Jake, The Yorkshire Chansonnier

In the cold early spring of 1967,  with The Beatles already well into the making of  Sgt Pepper, an unassuming young Yorkshireman walked into Abbey Road Studios to begin his recording career. In this cradle of British pop, where one might bump into a distracted John Lennon in the corridors, or  rub elbows with Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett in the canteen, the 29 year-old Jake Thackray, with his neat short hair, his tie and his tweedy jacket, must have felt like a fish out of water.

A rugby-loving, beer-drinking English teacher, Thackray had not arrived by any  conventional route at his record deal. Born in 1938, he was roughly the same age as most of  the 60's pop high-flyers of the time who were now busy turning the world dayglo. But where the Lennons, and the Jaggers had turned west for their inspiration _ to Elvis, Little Richard or Chuck Berry _ Jake Thackray had turned east, to the great French chansonniers. Artists such as Jacques Brel, Charles Trenet and especially, Georges Brassens  had such a profound effect on the young northerner, that he himself turned chansonnier _ albeit a Yorkshire version of one.

The job- description of  chansonnier  doesn't exist in England. In France a chansonnier may during the course of a performance tell a story or a joke, relate a tragedy or recite a poem all in one song if needs be. Here in the UK though, artists and their jobs are compartmentalised almost to the point of unionisation.   As a rule, no-one wants to hear the funny man sing a song and  no-one welcomes the singer reciting a poem _ recall the scorn which greeted  Paul McCartney's  last foray into verse. Jake therefore, an absolute master of the foreign music form which he had adopted  had chosen to plough a lonely and very misunderstood furrow, when he became England's premier and probably, only chansonnier.

Jake Thackray grew up in a threadbare suburb of Leeds during wartime and in the years of austerity which trailed it. He attended a strict jesuit school. His catholicism  stayed with him all of his life _ often at odds with the irreverence and earthiness which peppered his songs. He studied Modern Languages at Durham before going to live and teach for several years in France. France helped to shape Thackray like Hamburg had done with the early Beatles. He returned home at the outset of the Sixties, fluent in French, adept at the guitar and possessed of a toughened-up songwriting style.

To the viewing public of the late 60s and early 70s,  Thackray was the handsome heavy-lidded chap, who performed those lugubriously funny songs in a gulping baritone on Braden's Week _ later, on That's Life. He was no novice to the TV camera though. Since 1966, he had been making frequent appearances on northern evening news programmes. As he was still teaching at this time, his pupils must have been as surprised as he himself was, when he found himself back in a chalky jacket the next morning helping them to wrestle with  the finer points English grammar.

To listen to even one of  Jake Thackray's albums is the musical equivalent of going through four seasons in a day. He can  be funny, sad, poignant or very near the knuckle and often, the wordplay is so deft that the listener sometimes has to go back and listen again, to ascertain that he really heard what he thought he had. The word; genius is  bandied about far too readily these days, but to say that there is genius within Thackray's song-writing would be no exaggeration.

Whereas Jake Thackray's hero, George Brassens had died honoured in France _ it was said that almost every French household possessed at least one Brassens record _  the Yorkshireman by comparison, died in relative ignominy. on Christmas Eve 2002, aged 63. He was broke, semi-estranged from his family, ravaged by drink and all but forgotten by the British public. For a man who had notched up over 1000 TV appearances, had been a household name, regularly filled concert halls and was once told by John Lennon at Abbey Road  " I like your gear." it was a tragic end.

With Jake Thackray's death though, as is so often the case, interest has been rekindled in his work. A BBC radio documentary  fanned the first flames. Then a TV documentary was planned.  This in turn provoked a search of EMI's vaults for useable pictures of  Thackray. By chance, what the researchers turned up were reels of unreleased recordings. Indeed, so much was discovered that a four CD boxed set and a double live album have recently been released. For a growing new audience, hungry for more of Jake Thackray's work, it is great news. For those of us who remember Jake the first time around, it is also good. But it is so terribly sad that it has taken his death to bring about the wider recognition that this self-made chansonnier _ yet most British of songwriters really deserves.

Jake In A Box _ The EMI Recordings 1967-1976 and Live Performance are available now on EMI Records

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Martin Newell June 06