"'Don't look back' I heard somebody say / but the old times feel so good and I'm better that way." --Allan "Jake" Jacobs

JAKE WITH
THE FAMILY JEWELS

Music is so much about discovery. To find a new album that lights up the sky is like meeting a new best friend. The world becomes a little warmer, and the questions that really have no answers become less important. It's like the swirl of confusion that modern life often feels like gets a little less, well, swirly.

Haunting record stores since the 1950s, I have found a world of such incredible spiritual opulence there that it is impossible to think of a world without music. And now that the stores are opening up again after over a year of closure, it often feels like the jail doors have swung free and we are now allowed to walk out. In desperation I mail-ordered a new album a month ago because I could not wait to hear it, but felt like I was cheating doing so. When it took three weeks to arrive, and via USPS tracking I noticed the package had bounced around to six cities before it made it to my front porch I knew I was being punished for that seditious act. No more mail orders for me.

With Amoeba Records in Hollywood reopened after a 15-month closure it feels like order has been restored in the universe. Even waiting in line an hour or two when they first unlocked their doors on Hollywood Boulevard to get in isn't too much to ask. Because once you enter, and a John Coltrane or Merle Haggard or Moby Grape album is playing over the powerful store system, it feels like human life is truly flowing again. Customers are excited, clerks are excited, the world is excited. Because without music, where is the excitement? Nowhere.

In that exalted state of wandering aimlessly through thousands and thousands of vinyl albums and compact discs, harmony sets in. All the unhinged thoughts and feelings flying around the brain come a little more to order, and what sometimes feels like insurmountable odds in the cosmos no longer matter as much. Music has always been the brave panacea for confusion. In so many ways, those sounds can eradicate fear and offer peace instead.

That's where certain albums come in. For me, it's many times the ones that are next-to-unknown. Those are like small treasures. And while it feels unfair for them to be unheard by the masses, it also gives them a strong aura of secret goodness, like there is a hidden handshake involved to discover their existence. There are dozens and dozens of these kinds of releases, and to revisit them now shores up strength and shines a special light on incredible joy. Over the past 60 years of scouring record store shelves--in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Nashville, Portland, Seattle, London, Paris and everywhere in between--there are probably a hundred of these mostly unknown gifts of amazingness. Beautifully, they last forever.

It's like gambling, in a way, to chase an unheard sound. When you see an album of mysterious background, there is usually some kind of unspoken connection that first draws you in. Maybe the artist's name is slightly familiar: through a song once heard but forgotten, or a mention in a magazine article or maybe even a mist-covered television appearance that came and went so quickly it's like it didn't really happen. And sometimes it's just the album artwork itself that sends a flashing light asking for notice. The best album covers are always the ones that convey what the music inside is like, at least to the extent that anything tangible can capture sound itself. Because, to me, in the end music is indefinable. It lives in a time and space of its own as a separate reality. It's like trying to hold air. Can't happen.

Almost 50 years ago I was in a small record store during my first trip to New York. The city itself was everything I ever dreamed it would be. Massive buildings, millions of people scurrying around on cold days, blazing subways roaring underneath the streets, yellow taxicabs everywhere and an obvious sophistication woven into city life itself. Then there was the music: jazz at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, rock & roll at Max's Kansas City and blues and folk music everywhere, being sung on street corners and tiny clubs. There was no end to anything. That was New York.

As I flipped the albums in that small record store on Bleecker Street, a pink album cover that looked a little like a Pepto-Bismol advertisement caught my eye. That particular hue wasn't one seen everyday. And the large photograph centered on the cover was of a clearly-satisfied man holding a chilled libation and sitting on a huge white wicker chair in a swanky straw hat, reddish slacks and snazzy vest, all held together visually by an old-timey string tie. Next to him was a black Fender Telecaster guitar and a bass drum with a cleverly painted head which duplicated the scene around him that happened to be an erupting volcano and a pink flamingo. Why not?

The artist was billed as JAKE WITH THE FAMiLY JEWELS, and the album title, spelled out in big black letters across the bottom of the cover, was THE BIG MOOSE CALLS HIS BABY SWEET LORRAINE. Of course it was. Now, if all this grand mess didn't call for closer investigation, I don't know what would. But here comes the gamble part: spring $3.99 for the unknown or walk away still solvent. There was something abstractly incessant about it all, though. Like maybe magic lurked within. The songs, mostly written by Allan "Jake" Jacobs had normal enough names, like "Penthouse," "Water Makes Me Sing," and "Lake Louise," along with a couple of covers of Bob Dylan and Everley Brothers origination. So there were no serious tells about what was really going on here, except that little bit of twanger excitement about it all. It didn't feel quite normal, and those are usually the unfamiliar albums that bring it all home.

Needless to say, buying this album was one of those small-overhead gambles that pays dividends for eternity, because the 10 songs became instant inspirations and continue to throw chills and thrills into the atmosphere whenever played. There is something so tinglingly bohemian about Jake and the Family Jewels that it feels like infinity itself is guiding the band. They swing and rock, groove and pop and generally just raise a contained uproar with such cool finesse in the end it all feels completely irresistible. It is no wonder no one has heard of them, because they thrive outside musical boundaries, and sound proud of it. The album's opening song, "Sunshine Joe," lays down a  marvelous marker by an artist who has invented his own musical style: "it was last night in the city and the boys are getting tired / I'm in an awful fix and Delilah she looks wired / say goodnight turn out the lights and pull the shades down low / we'll see you in the morning Sunshine Joe…" And that's just the beginning. Jacobs' voice has the gravitas of a long-term New Yorker, with still a sliver of his innocent childhood years growing up in Mount Vernon. Mixed into everything is the feel of someone who's seen it all--twice--but still walks in wonder of the endless parade of humanity that is New York City. THE BIG MOOSE CALLS HIS BABY SWEET LORRAINE is only one song in, and the sky's the limit. The micro-risk of buying an unknown album looks like it's going to light up the sonic slot machine forever.

The key to recognizing an all-time album is often in the second song, and how different it is from the first. Not a good sign if it's a retread, but a great omen if it's a change-up that shows an inherent sparkle in what might lay ahead. "Don't Look Back (I Heard Somebody Say)" switches the channels completely for Jake and the Family Jewels, bouncing into a whole new groove that gives the rhythm a swing band zing. It also shows Jake Jacob's allegiance to all he has learned in the past, when Greenwich Village was on fire in the 1960s with bands like the Lovin' Spoonful and Jacob's own The Magicians. Why not look back when necessary, even just to recharge the memory bank with positivity? That's the mark of the survivors. "Lake Louise" turns up the swing thing even higher and zips off into Dixieland band land, like the Family Jewels could be sashaying down MacDougal Street any moment. The rhythm section are not glued to the beat, while the guitars and keyboards ride a fun wave across the top of the mix. And the music feels like one big smile.

There is no doubt Jacobs and the group have pulled the filters off their instruments and raised the fun flag up the mast, at the same time they fan the spiritual undercurrents of where they're going. "Water Makes Me Sing," an eerily prophetic look at what would soon be lurking in the world's future survival, gathers an air of Eastern religions in its makeup. Nothing overtly, but the hint of philosophies outside the Western world wafts through the music and lyrics like a quiet meditation in the middle of a traffic jam. As an air of placidness settles in, "Penthouse" brings the heart-lifting New York skyline back to the forefront in this hopeful urban fantasy, only to be tempered by the lyric, "All my friends have come and gone nothing left at all to do / just some joker waving madly, 'I'll be seeing you'…" Nothing lasts forever, not even on records. No wonder the band ended Side One with that sentiment. Time to decompress.

It is an easy adage that you can tell a band by their covers, and for many years dozens have been turning to Bob Dylan to find one. The secret there, though, is that it better be a song lurking in the weeds and not one already known by half the world's population. Jake Jacobs moved to Greenwich Village about the same time Dylan did in the early 1960s, enrolling in the School of Visual Arts, so he knew the landscape enough to dig deep. Coming up with a gem from the Bard's BASEMENT TAPES collection, "Minstrel Boy" hits the bulls-eye. Sounding like a modern antique, it lets the Family Jewels throw in their best harmony chops and walk down Broadway with their heads held high. "Down on My Knees" revs the tachometer up to the redline with a pulsating kick. It appears to have just a touch of magic, as Jacobs flirts with lonely desolation--"Whiskey whiskey whiskey I'm on fire / help me get my feet across this bed because I'm lonely and I'm tired"--only to hear the calling of the street and swing back into the chase: "With my shoes tied tight it's a whole new night / whole new night.." Ask any New Yorker: it's all about never giving up. Everyone there needs to stay close to their own hearts and seek out a personal magic touch of indomitable proportions.  It's the only way to find a way.

And when it comes to musical magic touches, there is no finer pair than the Everly Brothers. Born great but growing into even bigger greatness, Don and Phil Everly were out of the gate with perfect voices. Once they found their deepest musical center in their own songs, well, rock & roll would never be the same. Ask The Beatles. Jacobs' takes on the Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved, " and even with his scruffed-up urban edge, slightly ragged but always right, he makes a classic song come alive in a different set of clothes without a hundred-dollar haircut in sight. After passing the Everlys Test, it's back to the streets with "When You Were Just a Maid." New York is known for its Cinderella stories, where women born in the Bowery could end up on the Upper East Side, but Jake & the Family Jewels keep the eyes and ears on their real roots and aren't fooled by any flim-flam finery. As in this verse: "I still have my visions but sometimes I think they're fake / but I can still remember when you were just a maid." They know the upper crust ain't for everybody, and never budge on keeping their roots in the dirt and their sound close to the ground.

It's only fitting that the man's  sophomore album last song "Motorcar (Oh What a Dream)," ends on a dream, because in many ways that is Jake Jacobs' life story. After an older friend once told him while watching the early hipsters in Washington Square Park when he was just 12 years old, "You can do anything you want down here," that's where Jacobs' ended up as soon as he could finish high school. He found a place in the rock & roll band The Magicians in 1965, did a brief stint in the ultimate Village beatnik outfit The Fugs, and then partnered up with singer Bunky Skinner as Bunky  & Jake for two albums.

He then founded Jake & the Family Jewels in 1969 and after a brilliant but ignored debut album, got a second chance with THE BIG MOOSE CALLS HIS BABY SWEET LORRAINE. Unfortunately, it arrived to equally-ignored reaction. But taking New York's ethos to heart, Jake Jacobs has never given up. He's painted other people's apartments for a living while he paints his own murals in his apartment, writes soul-grabbing songs that he still sings in nightclubs wherever he can, and stays true to the musical spirit that first took over his soul all those years ago. The singer-songwriter released his 2012 album A LICK AND A PROMISE himself, and now, almost a decade later, is recording the fourth Jake & the Family Jewels collecton on a home computer he's just learning how to operate. Nothing can stop him as he strolls toward his 80s, content in his small Greenwich Village apartment living a dream born so long ago. Jake Jacobs has his eyes squarely on mortality, but doesn't flinch. "I'm here now. I'm not sure what's next, but I don't really have to know. Because whatever it is, that's what it will be." Shoes tied tight or not.

By Bill Bentley