King Crimson guitarist and vocalist Jakko Jakszyk has announced he will undertake an intimate spoken word event at West Hampstead’s Arts Club in London on October 11. A limited number of tickets have been made available for the evening which Prog is able to offer to readers exclusively.
An Evening With Jakko Jakszyk will be based on his upcoming memoir, Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair? The Unlikely Memoir Of Jakko M Jakszyk, which will be published through Kingmaker Publishing on October 10. A special guest host will be announced soon.
Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair? was inspired by Jakszyk’s 2022 Edinburgh Festival one-man show The Road To Ballina, which itself developed from a 1996 Radio Three presentation of the same name, and explores Jakszyk’s heritage.
Born Michael Curran, in Highgate, North London, son of the singer in one of Ireland’s biggest show bands, who, after adoption, became Jakko Jakszyk. He traces his mother to Arkansas and discovers revelations set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany and discovers white supremacists still in the family line.
“It’s a voyage of self-discovery from an orphanage in rural France, a Polish mining village, to a terraced house in Hertfordshire,” says Jakszyk.
The book is part rock’n’roll memoir, charting Jakko’s long and varied musical career, which included a stint with Level 42 and of course King Crimson, and includes anecdotes including Michael Jackson, Kate Bush, Cliff Richard and Gene Simmons, to Uri Geller, Jack Charlton, Audrey Hepburn and the Dalai Lama.
Doors open at 7.30pm with an 8.30pm start.
Pre-order Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair? The Unlikely Memoir Of Jakko M Jakszyk.