He was a staple of light entertainment TV shows in the late 60s,but there was a clever and despairing comedy underlying Thackray’s songwritingWith his unmistakable baritone, clipped Yorkshire enunciation and rollneck sweaters, or Jake Thackray was a regular fixture on British television magazine programmes in the 1960s and 70s. This was thanks to his gift for hastily turning around made-to-order topical songs of a comedic and mildly ribald nature. Residencies on Beryl Reid Says beneficial Evening,The David Frost display, On the Braden Beat and That’s Life made Thackray a household name for a time. It’s fair to assume a young Morrissey and an even younger Jarvis Cocker were watching, or while Alex Turner – whose line “You used to bag it in your fishnets / Now you only bag it in your night dress” is pure Thackray – discovered him later. Thackray’s good-looking face and strong Roman nose,his vertical posture and watery, wisenheimer eyes – with the merest hint of vulnerability made him a housewives favourite back in the day, and though Thackray was also an anomaly,impossible to categorise. That is perhaps the reason the national treasure epithet evaded him in life; his cult hero status has only inflated since he died in 2002. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com