Shakey Jake Woods is a legendary Ann Arbor character who can be seen walking the streets of downtown, strumming his two string guitar.  I saw him recently, and shouted, “Hey Jake, what’s happenin’ man!”, and he yelled back like he does to everyone, “On the move!”

Which is what Jake does, he moves around Ann Arbor, always with his trusty guitar and to his favorite places downtown, where he always gets breakfast and lunch for free.  Shakey Jake is a beloved character that I can remember seeing since I was a kid, a household name to any Ann Arborite from the city of 100,000.  Jake claims that he is 102 years old, and moved to Ann Arbor in 1948 from New Orleans, where he was abducted by college kids and has made his home ever since.

After runnning into him a few times, I did a google search on him and found this article written about him that has some audio clips from his CD, appropriatly titled “On The Move.”  Check it out: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/06/on_the_move_mp3.html