Bunky And Jake

Andrea "Bunky" Skinner and Allan "Jake" Jacobs were fixtures on the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early '60s, but they also had a taste for sophisticated pop/rock (Jacobs played guitar with the Magicians of "Invitation to Cry" fame for a while), and the duo's 1968 debut album is an engagingly eclectic set of folk-leaning pop tunes buoyed by Skinner and Jacobs' harmonies and the latter's strong guitar work. Skinner and Jacobs wrote all 11 songs on Bunky & Jake, and their thematic range stretches from the acoustic calm of "I'll Follow You" and the pastoral beauty of "Country Girl" to the '50s rock & roll vibe of "The Candy Store" and "Daphne Plum," and while the arrangements seem a bit overdone on a few cuts and the mix favors Jacobs' guitar a bit more than is needed, the melodies thankfully win out most of the time. Andrea "Bunky" Skinner and Allan "Jake" Jacobs met in 1962 at the School of Visual Arts in New York and performed in the Greenwich Village folk circuit. The duo appeared at the Bitter End on the bill with Joni Mitchell and David Steinberg and were written about in Rolling Stone. In 1965 Jacobs joined the folk-rock band "The Magicians", with Garry Bonner, Alan Gordon, and John Townley. The band gained a following in New York and took over as house band from the Lovin' Spoonful at the Night Owl Cafe. The Magicians disbanded in 1967 and Jacobs and Skinner signed with Mercury Records, releasing their 1968 debut album, Bunky & Jake. It was followed a year later by L.A.M.F. The duo released a children's album In 2004, Oo-Wee Little Children, on their own B&J Music label. In Karen Kramer's 2005 documentary, The Ballad of Greenwich Village, there is a close-up of a Bunky and Jake poster. The L.A.M.F. album recording is Mercury SR61199. All songs written by Bunky and/or Jake u.n.o. The band included Bunky, vocals and guitar; Jake, guitar and vocals; Douglas Haywood Rauch, bass; Micheal Rosa, drums. Other players appearing are: Mike Mathews, Charlie Chin, Felix Pappalardi, Buzzy Linhart, Perry Robinson, Ray Barretto, Ernie Hayes, Chuck Rainey.