Joe Jackson

Welcome, Hi, Joe Jackson; here on January 18th, 2023. That photograph of me was taken in O Mahoney's bookstore in Limerick, Ireland, in late November 2022, where I chose to launch my latest book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, simply because that's where the subject of my biography was born. Merrion Press published the book in Ireland to coincide with the release of the feature film, The Ghost of Richard Harris, of which I am an associate producer, in which I feature as an interviewee alongside the likes of Russell Crowe, Jim Sheridan and Vanessa Redgrave, and which uses my archive of taped interviews with Richard to voice the ‘ghost.’ I recorded the interviews with Richard, who ended up being a friend of mine, between the years 1987 come up when we did our first interview, and 2001, a year or so before he died. They were recorded not just for magazine and newspaper interviews but more so for a one-person show he asked me to write in 1987 and the biography he appointed me to write two years later, which, sadly, we never finally finished together. During the last phone message Richard left for me, he said, “you are the only journalist I ever opened up to.” in 2022, his last remaining sibling, Richards's younger brother Noel, went further than that and suggested, “I would say that you are not only the only journalist Richard ever opened up to. You're one of the few people he opened up to, and in saying that, I include his family.” Furthermore, Noel’s son, also named Noel, said to Adrian Sibley, the movie's director, “Joe Jackson’s tapes are essential to the film. They make you feel Richard is talking directly to you.” Likewise, concerning the book, one Amazon reviewer, Charlie Williams, wrote, in December, 'Jackson's interviews and insights paint a living, breathing portrait of an extraordinary life. The reader feels like he is actually sitting next to Harris, and it is a breathtaking experience.' My purpose, whether writing this book, articles based on interviews with 1,400 celebrities over thirty years, or presenting radio shows and podcasts based on interviews, has always been to make the reader and/or listener feel she or he is part of the process. If only to get across the fundamental feeling that we are not alone in the world. I hope this is the feeling any reader gets after reading my Harris book or any of my books. Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven became available in territories such as the United States on January 10th, 2023.