Blues Run the Game [Sanctuary]

• Artist: Jackson C. Frank
• Rating:
• Release Date: October 21, 2003
• Type: Compilation (best of)
• Genre: Folk

Review

With a life as tragic as any bluesman, Jackson C. Frank wrote songs laced with melancholy and pathos, and the best of these ("Blues Run the Game," "My Name Is Carnival," "Halloween Is Black as Night") are striking in their resignation and their acceptance of the dark turns of fate. Badly burned as a teenager in a school fire, Frank learned to play guitar during his lengthy stay in the hospital, and when a considerable insurance settlement from the accident rolled in, he departed for England, landing there in 1965 in the midst of the British folk revival, where he influenced (and was influenced by) an impressive list of musicians, including Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, and another expatriate, Paul Simon. Simon produced Frank's first and only album, Blues Run the Game, named after Frank's most enduring song. Recordings for a second album faltered, and Frank returned to the States, where the inability to escape his childhood scars led to mental illness and a downward spiral that ended in homelessness and a life on the streets of New York. Jim Abbott, an admirer of Frank's small body of work, rediscovered the singer in the early '90s, and steered him through a series of demo recordings of newer material, which makes up most of the second disc here. While it would be tempting to say that these new songs were a glorious return to form, they aren't, except for the brilliant despondency of "Halloween Is Black as Night," which sounds like a lost Leonard Cohen song, only much darker and more desperate than Cohen has ever been. This two-disc retrospective includes the entire Blues Run the Game album and seven songs recorded for the aborted second album, eight previously unreleased recordings from the mid-'70s, and six songs from a failed studio project in 1994, and it closes with a series of kitchen recordings done in 1997, just prior to Frank's death in 1999. All of this makes for some pretty bleak listening, and the sustained melancholy is difficult to take in one sitting, but the best of Frank's songs are such haunted black-hole laments that they are impossible to ignore. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide

Tracks

CD 1

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
Blues Run the Game	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:34)
Don't Look Back	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:59)
Kimbie	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(3:16)
Yellow Walls	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:01)
Here Come the Blues	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:03)
Milk and Honey	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:39)
My Name Is Carnival	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:47)
Dialogue	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:20)
Just Like Anything	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:23)
You Never Wanted Me	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:10)
Blues Run the Game [Single Version]	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:50)
Can't Get Away from My Love	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:50)
Marlene	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:56)
Marcy's Song	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:30)
The Visit	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:58)
Prima Donna of Swans	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(5:16)
Relations	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:54)
Cover Me with Roses	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:20)
Cryin' Like a Baby	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:35)
Spanish Moss	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:53)
Have You Seen the Unicorns	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(0:35)

CD 2

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
Goodbye to My Loving You	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:01)
October	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(4:06)
Mystery	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:37)
I Don't Want to Love You No More	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:39)
Child Fixin' to Die (Aka Young Child)	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:59)
Halloween Is Black as Night	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:46)
Night of the Blues [Version 1]	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:04)
(Tumble) In the Wind [Version 1]	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:41)
Bull Men	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:15)
Maria Spanish Rose	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:50)
Singing Sailors	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:47)
The Spectre	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:02)
Half the Distance	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(2:38)
Night of the Blues [Version 2]	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:51)
(Tumble) In the Wind [Version 2]	Jackson C. Frank	Jackson C. Frank	(3:09)
Last Month of the Year	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(2:59)
Ananias	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(1:36)
Borrow Love and Go	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(2:10)
Washington Jail	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(2:38)
Jesse James	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(3:05)
In the Pines	Huddie Ledbetter	Jackson C. Frank	(3:31)
On My Way to the Canaan Land	Traditional	Jackson C. Frank	(2:52)

Credits

Jackson C. Frank (Arranger), Jackson C. Frank (Performer), Becky Stewart (Design), Colin Harper (Liner Notes), Antony Amos (Project Coordinator), Steve Hammonds (Project Coordinator), Mark Anderson (Engineer), Geoffrey Weiss (Mastering), Jim Abbot (Project Coordinator)