'Shakey' Jake, Rest In Peace

Ann Arbor will always be my home, a place I'm proud to be from and wouldn't mind settling back down in sometime later in life. There are so many institutions that are inextricably linked to the city, everything from The University of Michigan to the Arb and Huron River to the Ark and Fleetwood Diner. This week, one such institution closed down. That institution and that man: 'Shakey' Jake Woods.

Shakey Jake died on Sunday at the age of 82, almost 35 years after becoming the most recognizable musician in town. Some might say that "musician" is a bit of a stretch, as he often played a guitar with two out-of-tune strings and sang in an inaudible, scruffy tone. And he didn't play blues clubs or auditoriums or cafes. He played on the corner of State & William and wandered the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, bucket in tow.

It's hard for me to define him simply as a "street musician." Of course, that's where he played his tunes, that's where people got to yell out "Hey Shakey Jake!" and that's where you most often saw him-- on the street. Street performance is a legitimate form of artistic expression and also a legitimate, if not very lucrative, way to make money. But something about Shakey Jake's ways, the respect and admiration that seemingly flowed between the community and him, and the embededness of Jake into the every day Ann Arbor experience transcends any simple label like "street musician."

Shakey Jake wasn't as visible these past few years as he was when I was a child growing up in Ann Arbor. I remember countless times when we'd be walking in downtown Ann Arbor and spot Jake. Both my Mom and my Dad would give me and my brother dollar bills to put in his bucket wherever we saw him. We'd say "Hey Jake!" or sometimes to try and be clever and cool, we'd recite the popular bumper sticker "I Brake for Jake!" Maybe me and my brother weren't old enough to brake our cars for Jake. But definitely our bikes. And we'd all brake for Jake on any walk through town.

To me, he always looked like a rockstar in his trademark sunglasses, colorful long-tail coats, unique suits, and usually some type of hat. Whenver I would see him, I would immediately conjure up images in my head of what he used to be like (before Ann Arbor or maybe when his grand blues/rock career came to a tragic end). But then my Dad told me stories from when he moved here for school in the early 70's, coincidentally about the same time that Jake became an Ann Arbor resident and institution. He was just as well known and well liked then, my Dad told me, as he was now. And he was never a world-renowned blues singer. He was just Ann Arbor's favorite son and one of the most recognizable figures in the community.

When I was a child, I would watch Jake and sometimes wonder how old he was. Or how healthy he was. I wondered how long he would be around with that trademarked guitar and sunglasses. Turns out those concerns had been expressed for years and years and, given his old age when he did pass on Sunday, they really didn't matter. "Man, when I got to Ann Arbor in the early 70's I thought he was really old then," my Dad said to me several times growing up.

This Ann Arbor News tribute shines some light into perhaps why Shakey just kept on going, kept on playing: everyone loved him. Businesses and restaurants always had a seat or a plate for Jake and, as exemplified by the "I Brake for Jake" bumper stickers all over Ann Arbor, the people always had love for Jake. They still do.

So if you have an out-of-tune guitar with maybe two strings, strum a little something for Jake this week. If you don't, say a little something for him. If you don't want to do that, that's fine. He's probably loving life in heaven. I bet Jesus already has an "I Brake for Jake" bumper-sticker.