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Well Jackson C. Frank is I think very much the epitome of his own particular "thing", but there are numerous directions you could go in from there...
He ain't exactly "smooth", but Bert Jansch, who has covered/popularised several of Frank's best songs, remains an astonishingly inspired musician who has been knocking out the most powerful original folk/blues material you'll ever hear for over 40 years.
Slightly, er, smoother is the solo work of Bert's Pentangle collaborator John Renbourn ; based more on traditional material and elaborate guitar-twiddling, it's fine, solid stuff for sure.
Or, following on from that, why not go straight to Pentangle themselves, if you're not familiar with their work? - In purely musical terms, they're a group SO GOOD it almost seems like they shouldn't really exist, and if you like the sound of having your perfectly articulated '60s folk revival stuff mixed with heavy doses of modern jazz, cosmic blues and awesome ensemble rockin'... well then I point you toward their collected works and shall say no more.
Or on the other hand, if you're more into American folk singers, and the late '60s transition from trad. folk/blues material into the soulful singer-songwriter paradigm, of which Jackson C. Frank is an excellent example, why not check out the work of Fred Neil or Jackson Browne? - good stuff, and pretty damn smooth too, without descending too far into blanditude.
Or if it's the meloncholy tone and despairing emotional punch of Jackson C. Frank that appeals, you could do a lot worse than to head straight for Karen Dalton's two recently reissued albums ; as harrowing and beautiful a set of recordings as you will ever hear, and one destined to go straight to the heart of troubled and lonely people the world over.
Speaking of which, if you don't mind donning the cowboy hat and gulping the whisky, Jackson C. Frank also always reminds me a bit - emotionally speaking anyway, and in the way they both used their troubled personal lives as inspiration for highly stylised / universal songs - of the great Townes Van Zandt, of whom there is nothing really left to say except LISTEN TO HIS RECORDS, and then maybe you can understand and join in the silence. |
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