Jakko Jakszyk’s musical journey is almost as remarkable as his personal one. This vivid, entertaining and frequently moving autobiography charts his rise from aspiring teenage prog musician and would-be actor to singer and guitarist in what now looks to be the final incarnation of King Crimson, with countless unlikely stop-offs along the way.
But that’s only half the story told in Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair? Born Michael Curran, Jakszyk was given up for adoption as a baby, and a parallel narrative details his attempts to trace his birth parents and examine his sometimes complicated relationship with his adoptive parents, especially his Polish dad, Norbert.
Jakszyk deftly weaves these two threads together. His formative years are taken up with music and acting, before the former wins out. He starts as member of Watford art-rockers 64 Spoons and subsequently follows an entertainingly wayward path – he’s the only person alive to have played with King Crimson, Level 42, Cliff Richard and comedy rap troupe Morris Minor And The Majors (he sheepishly confesses to producing their sole hit, Stutter Rap).
The list of cameo appearances is long and frankly insane – Sir Richard Attenborough, The Nolan Sisters, footballer Ruud Gullit, various alternative comedians and, remarkably, Michael Jackson, with whom he has a surreal conversation about footwear, are just the tip of a very large iceberg.
The biggest suckerpunch lies in the quiet reveal of the meaning behind the book’s title
The back end of the book focuses on his eight-year stint in Crimson – catnip to fans of a band whose inner workings can be opaque. Robert Fripp comes across as less of a dictatorial monster than a benign if eccentric uncle. There’s a laugh-out-loud moment involving a Bruce Forsyth impression onstage at the London Palladium during a Crimson gig. Jakszyk also touches on tensions with Crimson’s American drummer Bill Rieflin, movingly resolved before the latter’s death in 2020.
There is a resolution, but it’s no schmalzy Hollywood ending. The biggest suckerpunch lies elsewhere, in the quiet reveal of the meaning behind the book’s title.
As a music autobiography alone, it would be a great read. But with everything else it involves, it’s an unalloyed triumph.
Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair? is on sale now via Kingmaker Publishing.
