Mojo - The Music Magazine

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Did you see Jackson begin to make his way in the music scene?
His relationship with the music scene didn't seem to be significantly different from what it was in Buffalo and New York City. He'd auditioned for Albert Grossman [and] it just went nowhere. He sounded fantastic but Grossman just said what people do when they're unimpressed: Thanks for your time. We'll be in touch.

Is it true he wrote Blues Run The Game on the boat to Britain?
He might have, although it seems to me you have to have the experience before you can write about it. It would be extraordinary if he actually wrote it while it was happening to him. We spent a great deal of time in the ship's observation bar where we would get blind drunk so it seems unlikely that there was a lot of songwriting going on. Like most performers he had a guitar in his hand all the time.

The story is that it was the first song he wrote. Were there songs before that?
He was writing a lot of songs that turned up on that album. He was playing around with them, noodling. He would play with several songs at the same time; he wouldn't stick with one until it emerged in its entirety. The music came before the words. Yellow Walls was the only one I remember him talking about, it being a hallucinatory experience of his being in hospital, probably in tremendous pain. It's an amazing song.

When you were in England did you see his character changing/evolving? How was he during those months?
He came into being a wealthy person very quickly, it was absorbed into his personality almost instantly. The year spent in western New York was more difficult for him because it was taken for granted that he would pick up the tab if a group of us went out to dinner. People asked him for money, thousands-of-dollars projects. When we got to England and met other performers such as Tom Paxton and his wife who actually had money, it was as though this was where he belonged, with people who could buy their own dinner and drinks. He was a little more relaxed.

How did your relationship develop?
It settled down into the boredom of a matrimonial relationship. It was not very exciting. That picture that Richard Stanley sent you, we ended up going to the least interesting coast of England and wound up at Whitby. I didn't go to one single museum.

It's a lovely picture. You both look fantastic.
I think I might have been pregnant at that point.

Was it boredom or the knowledge that you were pregnant that brought you home from England?
It was to come back to America to have an illegal abortion. We stayed in New York with an old girlfriend of Jackson's, whom I'd love to find again. Her name is Linda Ffolkes or Ffoulkes. She was a high school student when Jackson was a freshman. They were engaged to be married for a while. That relationship was Jackson's first love. It was Linda who knew a doctor whose licence to practice medicine has been taken away. Just a horrific notion. He was in Washington DC, so we flew back.

It was Jackson's decision to insist that I terminate the pregnancy. It was the right idea, absolutely the right idea. But again, there are a million ways you can go into a situation like that. The impression that I was left with was that not only were we far too young to take on this responsibility, but that the bond between us wasn't strong enough anyway. That's what finished off the relationship. Having risked my life - and that's what it felt like, even though this guy had a doctor's office and was supposed to be competent, it was very scary - I said 'I'm going home' and Jackson went back to England.

It was wonderful for him. It was him being on his own in England that forced him into contact with other people in a way that being part of a couple and living in Twickenham didn't. We lived a kind of suburban life even if we went to coffee houses every night. It wasn't the same thing as being completely on your own. He really immersed himself in the culture a whole lot better without me around.

After he'd gone back to England when did you hear from him again?
We spoke on the phone a lot. I remember calling him a lot. He came back at least once or twice. Then when he came back in the fall I was seeing someone else who was in my apartment. He knocked on my door unexpectedly, I don't know what I said, but I didn't open the door and he went away. At some point he gave me the album and it was inscribed to 'Kathy, who kicked me into England'. I wasn't aware of his relationship with Sandy Denny. Nick Drake was unknown to me until my daughter discovered him in high school, calling me up saying, You know that guy Jackson Frank you mentioned? It might have been then that it became clear that on some minor level, because of the internet maybe, there was a resurgence of interest in him. Around 2000. Right after he died.

So in later years there was no contact?
I called him once. I'm famous for doing this. Waking up and deciding to call someone I haven't spoke to in 20 years. I called Woodstock information and there he was. It must have been '95 or '96. It was a terrible conversation. He knew who I was, or claimed to. One of the first things he said was that the money was all gone. It wasn't like the old Jackson. I'd heard that he'd had a child. I thought we could establish some sort of camaraderie over the fact we had parenthood in common [but] there was no common ground that we could establish because his daughter was not a part of his life. I felt there was no way to establish a relationship with him again.

There were no flickers of the Jackson you once knew?
None. Maybe a chuckle now and again, that deep-throated laugh, but nothing else. Not anything on an intellectual or emotional level. It seemed as though he had flatlined emotionally. No ups and downs or highs and lows. Everything came out at the same register and almost without emotion. Just as though something terrible had happened to his mind. It just wasn't the same person. It was no fun to talk to him, absolutely not.

It is a tragic tale, but it's good to speak to you and hear about his sense of humour and his warmth and personality...
I remember once, he kidnapped me from the common room in the college that I went to, it was hysterical. When he came into this money, he indulged himself in anything he'd ever wanted to and he had one of those old handguns and he walked in with his gun and said, I am capturing this co-ed! I remember the absolute warmth and joy from the man. He was having the time of his life. It's one of my fondest memories of him and it has nothing to do with his music or lyrics.

Interview: Andrew Male

Read the Jackson C. Frank feature in MOJO 186.