A VSOJ, Very Special Old Jerk who didn’t much care for war, successful lovers, or American Foreign Policy. A very standard kind of jerk who had a set of very unusual attributes including the ability to look deep into what is means to be human in the best, worst and finest senses. Jacques Brel made a huge difference in the world but passed away in 1978, 7 months into his 50th year. His songs, messages and music are not for everybody. A friend said at intermission at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope: “I think we’re being had”. How wrong he was but it proved Brel is not for everybody. It’s very much for people like me.
“Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well” is a musical play originally performed by four talented singer/actors, viz., Elly Stone, Mort Shuman, Shawn Elliot and Alice Whitfield.
Brel seems to have had a complicated life. Born in Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium, the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, then living in the French speaking part in Ypres, he became popular in Paris and French seems to have been his preferred language although he was fluent in other languages, as most Europeans of his time seem to have been. Belgium has four “official” languages: French, Dutch, German And Walloon.
We first became enchanted by the music of Brel during a cool night in New Hope, PA in a sort of basement night club, the Canal House in Pamela Minford’s Hacienda Hotel. The room had one open wall that was right along the Canal, a mostly unused canal, part of an old way to transport mule-pulled barges along the Delaware river to Bristol, PA. The music was being played by Bob Egan on the piano accompanied by one singer. We were transfixed and returned many times.
That was almost 50 years ago. The Hacienda has been torn down and the world lost a great intimate dining room/night club but Brel’s influence is so strong those memories are still clear.
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