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This is the story of Jackson Carey Frank, man and songwriter, written by his friend, one Jim Abbott, who uses a dry and "chronicle-like" narrative style for the occasion - to imply that there isn't a need to overly dramatize the sequence of tragedies that befell the main character of the book, emotionally speaking. Abbott met Jackson in the final phase of his life, doing everything he could to save him and even coming to the extent of throwing away a house and a marriage, feeling he was on a sort of "evangelical mission." Even after his death, he spent enormous effort gathering as much information as possible with the precise aim of publishing this "memoir;" because his mission wasn't over, with the full awareness that an extraordinary musical talent had to be rediscovered at any cost.
But who is Jackson Carey Frank? Well, the answer certainly can't be brief; but for the sake of synthesis, it can be said that he was first and foremost a man lashed to the bone by fate and for whom nothing seemed to go well. Abbott frequently uses the imagery of a man over whom a black cloud always hangs, ready to threaten a storm even in those few moments when it's pierced by a timid ray of sunlight.
The key event that was a turning point for the worse in his life happened at just 12 years old: a fire broke out in his classroom during a school day, which he survived with 60% of his body damaged. The physical injuries were enormous: he remained lame for life, and the fevers in the following days compromised the functionality of his parathyroid glands (which regulate the amount of calcium in the blood), resulting in constant joint pains from then on. However, surely more immeasurable were the blows suffered by his mind and soul. These wounds never healed; on the contrary, the more time passed, the more they expanded, transforming this immense childhood trauma into a parainode schizophrenia that grew like cancer and undermined his entire adult life (from the '70s onwards, the psychiatric hospitalizations were innumerable). Incredibly, even in such a catastrophe, something positive happened. The burns and the now unresolvable joint problems did not prevent him from holding the posture needed to play the guitar, when a teacher gifted him one during his long convalescence.
The rest of his adolescence passed relatively peacefully, marked by the hobby of music and a growing passion for cars. In fact, at age 21, having come of age and received a substantial compensation from the government, he set sail for England with his then-girlfriend and guitar, hoping to make a business in cars, certainly not so determined to pursue a singer-songwriter career. Yet, when he arrived in London, besides squandering the 100,000 dollars in compensation in a short time, he managed to sneak quietly but made a strong impression on the local folk scene in 1964-1965. Indeed, Paul Simon, who had also found refuge in England after commercial disappointments, proposed to him to record an album, which he produced, characterized by the clear fingerpicking on the acoustic guitar and the emotional baritone voice that dominates the ten songs, no less than perfect. During the recording, however, the first signs of great psychic fragility were visible: it was impossible for him to play and sing unless he was hidden from the technicians by panels. Unfortunately, despite being in the midst of the "folk revival," only five thousand copies were sold; one of which was certainly purchased by Nick Drake, whose "Pink Moon" is simply inconceivable without this album. Despite the impeccable beauty of his songs and the esteem of all his colleagues (from Bert Jansch to John Renbourn, from Roy Harper to Sandy Denny, with whom he had a brief relationship), it was the only album of his life. And so it became inevitable that he no longer believed in the possibility of breaking into the music world and the return to the United States.
At this point, I think it is right to stop recounting the subsequent trials suffered by Jackson: they are listed and described in detail in the book. Also, because the more one goes on with the story, the more one realizes that the real tragedy is not in the individual negative events that piled mercilessly on his body and soul, but in the total inability to resist them, in the abandonment to utter drift without the slightest self-love, in destroying the little good he had in his hands, in the inevitability with which both friendships and romantic relationships were compromised due to a mind increasingly deviant, in reducing oneself to a ghost, increasingly obese, unkempt, and fatally isolated from the world, imprisoned in a sort of parallel dimension, haunted by the memory of those flames that almost consumed him and the survivor's guilt (another concept that Abbott often repeats).
One thing that evokes astonishment is that he still managed to write and sing songs of superb beauty, albeit with a completely changed voice, rendered hoarse by decades of cigarettes and marked by increasingly severe breathing difficulties, in the few times when fortunate circumstances, coinciding with moments of regained mental clarity, allowed him to return to a music studio in an attempt to publish a second album. These songs, along with those of the first and only album, scattered in various posthumous collections, constitute a wonderful legacy whose rediscovery (increasingly growing starting from the '10s of the current century) can never redeem the hell-on-earth lived by this man during his life. Because this is the story of Jackson Carey Frank, a heartbreaking tragedy that leaves a bitter sense of impotence when read; as if even pity isn't enough to find a sense that justifies it.
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