“Jake Thackray was a brilliantly witty wordsmith, specialising in poems-set-to-music insights of Yorkshire life that shine with both comedic hilarity and real-world pathos. Often bawdy, but never rude for the sake of it, he was called the “Northern Noel Coward” at the height of his success. And he was pretty successful, performing his satirical songs regularly on TV and radio, and even making it onto the Royal Variety Performance. . His style is more in the French chansonnier tradition than Coward; closer to Jacques Brel than other musical comedy greats such as Flanders and Swann or the American Tom Lehrer. But his subject matter is very British, or should I say rural Northern England. I first discovered him through his 1971 LP Live Performance, recorded at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is one of the records I inherited from my grandfather. This 2003 compilation captures 21 examples of Thackray’s greatest, released the year after he passed away. . I was familiar with songs like Lah-Di-Dah and ribald The Lodger from the live LP, but there are multiple gems here: The Blacksmith and the Toffee Maker is a wonderful love story, On again! On again! is laugh out loud funny, Old Molly Metcalfe is heart wrenching, and I love his explanation of the sheep-counting method of the Dales’ farmers: Yan Tan Tethera Methera Pip. Whereas The Widow of Bridlington is a character study his fellow Leeds-born Alan Bennett would be proud of...” . #jakethackray #yorkshiremusic #thelodger #lahdidah #oldmollymetcalfe #chanson #musicalcomedy #yantantethera #northernnoelcoward #recordcollection #nowplaying #nowlistening #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CCBEGS3ppzj/?igshid=n3t48zjbouj5
