Song of the Day 9/27: Jackson C. Frank, “Blues Run the Game”

Jackson C. Frank was an American folk singer who, like Paul Simon and a few others, moved to London shortly after the “British Invasion.” He met Simon there and impressed him so much that Simon offered to produce an album for him. It was released in 1965. This is the title track, which Simon and Garfunkel also recorded, as did a number of folk artists of the time.

Sadly, Frank soon succumbed to what was eventually diagnosed as schizophrenia. By 1966, British folkie Al Stewart said, “He proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don’t remember a single word of them, it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist’s couch.” He thereafter led a peripatetic existence

Frank’s work enjoyed a bit of a revival after his death in 1999. “Blues Run the Game” has appeared on film soundtracks, most recently last year’s “The Old Man and the Gun.” An album of unreleased tracks and demos, “Forest of Eden,” appeared in 2013. This is the title track.