Every small town... and Ann Arbor was once a small town... has unique, special characters. From the early 70's and beyond, that character was Shakey Jake Wood, street person extraordinaire.
Word reached us today that Jake died on Sunday. He was 82. Maybe.
I have a picture I took of Jake in 1974, at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival- In Exile. (It was held in Windsor, Ontario Canada that year). How Jake got over the border, and back, is still a mystery to me. Anyway, the picture shows him hawking the Ann Arbor Sun- the counterculture paper of the day. If I can find the original slide when we attack our storage locker Thursday, I'll scan it and put it up here.
HT to Margaret's son, Tony. RTWT- especially the comments!
"I Brake For Jake".
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have been so sad since I heard Shakey Jake passed. Thank-you for your blog tribute to him. Do you know where I can get a t-shirt or bumper sticker by mail. I miss him.
Nancy
Aurora, CO
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have been so sad since I heard Shakey Jake passed. Thank-you for your blog tribute to him. Do you know where I can get a t-shirt or bumper sticker by mail. I miss him.
Nancy
Aurora, CO
I couldn't find anything, but was amazed at the number of hits you get when you Google "Shakey Jake Stickers"... many more great tributes. Speaking of tributes, I found a "Shakey Jake Festival & BBQ" scheduled for September 29 in Saginaw. Details here: http://events.publicbroadcasting.net/wemu/events.eventsmain?action=showEvent&eventID=637005
ReplyDeleteI never understood a word Jake said, was sent running whenever he started banging on the guitar, and his singing voice? Well, he tried, and when you said "Hey" to Jake, he always responded like you were his best friend. Nobody made more of what he was given, that's for sure!
I'll keep checking for sticker and t-shirt info, but we're only going to be in A2 for another 36 hours.
Dan:
ReplyDeleteThanks for this flashback. Jake was a fixture for the almost-decade I was in A2. As far as I know, his universal response to "How's it going, Jake?" was "To the moon, to the moon."
Hopefully he'll get a lay-over on the way up. Here's to you, Jake.
Andrew
So *that's* what he was saying...!
ReplyDelete;^)