by Colin Harper
21. Allan Jones, MM 16/11/74. The Theatre Royal concert, to a three-quarters-full auditorium speckled with celebrity musicians, was covered by all three weeklies.
22. NME, 24/8/74. A longer than published quote, courtesy of the interviewer.
23. Bert played three or four dates with Ralph in Scandinavia around January/February 1975, and it was probably on this trip that the TV special Four Guitars was filmed (broadcast in Denmark in June 1975). Bert and Ralph joined Stefan Grossman and Dutch fusion wizard Jan Akkerman for an amiable round of tune trading in front of a small audience. Bert, characteristically dishevelled and almost as relaxed as Akkerman, turned in his Christmas flop, two tracks from LA Turnaround, a duet on ‘Moonshine’ with Ralph and a jam with all present on ‘Come Back Baby’. Never broadcast in Britain, stills from the show rather bizarrely cropped up in a number of British music papers thereafter.
24. Sounds, 8/1/77.
25. Sounds, 28/6/75.
26. MM, 17/1/76.
27. As note 25.
28. My information on the Charisma/Jansch filmings is incomplete but Jansch film was apparently shot on 1/7/75 and 4/7/75: both dates during the Ronnie Scott’s residency. There is also something referred to as a ‘Whistle Test film’ in Charisma’s written archives. Record company promos were often shown on the OGWT, but there is no mention of a Jansch broadcast in the (admittedly incomplete) BBC archive of OGWTs.
29. As note 25.
30. Bert feels certain that Bruce’s figure is an exaggeration.
31. A Man And His Songs, DR 14/4/76.
32. As note 24.
33. As note 26.
34. The canon version of ‘Running From Home’ is most easily available on Bert’s BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (1993). Also on this Scandinavian tour, Bert featured ‘Moonshine’ and ‘Blackwater Side’ as extended duets involving himself on guitar and Pick on drums with brushes. An unusual combination that was sadly never represented on record.
35. A Rare Conundrum appeared in Denmark on Peter Abramson’s Ex-Libris label with three tracks otherwise unavailable: ‘Three Dreamers’ continued the nostalgic theme; ‘Dragonfly’ was a beautiful, near-mystic evocation of that creature left over from 1974; ‘Candyman’ was a cod-reggae interpretation of the old Gary Davis blues. Abramson also, around this time, roped Bert and Martin into playing on a track on another Ex-Libris album, by Danish singer Erik Grip. The track provides a rare example of Bert playing a lead guitar line.
36. Beat Instrumental, 8/77.
37. Aside from Transatlantic’s incessant re-usage of Jansch and Pentangle material on their own compilations they had also already licensed material to bargain-bucket labels. Under Geoff Hannington, Transatlantic would continue the process well into the nineties, when the catalogue was bought by Castle Communications. By that stage, the compact disc had arrived and the compilation party had only just begun.
38. MM, 10/1/81. The last Jansch interview in any of the British music weeklies.
39. The American sleeve in particular was a travesty. The CD version released on Ace in 1998 uses the British design – photos of Bert and the boys playing darts in a pub.
40. After eighteen years together, Martin’s wife suddenly decided she’d had enough: he was to give up music and get a job in a Coventry car factory or she was leaving. She left, and Martin’s luck temporarily expired: ‘All in one period I broke my leg, got banned from driving, got thrown out of my house and came to the end of my job with Bert.’ Martin formed a band with some old friends and started ‘a dynamic, outrageous club in a really ferocious pub in Coventry’ and started figuring out his next move. Within two years he was in a popular all-acoustic group called Whippersnapper, fronted by fiddler Dave Swarbrick. ‘I still see Bert from time to time if he’s playing locally, or pop in to see him in London and he’ll play me a bit of what he’s up to. I learnt a lot from Bert – being on the road, booking travel, dealing with pressure and playing in better places I’d ever played before. And also from Bert’s writing, the way he puts words together – sometimes they’re a bit flowery but they’re beautiful. It gives you the courage to write without fear and to have the courage to deliver it to people with sincerety.’
CHAPTER TEN
1. MM, 10/1/81.
2. Lindsay Reid; combined from Evening News, 27/4/82 and 3/7/82.
3. Bert and Charlotte originally moved into 33 Felsham Road but quickly transferred to the New King’s Road address and opened the guitar shop. Towards the end of the guitar shop, in late ‘84 and in danger of being evicted by bailiffs, they acquired a flat in Redcliffe Square.
4. Combined from ‘Thyme Honoured’, John Tobler, Folk Roots, 10/95 and ‘Roots Of Renbourn’, Maggie Holland, Folk Roots, 4/93.
5. Colin Irwin in Thirty Years Of The Cambridge Folk Festival, Ed. Dave Laing & Richard Newman (Music Maker Books, 1994).
6. Remarkably, the group had never previously performed in either Germany or Italy. They had toured Australasia in 1972.
7. ‘Thyme Honoured’, John Tobler, Folk Roots, 10/95.
8. Bert had been keen to involve Portman Smith as a sixth member, on keyboards, in the 1982 line-up but the others had not been convinced. Bert and Nigel’s relationship had cooled briefly in 1981 when Nigel opted for a lucrative European tour with Eric Burdon, obliging Bert to call on Rod Clements to help out on some Conundrum UK dates. Around the time of the Pentangle reunion, however, Bert and Nigel had worked together on the theme and incidental music for the David Bellamy TV nature series You Can’t See the Wood. A handful of jointly composed songs have also appeared on latterday Jansch and Pentangle records.
9. Bert had kept in touch with Liz Cruickshank throughout the sixties, with Liz spending a few weeks in Bert’s company on holidays in London during 1965 and 1967. She had married in 1971 but was still something of an inspiration. ‘Change The Song’, on From The Outside (1985) had been created from a traditional tune Liz had taught Bert during Howff days. Indeed, the title track of that album was basically an instrumental take on another simple folk song from those times, ‘Oh Dear Me’.
10. Portman Smith made these comments about Radio 2 in 1992. One suspects the subsequent repositioning of the station has resulted in a more proactive audience.
11. Brett Milano, Boston Globe, 23/7/86.
12. Alan Rawlinson, Folk Roots, 12/86. Rawlinson could also applaud Bert’s version of Snooks Eaglin’s ‘One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer’, with Bert ‘looking and sounding as though he had thoroughly researched the subject’. A suitably slurred but compelling reading of the song had appeared as Bert’s contribution to the CBS charity album Just Guitars in 1984, recorded at a multi-artist concert organised by Ralph McTell. McTell was as supportive as he could be of Bert during this period, going so far as to record simplified demo arrangements of Bert’s songs in an effort to convince other artists that they were indeed coverable. Eddi Reader was at one point interested in recording ‘Is It Real?’ while Mary Hopkin (with whom Bert performed on occasion at the Half Moon) talked about recording ‘Ask Your Daddy’. Neither appeared.
13. The Pentangle Radio 2 sessions of the Chris Coates management era were: Nightride, 86, Folk On Two, 12/86 and Nightride 87. There was also a Radio 2 Pentangle concert broadcast from the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 17/9/88.
14. ‘As time went on, Alex wanted to get out of the folk scene but could see no way of doing so,’ says Brian Shuel, recalling Campbell’s view even during the sixties. ‘Though he performed brilliantly, he was completely fed up, and indeed ill, with the endless grind of cheap travel, smoky clubs, booze, partying, sleeping on the floors of grotty smoke-filled pads and being ripped off by the hopeless “organisers” who infested the scene. However, he could see no realistic way of making an alternative living. Of course, he did like his drink and enjoyed performing but he knew the life would destroy him in the end, and it did.’
‘Alex and I did a gig together at the Marquee once,’ says Roy Harper, ‘and we were chatting afterwards. He look
ed at me with a kind of knowing smile and said, “Ah, ye young whippersnappers, ye’ll be the death o’ me.” It was like he was saying, “Okay, you’re here now, you’re taking the reins, so get on with it’. He was a lovely guy. He could relate to his own generation and to mine and I’ve never forgotten that.’
15. Charlotte had never had a problem with Bert’s previous relationships and children: ‘I met Gill and liked Gill very much; Heather and I got on quite well; I also met Judy. I’ve always found that when you meet a woman who’s been before with a man that you’re with there’s things you can share like, “Oh, he always throws his socks on the floor” or something! We understood each other.’
16. Bert appeared a number of times on the late-night magazine show Nighthawks on Irish TV during the late eighties and early nineties. He also appeared, with Peter Kirtley, performing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ on BBC Northern Ireland’s Anderson On The Box in November 1992. A scheduled appearance on Ulster TV’s Kelly in April 1998 was apparently cancelled at the eleventh hour when the producer actually listened to Bert’s latest album. To my knowledge, Bert’s only other TV appearance of the late eighties was direct from Denmark’s Skagen Festival in June 1988. Regrettably, the station (DR) did not archive the live broadcast.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. The central premise to Living With The Blues was that Cyril Davies was the first great British bluesman – a tradition subsequently that reached its apogee with Peter Green. Unfortunately, Newman had acquired no footage of either artist to back up this view but had instead assembled a loose collection of veteran British blues players – seemingly, whoever was handy – who are seen performing and/or swapping anecdotes about the sixties.
2. Acoustic Routes was premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, August 1992, broadcast in Scotland on 25/1/93 and nationally on 12/4/93. It was also shown, with British Council sponsorship, at the Sofia Musicfest in Bulgaria and at film festivals in Vienna and Leipzig, during 1993 – 94. It was shown again at Sofia in June 1998, with Bert also performing live at the event.
3. Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Robin Williamson were all scheduled to appear in Acoustic Routes: Robin was missed through being marooned in LA during the riots; a vague arrangement to meet Neil unravelled; Jimmy Page failed to make two appointments.
4. David Cavanagh, Mojo, 1/94.
5. Bert had appeared on BBC’s Russell Harty in 1984, jamming on ‘Angi’ with Ralph McTell and classical virtuoso John Williams, in support of the Just Guitars charity project.
6. The summer 1993 vintage Jansch CDs were: Bert Jansch + Jack Orion (Demon); BBC Radio 1 In Concert (Windsong), Three Chord Trick (Virgin) and From The Outside (Hypertension), remixed and annotated by Bert himself.
7. The 1986 Transatlantic Jansch CD was The Essential Collection Volume 1: Strolling Down The Highway. Track details for The Essential Collection Volume 2: Blackwater Side appeared in trade directories, as did information on a 4 CD boxed set linking the Jansch compilation with individually issued Pentangle and Renbourn titles, but neither the boxed set nor the Jansch Vol.2 appeared.
8. Evening News, 20/12/92.
9. In the early ‘90s, Bert’s recording and musical support gear included: an Atari SM124 computer with C-Lab notation software; a Panasonic SV-3700 DAT deck and Casio DA-R100 portable DAT (for recording gigs with Peter – a live album aspiration that was never realised); an Alesis Microverb III 16-bit Digital Reverb/ Delay; a Roland U-220 Sound Module; and a Roland GR-50 Guitar Synth. At the time of writing the key components of Bert’s home studio include: G4 PowerMac, Logic Audio Software, Roland G50 Guitar Synth, Roland U220 Sound Module, Korg 707 keyboard, Korg X5D keyboard, Yamaha MU10 Sound Module, Yamaha 02R Digital Mixing Desk, Mark Of The Unicorn MTPAV Synchronizer and Korg 12-12 1/0 Sound Card. During the early ‘90s he used a Peavey Profex unit onstage to enhance his guitar sound, before switching to Yamaha pedalboard and currently a Linefix Pod. It remains intriguing that, for all that, he continues to favour guitars with difficult action and not especially bright strings. Current stage guitar is a Yamaha LL/11E.
10. Bob Harris Show, BBC Radio 1, 14/7/93.
11. Anne, having slipped out of music in 1973, was living in Lincolnshire at the time. Encouraged by Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, she had made a brief return to live performance around 1990 – 92, effectively culminating in her appearance with Bert in Acoustic Routes filmed in March 1992. Rory may have seen her performing at The Troubadour or on the film.
12. Guitarist, 3/95. [interview conducted in 4/94]
13. ‘Thyme Honoured’, John Tobler, Folk Roots, 10/95.
14. I authored Bert Jansch/Pentangle features in a number of publications during late 1993/early 1994 (Folk Roots, Record Collector, Replay and Acoustic Guitar) and reviewed concerts for both Mojo and The Irish Times. Additionally, there were certainly concert and record reviews in publications at this level and above from several other writers during this same period. Mick Houghton did an exceptional job with the intensity of the publicity surrounding Circus, but the notion that Bert hadn’t been written about in ten years is somewhat exaggerated.
15. Janie Romer was the wife of studio engineer Jay Burnett, who worked on the remix of From The Outside (1993), engineered Circus (1995) and produced Toy Balloon (1998). During 1993 Bert had featured Janie as a guest at odd shows of his own. She contributed backing vocals to both Circus and Toy Balloon but a joint project vaguely on the cards in 1993 has not materialised.
16. Q, 1/96.
17. At the time of writing Andrew Hunter, out of the country for an extended period, could unfortunately not be contacted.
18. Rock’n’Reel, 95.
19. Rosemary Lane, Spring 1996.
20. In the middle of the 12 Bar era, Loren had suggested to Bert that he might like to see Page & Plant at Wembley Arena: ‘I was amazed – it was just like a folk club!’ says Bert. ‘Every song, with an audience made up of people all my age, the whole place was singing along.’ Loren had organised backstage passes and was amused to find that Robert Plant seemed even more flattered to meet Bert than the man who had been consistently lauding him to the international press for the previous quarter century. Bert had no complaints: ‘It was my first time meeting up with Jimmy and it was really quite nice.’ [Guitar, 4/96]
21. As note 19.
22. Both albums, including musical contributions from Bert, were duly completed. At the time of writing they had yet to be placed with a record company. Strangely, Bert feels he has ‘let them down’ by not yet managing to do so. One may reasonably feel that the responsibility for doing so should perhaps lie at other doors.
23. Stuart Bailie, Vox, 5/98.
24. ‘Lost Singer Found’, T. J. McGrath, Dirty Linen, April/May 1995.
Select Bibliography
A sizeable quantity of books, journals and other printed ephemera were consulted in the making of this book. Some were even read from cover to cover, in an undulating fusion of fear at possibly missing some crucial detail and old-fashioned procrastination at actually doing some writing myself. While this bibliography is strictly selective for reasons of space, and any sources of direct quotation credited as they appear in endnotes to the main text, the following works were among the most useful:
Vox Pop: Profiles Of The Pop Process, Michael Wale (Harrap, 1972).
The History Of Rock, ed. Michael Heatley (part-work, Orbis Publishing, 1981 – 84).
London’s Rock Routes, John Platt, (Fourth Estate, 1985).
Journeyman: An Autobiography, Ewan MacColl, (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1990).
Cod Liver Oil And The Orange Juice: Reminiscences Of A Fat Folk Singer, Hamish Imlach & Ewan McVicar (Mainstream Publishing, 1992).
As Far As The Eye Can Sing, Frankie Armstrong with Jenny Pearson (The Women’s Press, 1992).
Guinness Encyclopedia Of Popular Music, ed. Colin Larkin (concise edition, Guinness Publishing, 1993).
In Session Tonight, Ken Garner (BBC Books, 1993).
Alexis Korner: The Biography,
Harry Shapiro (Bloomsbury, 1996).
The Democratic Muse: Folk Music Revival In Scotland, Ailie Munro (revised edition, Scottish Cultural Press, 1996).
The Who Concert File, Joe McMichael & ‘Irish’ Jack Lyons (Omnibus Press, 1997).
Rockin’ Croydon, Chris Groom (Wombeat Publishing, 1998).
The Skiffle Craze, Mike Dewe (Planet, 1998).
The Great Rock Discography, Martin C. Strong (revised edition, Canongate Books, 1998).
In addition to the above titles, the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide and the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles and Guinness Book Of Hit Albums were standard reference tools. In terms of magazines, journals and periodicals, the following were consulted most comprehensively:
Melody Maker 1961 – 72 – the journal of record for British music in this era; English Dance & Song 1961 – 67; Folk Scene 1964 – 65; Folk Review 1977 – 79; Folk News 1977 – 79; Southern Rag 1983 – 85; Folk Roots 1986 – 99; Rosemary Lane 1993 – 99.
Numerous other publications were consulted more selectively. Additionally, an insane collection of print interviews and reviews regarding Bert Jansch, his peers and the Pentangle was accumulated in preparation for this book. To detail every item would be impractical, but a list of every previously published Bert Jansch print interview used herein (with the omission of previously published interviews conducted by myself) is possibly of interest. Until recently, Jansch interviews in print were relatively rare and certainly I am unaware of any others from the 1960s. I would welcome copies of any interviews additional to the following:
