and his brothers. Also, I'm from Yorkshire and lived just 10km away from where Jake used to live and teach. You didn't see too many Yorkshire performer hit the big time in those days.
Clearly we were designed for one another!
I went to see his show when he came to Bradford and I forked out for a front row seat, so I was just a few feet away from him and got to talk to him because he forgot the words of a song he was singing, twice and said, 'Oh bugger it, I'll just talk to the audience....what sort of day have you had, love?'
He also asked me what my favourite song was and when I said 'Brother Gorilla' he said, 'What a coincidence, I was just going to do that one next.' !
My husband and I had all his records but sadly they stayed with him when we parted company many, many years later. It is very strange: my husband was slightly melancholic and Jake's songs were his favourite for this reason - but I have a quirky sense of humour, so they appealed to me as well. Opposites but loved the same performer.
Another, albeit tenuous connection was that my sister in law lived in Monmouth for many years. I wrote to Jake there but it wasn't a letter which required a reply, I simply told him how much pleasure his songs and performances had brought me and wished him well. I think that was only a few months before he died - Pam will remember, we were in cahoots at the time weren't we Pam?
So those are my memories of Jake - of a young man in his prime, a hesitant genius of a poet, a reluctant star, a fine performer.
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