Jack Landrón (born Juán Cándido Washington y Landrón, June 2, 1938) is an Afro-Puerto Rican folksinger, songwriter, and actor.
Jackie Washington
Born Juán Cándido Washington y Landrón on June 2, 1938, in Puerto Rico, he grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of
Roxbury. He studied at
Emerson College
Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands ( Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a ...
as a Theater Arts major. As part of the
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
/Boston
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
scene in the early and mid-1960s, he released four albums on
Vanguard
The vanguard (also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force.
History
The vanguard derives fr ...
—''Jackie Washington'' (1962), ''Jackie Washington/2'' (1963), ''Jackie Washington at
Club 47
Club Passim is an American folk music club in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was opened by Joyce Kalina (now Chopra) and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 (based on its then address, 47 Mount Auburn Stre ...
'' (1965), and ''Morning Song'' (1967); this last
LP consisted entirely of original compositions and was his first with a band. [None of his albums has been released on CD but individual songs have appeared on anthologies. His sole single, for instance, "Why Won't They Let Me Be?" (1966), is included in ''Northern Soul's Classiest Rarities 2'' (Kent, 2005).] The live album,'' Jackie Washington at Club 47'', featuring a cover collage by
Eric Von Schmidt, is most representative of his act as he had a lot to say between numbers—not only setting up the contexts of the songs but also relating personal anecdotes; indeed, he could easily have worked as a stand-up comedian, and he fully appreciated the early records of Bill Cosby (nowadays, his main man comedically is Chris Rock). Vanguard, however, tried to groom him as a male counterpart to
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
. He now characterizes himself as primarily a storyteller.
While coming home in the early hours of December 3, 1962, Washington was arrested by the Boston Police: what happened was the subject of dispute, with the police saying that when they questioned him, Washington assaulted one of the officers and Washington asserting that he was stopped, and subsequently beaten by two officers, for no reason other than his race. The case resulted in a ''cause célèbre'' which Washington's supporters believed had exposed racism in the Boston police force
Washington was ultimately acquitted of all charges, in a verdict that took the jury only five hours to reach.
In the summer of 1964 Washington y Landrón participated in Freedom Schools conducted in the South, and three of his performances from his live album are included in the double-CD anthology ''Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (Songs of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement)'' (1994). At one point he was Dr. Martin Luther King's personal assistant in Mississippi
In 1964, he also teamed for a time with
Tony Saletan and Irene Kossoy (formerly and subsequently of the
Kossoy Sisters
The Kossoy Sisters are identical twin sisters (Irene Saletan and Ellen Christenson) who performed American folk and old-time music. Irene sang mezzo-soprano vocal, and Ellen supplied soprano harmony, with Irene on guitar and Ellen playing the ...
) to form the Boston Folk Trio, which presented school concerts through the non-profit
Young Audiences Arts for Learning
Young may refer to:
* Offspring, the product of reproduction of a new organism produced by one or more parents
* Youth, the time of life when one is young, often meaning the time between childhood and adulthood
Music
* The Young, an American roc ...
. "Esta Navidad" from his first album is included in the 1995 Vanguard compilation ''A Folksinger's Christmas''.
Washington's version of the traditional English nonsense song "
Nottamun Town
Nottamun Town, also known under other titles such as "Nottingham Fair" and "Fair Nottamon Town" (Roud # 1044) is an American folk song. Although sometimes suggested to be an English song of medieval origin brought to North America during the earl ...
" was the tune and arrangement used by
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
as the basis for "
Masters of War"
[Clinton Heylin in ''Revolution In the Air'' (2009) rejects this idea as "patently absurd" (p. 116), but ''Jackie Washington'', including "Nottamun Town", was released in December 1962, and ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'', with "Masters of War", was released 27 May 1963; Dylan ''loved'' Washington's rendition, repeatedly requested he perform it, and asked Vanguard Records to give him a copy of Washington's debut album; Jean Ritchie, whose version Heylin and others give as Dylan's source, sings the song in a minor key but plays the accompaniment in major chords. Washington reset the melody to minor chords, and in the process changed it somewhat—Dylan liked this version and used it as the model for "Masters of War."] Washington's role in the song's transmission is acknowledged in ''Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968–2010'' (Public Affairs, 2010, p. 410). Washington taught Joan Baez "There but for Fortune (song), There But For Fortune" by
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
, which provided Baez with her first appearance on the singles chart. (You can tell she learned it from him because he had made a lyric change; where Ochs had written "whose face is growing pale", Jackie, being black, had substituted "whose life has grown stale"—which is how Baez sings it.)
Originally managed by Manny Greenhill, Joan Baez's manager, Washington later did his own bookings. He is currently managed by Mitch Greenhill, (Manny's son), through Folklore Productions.
On 25 July 1968 Jackie was master of ceremonies for a political rally supporting anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
held at the
Red Sox'
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball stadium located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, near Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home of the Boston Red Sox, the city's American League baseball team, and since 1953, its only Major League Base ...
.
As the first performer to headline the Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1960, Jackie was invited back 22 January 2010 to perform as part of an ongoing celebration of the club's 50th anniversary, with Bill Staines as the opening act.
On 1 Feb 2013 he returned to Club Passim (formerly Club 47) in Cambridge, Mass.
His first album in 45 years, ''Curbside Cotillion'', was released in 2012, his first recording as Jack Landrón.
He is featured in the documentary ''For the Love of the Music: the Club 47 Folk Revival'' (2013).
On 19 Dec 2014 Landrón spoke at the Cambridge Forum in Harvard Square, Massachusetts, about his experiences during Freedom Summer's voter registration drive in Mississippi in 1964. This appearance can be viewed on YouTube.
Actor
Washington y Landrón relocated to
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
to pursue acting under the name of Jack Landrón. One of his earliest performances was in the 1966
National Educational Television production of
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
' one-act play ''Ten Blocks on the Camino Real'' (1948), starring
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best ...
and
Martin Sheen; this has been available on DVD. He has done extensive work in commercials and continues to compose.
Landrón is a member of the board of the New York
Screen Actors' Guild
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
.
In the fall of 2007 Landrón appeared in
Maxwell Anderson’s ''Night Over Taos'', directed by
Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American actress, singer and stage director.
After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program ''Today'' and ...
br>
In 2009 he relocated to West Hollywood, Los Angeles to pursue work in television and film.
[Tom Keyser, ''Albany Times Union'', 21 Jan 2010.] He currently lives in Los Angeles' Chinatown.
Landrón had two daughters.
Further reading
* ''Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years'' by
Eric Von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, 1979 (out of print)
* ''Josh White: Society Blues'' by
Elijah Wald
Elijah Wald (born 1959) is an American folk blues guitarist and music historian. He is a 2002 Grammy Award winner for his liner notes to ''The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: The Journey of Chris Strachwitz''.
Life
Wald was born in 1959 ...
(2000); dedicated to Landrón.
References
External links
Jackie's current music websitebegins with Jackie Washington Landrón and then goes on to the Canadian Jackie Washington
an article about Jackie Washington's return to
Club Passim
Club Passim is an American folk music club in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was opened by Joyce Kalina (now Chopra) and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 (based on its then address, 47 Mount Auburn Str ...
(formerly Club 47) in 1997
fuller acting credits than most sites*
Cuban/Latino Theater ArchiveAnswers.com gets his birthyear (1938) wrongthumbnail bio, also wrong on birthyear
{{DEFAULTSORT:Landron, Jack
American folk singers
Living people
1938 births