JACKSON C. FRANK / Jackson C. Frank (1965)

It's heartbreaking to think that Jackson made just one album, and astonishing to learn that he reportedly recorded the entire thing in less than three hours. It's his masterpiece by default, but fully deserving of the accolade.
His talent is undeniable and every bit the equal of his more well-known folk music peers. His tragic life story (schizophrenia and depression, homeless and destitute, dead at 56 of pneumonia) adds a tearful footnote to the prodigious emotional current that characterises his works. Listening to the soft melancholy that he coaxes from his guitar strings breaks my heart every time, and also, somehow, consoles an unseen part of me that remembers what it was like to be lost.

Songs of Note: My Name is Carnival; Just Like Anything

5 tender skies out of 5