Dazzling Stranger

by Colin Harper

  ‘He had always had a real feeling for traditional music,’ says Anne, ‘but when I first knew him he just didn’t think he had the right sort of voice and couldn’t use the guitar in the right way to be a singer of traditional songs himself. By this time he’d become a much more sophisticated player, and I think he had the confidence to handle it. Everybody up to that point was accompanying traditional songs in a very Woody Guthrie, three-chord way. I was never happy with that – not in an academic sense, just aesthetically. It was why I always sang unaccompanied. I’d played guitar since I was fourteen or fifteen but seeing Bert’s freedom from chords I suddenly realised that this chord stuff – you don’t need it. “Go Your Way” was my first experiment with open tuning, my delight at discovering this wonderful sound.’

  They were exciting discoveries: ‘I was pregnant at the time but working very hard in the shop,’ says Gill, ‘and I can remember them ringing up and saying, “Hey, we’ve just written a song!”’ Bert and Anne never performed their new songs or traditional settings together at that time.18 To Bert’s mind they were simply ‘too erratic to get it together’; to Anne’s, it was a case of audiences perceiving them as entirely unrelated performers. For all her new-found freedoms as an instrumentalist using alternate tunings learnt from Bert – Graham’s DADGAD and the DADGBE of ‘Blackwater Side’ – Anne would not have the confidence to use a guitar onstage for some years yet. It is not known when Bert debuted the ground-breaking ‘Blackwater Side’ onstage, but it would have to wait a year and a half to appear on record.

  During the same period that Bert and Anne were writing together, in the early weeks of 1965, they were also appearing, individually, at gigs together. ‘I remember going to the Singers Club a couple of times with Anne,’ says Bert. ‘If you were a Scots person you were expecting to sing Scottish songs. Anyone could sing. You’d put your name down, in a rota system, and Ewan would call you up. When I got up I played “Angi”. But they didn’t know me from Adam, so it didn’t make any difference.’

  As long ago as 1961, Eric Winter had dared to poke fun in print at the worthiness and pomposity of what were clearly the two towers of the folk ‘establishment’: the EFDSS and the Singers Club: ‘To move from a Society event to the Singers Club,’ he observed, ‘is to swap the atmosphere of the vicar’s tea-party for that of a cathedral. There are even one or two in the front row who appear to have rented pews.’ MacColl was not amused. But in the face of changing times and the growing proliferation of young singers on the scene, the Singers Club was to take a stance of yet greater earnestness and controversy.

  In 1964 Ewan concocted an idea for a modern ‘bardic school’ comprising young singers keen to learn the techniques of performing traditional song and more experienced individuals, such as himself, to impart such wisdom. It was to become known, in petard-hoisting fashion, as the Critics Group. In fact, it had been Ewan’s Radio Ballads colleague Charles Parker who had named it, under pressure to do so on a live radio discussion, and it stuck. Anne had been asked to join and had declined, regarding the whole thing as absurd. Bert Lloyd and Lou Killen had also declined. ‘Our original intention in taking on the group,’ said MacColl, many years on, ‘was to describe some of our own experiences, and to give warnings of the dangers and pitfalls which confront those who make singing folk songs a full time job. It didn’t work out like that.’19

  Still in its early stages, the Critics Group would become one of the great totems of the folk revival before an acrimonious dissolution in 1970. Good things would come out of the initiative. Ewan and Peggy had indeed a wealth of experience and knowledge to pass on, and Ewan’s characteristic energy would fire up his young followers in countless specific projects – records, books, song research and most prominently a series of topical New Year shows known as the ‘Festival Of Fools’ that were innovations in pub theatre – but there was a fundamental flaw at the very heart of the group: ‘Ironically,’ as group member Frankie Armstrong recalled, ‘we discovered that the founder of the Critics Group couldn’t bear criticism of himself.’20

  Blown away by the dazzling pyrotechnics of John Renbourn at his new club in Luton, Pete Frame was not going to question the great man’s recommendation that he book Bert Jansch, and some time in March he duly appeared. ‘I had never seen anything like it,’ says Frame. ‘I’d followed pop music and folk music and rock music assiduously since I’d been a kid and with everybody that came along you could tell their influences. Bert came along and I had no idea where it had come from – how he knew this stuff or how he played it. There was no precedent: it wasn’t jazz, it wasn’t blues, it wasn’t folk, it wasn’t classical but it was elements of all those. And that was just the music. The structures of the songs as well were just totally unprecedented. Renbourn had a kind of classical smoothness to him and you could tell where he’d got his material from, but Bert was just totally unique in my experience. He had a really jagged kind of guitar style and his image – no condescension to commercialism whatsoever. He looked like his clothes had just come out of the laundry basket – always wore a crumpled white shirt and black trousers – was always playing a borrowed guitar, his hair was always all over the bloody place, at a time when everyone was trying to copy the Beatles or Dylan – and his name even: it was unpronounceable! Anybody else would have called themselves “Bert Dylan” or something. Everything about him was a refusal to compromise.’

  Frame had been lucky that Bert had turned up at all. As a surviving letter of apology regarding an engagement the previous month attests, the booker for Colchester Folk Club had not been so fortunate:

  Dear Brian,

  I am terribly sorry I could not make it on Monday. I ran out of money and couldn’t find anyone to borrow from, and I’m afraid I was in no condition to hitch-hike. There was also the problem of finding a guitar.

  Hoping this did not inconvenience you too much.

  Yours sincerely,

  Bert Jansch

  ‘He was everything you wanted to be,’ says Frame, ‘a dextrous guitar player, footloose and fancy-free, attractive to women. Basically, all the blokes wanted to be him and all the girls wanted to sleep with him. He was almost like Kerouac and James Dean and Woody Guthrie rolled into one figure. He not only had access to his muse, but on a good night he could actually go into a netherworld when he sang. And that was very rare.’

  ‘You need the buzz of playing to people,’ says Bert on reflection. ‘There’s no other form of excitement that comes close to it. They need to be there, but in actual fact during the performance itself they cease to be there.’ Like others who would be struck with the Jansch magic, Frame began to look out for Bert’s name in Melody Maker ads and travel to other clubs to see him. The next one was a little unusual, an American themed evening at Cecil Sharp House on 19 March, promoted by Roy Guest, where Bert dutifully performed a by then untypical set of American blues and folk covers.21 He shared a bill on that occasion with Jesse Fuller, author of the much covered ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’, and another newly arrived American, ‘Spider’ John Koerner, of the trio Koerner, Ray & Glover. Spider began dating Anne Briggs – they probably left London to travel together – marking an end to the carefree days of song-writing and musical adventuring with Bert. But enough had been achieved already.22

  Anne Briggs had been tenacious enough to have Bert recorded by Bill Leader and signed by Nat Joseph. Periodic gigs at the ever-increasing number of clubs where Les Bridger held sway and through various word-of-mouth bookings at provincial clubs like Luton were fine but if Bert was to reach a mass audience there would have to be a regular place where they could reach him. For a third time, Anne knew somebody who could help: Bruce Dunnet. MacColl’s lieutenant, an Edinburgh man like Bert and a man who saw no paradox in passionate Communism and fervent entrepreneurial activities, Bruce was forty-three – a good deal older than any of the young singers around town, and a good deal more experienced in business.23

  Bruce’s experience of running folk clubs and e
vents was similarly vast. He had borrowed money from his employers at one stage to keep the Singers Club going, but was also running his own more commercially minded Folksong Unlimited club at the same time. In 1962, with organisers in short supply, he had run the door for the first six weeks of Alexis Korner’s Ealing Club, conceding a floor spot to the Rolling Stones and subsequently passing on his unfavourable view of their music. In 1964 he had set up a national tour for Dominic Behan and a tribute concert to Paul Robeson; as ‘Mary MacGregor’ he was secretary of the Alex Campbell fan club; and by the end of the year he had a presence all over the London folk scene, well prepared to catch the new wave of performers and the oncoming fashion for late-night events. In December 1964, at Gill Cook’s request, Bruce took control of the Broadside club at the Scot’s Hoose on Fridays and announced two new projects for the New Year: a ‘New Folksingers’ club at the Prince Of Wales’ Feathers on Saturdays and late-night sessions at Nicholas Hall on Tottenham Court Road, also on Saturdays. All three venues were in and around Soho, on the cusp of becoming once again the epicentre of musical magic and adventure.

  Bruce had already heard of Jansch through Bill Leader, ‘then Anne Briggs asked me if I would help him’. Bert was booked first for the Prince of Wales’ Feathers on 30 January – a show that was attended by an impressionable young man called Ashley Hutchings who subsequently became, as founder of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, the godfather of English folk-rock. Hutchings was all over the London club scene during 1965 and ’66, soaking up influences from Bert Jansch to Ewan MacColl and all points in between: ‘Ewan was like the headmaster and Bert Jansch the naughty boy!’ he recalls. ‘But I was a great fan of Bert’s and I remember, as a teenager, seeing him in various clubs around London. Very early on I heard a lot of talk, the kind of information that goes around audiences, that “he likes a drink or two”. And this was always very evident in his performance. I saw some performances that were marred by drink but there was still a magic there, no question about it. He was a romantic figure – a one-off, a travelling rogue who spoke for young people. “Needle Of Death” I loved while “Strolling Down The Highway” was one which Fairport Convention had on its very first set list [in September 1967]. So the influence was most definitely there.’

  Bruce was impressed enough with Bert’s performance to institute a new Tuesday night session at the Scot’s Hoose ‘which was supposed to be Anne Briggs and Bert Jansch, and if I remember correctly Anne Briggs didn’t turn up. We did six nights on Tuesdays and the maximum take over those six nights was two shillings and eleven pence ha’penny, because nobody knew him.’ But the machinery was now in place for that to change. ‘I would just host the evening basically,’ says Bert, ‘and anyone could get up and sing.’ One night Steve Benbow dropped by: ‘I thought he was very good,’ says Steve. ‘There wasn’t much presentation, he’d just sit on a chair and play. A shy fellow. It was years later before I got to know him.’ To all intents and purposes Bruce would fill the role of manager for Bert, although Bert would never formalise the arrangement. With the Scot’s Hoose, and subsequent events that Bruce organised for Bert, ‘the arrangement was Bert would have a third, I would have a third for expenses and a third would be put aside for the promotion of Bert but if he wanted the money he could call on it’.

  Advertised as ‘New Ventures’, the Tuesday sessions very quickly opened the floodgates for the Scot’s Hoose as a venue. Initially a rival promoter, Tony Shaw, launched ‘Folk at the Hoose’ on Wednesdays which became, on March 3, the first club to advertise Bert Jansch and John Renbourn on the same bill,24 but very soon the venue was hosting folk events five nights a week. Bruce would be running four of them, including Bert on Tuesdays; the ‘Broadside’ name was quietly dropped from the Friday spot while he decided what to do with it. The answer was Owen Hand. Owen had returned to London at the end of ’64 with a theatre group run by John Antrobus, but had soon fallen out with the man and was consequently at a loose end: ‘One day I was going to Collet’s to visit Gill Cook when I met Nat Joseph, who asked me if I’d make a record for him. That’s what kept me around London and caused possibly the worst decision I ever made in my life.’

  Nat had a publishing interest in one Jo Mapes, and convinced Owen to record his material for an album titled Something New, designed to project Owen as a contemporary singer and songwriter and destined to be released and promoted as such in tandem with Bert’s debut. When the record came out Owen hated it, and was consequently ‘so intent on making amends that I rushed into making my second album, and in doing so made all the same mistakes’. Owen’s career would take a more fruitful turn later in the sixties, when he enlisted in the School of Scottish Studies and pursued the academic route. But for the next couple of years he was to pursue, like Bert, the path of the performer. Bruce offered him the vacant residency at the Scot’s Hoose on Fridays, providing a guaranteed income, and with Ruth, his new partner, he took a room in Kilburn. From 6 April he was also being billed as coresident with Bert on Tuesdays.

  ‘We saw quite a lot of Bert around then,’ says Owen. ‘At that time he seemed to work on a “need to” basis and only did gigs that appealed to him. The Scot’s Hoose was amazing in that it attracted more musicians in the audience than it could afford on the platform. On any night I could call up floor singers of the quality of Martin Carthy, Andy Irvine or Paul Simon. One night Bert and I were standing by the door when Pete Townshend, who had started a folk club at Ronnie Scott’s place, came in to see if he could persuade some people to come and play at his club. He saw Bert and came over. “Hey man,” he addressed Bert, “do you want to earn a pound?” Bert gave him a stare. “No man, I’ve already got one.”’25

  Bert’s reputation as a live performer continued to spread with every uncontrollable, unpredictable performance. ‘I’m afraid there was this fascination,’ says Nat Joseph, ‘with Bert’s character. His gigs were extraordinary. Half the performance was tuning up, grunting and mumbling, sipping his beer, having a cigarette, playing a couple of chords … It used to drive me crazy. He was one of the most un-together acts I have ever seen. We’d have arguments about it. I’d say, “Look, you’re a great artist but great artists have to be performers – you have an audience out there!” But I guess after my initial bewilderment, at how anybody could actually squander such marvellous material by performing live often so badly and without caring what an audience might think, I just realised, “Well, he’s a one-off. He’ll just do it his way and there is nothing anybody can do about it.”’

  The spring issue of a thrusting new journal, Folk Scene, polled the best-known performers on the scene with the question ‘Who or what will be the major influence on the future of folk music in 1965?’ The responses were telling: ‘I will,’ replied Dominic Behan; ‘I don’t care, it doesn’t affect me,’ said Donovan; ‘I think this is a bloody loaded question,’ offered Alex Campbell; ‘Bob Dylan will continue to spawn hosts of imitators and pop-folk singers will rush out records of his songs in the hopes of denting the charts,’ said Roy Guest, who was not to be proved wrong. ‘No comment,’ was Bert Jansch’s response, while Ewan MacColl was ‘regrettably too busy to answer the question’. Most prescient of all, though, was Sydney Carter: ‘Byron, Shelley, Joan of Arc, Dylan Thomas – the image of the young poet / prophet / rebel: the image of the Hero as a Folksinger – this is the thing now. Pete Seeger and Ewan MacColl are too old – the Hero should be under thirty-one. It would help to be under-privileged or persecuted. “What has this to do with folk music?” Not much, but how “folk” or “musical” is the current folk revival? Doesn’t it owe as much now to the Bomb and the Freedom Riders as to Cecil Sharp? And isn’t it also, increasingly, as much a revival of song-making and verse-writing as of singing?’

  By the end of February it was announced that Les Bridger and Bert were to become residents at yet another new club, on Sundays at the Marquis of Granby in Soho’s Rathbone Street.26 Within weeks, an after-hours meeting place for the whole scene woul
d be found with the resurrection of the old Skiffle Cellar venue at 49 Greek Street. But for the moment, the coolest hang-out for the folksong cognoscenti was Bunjies, the little coffee bar in Litchfield Street. Colin Grafton, a travel agent who worked nearby, was one audience regular in that late ’64 / early ’65 period.

  ‘Bert would often come in later,’ he recalls, ‘after playing somewhere else, I guess, and he would often be pretty full of beer by the time he appeared. One particularly memorable occasion, in early ’65, John Renbourn came along and he was expecting Bert. Bert didn’t show and we’d almost given up on him, so John was playing – and Bert finally arrived. Trouble was, he was totally blasted. It didn’t affect his performance too much, though, at least not in a negative sense. They sat him down on a stool and he was hunched over his guitar, thrashing away like one possessed. It was extraordinary. He actually fell off his stool a few times, hardly appearing to notice, and John just stopped playing, put him back on his stool, and they carried on. I really can’t remember what they played except “Angi”, because Bert always played “Angi” at that time, but it was not so much the material as the spectacle and the energy in the music that was so impressive. I remember thinking they were such a great pair, not only musically but in the fact that John so good-naturedly picked Bert up and put him back on the stool as a matter of course.’

  The very first time Bert had played with Renbourn had been during demo sessions at a basement studio in Denmark Street, shortly after they had met. Not intended for release, these tracks would nevertheless end up as the greater part of Renbourn’s first, self-titled solo album (for Transatlantic, released in early 1966), including two spontaneous and not-wholly-in-tune jams with Bert, entitled ‘Blue Bones’ and ‘Noah And Rabbit’. Amidst the largely derivative blues material that made up the bulk of the album, excellent though the playing was, the more adventurous, free-flowing nature of the two tracks with Jansch would prove indicative of a direction the two wayward virtuosi would pursue on subsequent joint appearances on record and on the relatively few advertised gigs they would perform as a duo.