Dazzling Stranger

by Colin Harper

  Current CD: La Cooka Ratcha LCVP124CD

  Pentangle Discography: The Original Era UK Albums

  Personnel 1968—72: With the exception of an orchestra on their first single ‘Travelling Song’, the Pentangle were joined by no other guests, and maintained the same line-up, for all their commercially released recordings during this period. On later records, the instrumentation developed with sitar, piano, squeeze-box, banjo and harmonica all appearing. The composite Pentangle Mk 1 personnel credits are as follows: Bert Jansch (guitar/ banjo/ accordion/ concertina/ recorder/ vocal), Jacqui McShee (vocal), John Renbourn (electric & acoustic guitars/ sitar/ harmonica/ recorder/ piano), Danny Thompson (bass), Terry Cox (drums/ glockenspiel/ dulcitone/ percussion/ vocal)

  The Pentangle (Transatlantic TRA 162)

  Released: May 17, 1968. Recorded: February-March 1968 at IBC Studios, London & Olympic Sound Studio, London. Produced: Shel Talmy

  Let No Man Steal Your Thyme / Bells / Hear My Call / Pentangling / Mirage / Way Behind the Sun / Bruton Town / Waltz

  Current CD: Castle CMRCD131 (2001). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by Colin Irwin plus three outtakes, ‘Koran’, ‘The Wheel’, ‘Casbah’, and four alternate takes of existing album tracks. Curiously, it neglects to include the non-album single ‘Travelling Song’.

  Note: Recording sessions announced in the press for August 1967, previously believed abortive, appear to be the source of three tracks discovered in 2005 in the Transatlantic archive, ‘Poison’, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ and ‘Market Song’ – featuring Bert on electric guitar.

  Sweet Child (Transatlantic TRA 178)

  Released: November 1, 1968. Recorded: Live LP: June 29 1968 at Royal Festival Hall, London; Studio LP: September 1968 at IBC Studios, London. Produced: Shel Talmy

  Live: Market Song / No More My Lord / Turn Your Money Green / Haitian Fight Song / A Woman Like You / Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat / Three Dances / Watch the Stars / So Early in the Spring / No Exit / The Time Has Come / Bruton Town

  Studio: Sweet Child / I Loved a Lass / Three Part Thing / Sovay / In Time / In Your Mind / I’ve Got a Feeling / The Trees They Do Grow High / Moondog / Hole in the Coal Current CD: Castle CMDDD132 (2001). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by Colin Irwin plus three alternate studio takes, one studio outtake (’Haitian Fight Song’), and seven additional live numbers from the Festival Hall concert: Hear My Call / Let No Man Steal Your Thyme / Bells / Travelling Song / Waltz / Way Behind the Sun / John Donne Song.

  Note: Festival Hall performances of ‘Pentangling’, ‘Sweet Child’ and a solo Jansch performance of ‘Blackwaterside’ appear not to have survived on tape.

  Basket Of Light (Transatlantic TRA 205)

  Released: October 13, 1969. Recorded: August-September 1969 at IBC Studios, London. Produced: Shel Talmy

  Light Flight / Once I Had a Sweetheart / Springtime Promises / Lyke-Wake Dirge / Train Song / Hunting Song / Sally Go Round The Roses / The Cuckoo / House Carpenter

  Current CD: Castle CMRCD207 (2001). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by Colin Irwin plus two alternate takes of ‘Sally Go Round the Roses’ and the non-album B-sides ‘Cold Mountain’ and ‘I Saw an Angel’.

  Cruel Sister (Transatlantic TRA 228)

  Released: November 27, 1970: Recorded: September 1970 at Sound Techniques, London & Olympic Studios, London. Produced: Bill Leader

  A Maid that’s Deep In Love / When I Was in My Prime / Lord Franklin / Cruel Sister / Jack Orion

  Current CD: Castle CMRCD206 (2001). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by Colin Irwin.

  Note: There are no known outtakes or alternate takes.

  Reflection (Transatlantic TRA 240)

  Released: Scheduled for September 10, 1971, but possibly postponed to October 8, 1971. Recorded: March 1971 at Command Studios, London & Olympic Studios, London. Produced: Bill Leader

  Wedding Dress / Omie Wise / Will the Circle Be Unbroken? / When I Get Home / Rain & Snow / Helping Hand / So Clear / Reflection

  Current CD: Castle CMRCD983 (2004). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by Colin Harper.

  Note: One outtake, ‘Wondrous Love’, is known and the entirety of the session multi-tracks, including numerous alternate takes of ‘Reflection’ and ‘So Clear’, are extant.

  Solomon’s Seal (Reprise K 44197)

  Released: September 1972. Recorded: February-March 1972 at Sound Techniques, London. Produced: Pentangle & John Wood

  Sally Free & Easy / The Cherry Tree Carol / The Snows / High Germany / People on the Highway / Willy O’Winsbury / No Love Is Sorrow / Jump Baby Jump / Lady of Carlisle

  Current CD: Castle CMQCD555 (2003). Digitally remastered with sleeve note by John Renbourn and Jacqui McShee.

  Note: Although it was once believed that master tapes no longer existed for this album, Warners in the USA do indeed possess masters, although the Castle CD was produced from a tape source supplied by John Renbourn.

  UK Singles

  Travelling Song / Mirage (Transatlantic BIG 109)

  Released: May 1968

  Once I Had a Sweetheart / I Saw an Angel (Transatlantic BIG 124)

  Released: May 1969

  Light Flight / Cold Mountain (Transatlantic BIG 128)

  Released: October 1969 Reissued: March 1971

  Light Flight / Market Song / The Time Has Come (Transatlantic BIG 567) Released: c. May 1973 Reissued: July 1978

  Important Archive Releases

  Pentangle – Live at the BBC (Band Of Joy BOJCD013)

  Released: 1995. Recorded: BBC Radio 1 sessions on August 17 1969 and June 19 1969 and BBC TV In Concert June 20 1970

  Cuckoo Song / Hunting Song / Light Flight / People on the Highway / No Love Is Sorrow / Cherry Tree Carol / Jump Baby Jump / Lady Of Carlisle / Train Song / Hunting Song / Light Flight / In Time / House Carpenter / I’ve Got a Feeling

  Note: Once thought to be all that remained of the group’s numerous BBC radio sessions, this collection comprises two sessions and audio from a BBC TV In Concert. The 1969 radio version of ‘Light Flight’ is essentially the version commissioned as theme to the TV drama series Take Three Girls. It was substantially rewritten for the commercial release.

  Current CD: Reissued on the Band Of Joy sister label Strange Fruit in 1997 as Pentangle On Air, with new sleeve note by Terry Dale.

  Pentangle – The Lost Broadcasts: 1968–1972 (Hux Records, 2004)

  Released: 2004. Recorded: Numerous BBC radio sessions spanning 1968—1972

  Disc One: Hear My Call / Turn Your Money Green / Travelling Song / Let No Man Steal Your Thyme / Soho / No More My Lord / Every Night When the Sun Goes In / I Am Lonely / Forty-Eight / Orlando / Three Dances / The Time Has Come / I’ve Got a Feeling / Sweet Child / In Your Mind / I Loved a Lass / Sovay / Sally Go Round the Roses / Bruton Town / Cold Mountain / I Am Lonely / The Cuckoo / Light Flight

  Disc Two: Hunting Song / Moondog / House Carpenter / Name of the Game / Train Song / Springtime Promises / Country Blues / The Trees They Do Grow High / Lyke Wake Dirge / Reynardine / Light Flight / A Maid That’s Deep in Love / Will the Circle Be Unbroken? / Lord Franklin / Lady of Carlisle / People on the Highway / No Love Is Sorrow / Jump Baby Jump / Cherry Tree Carol

  Note: In addition to the eight session tracks on the Band Of Joy/Strange Fruit release (above), in late 2000 a cache of 12 further Pentangle BBC radio tracks spanning 1968–71 were identified as extant on BBC World Service transcription discs. There were also several brief interviews, with Jacqui and with John Renbourn, specially recorded to accompany the World Service broadcasting of these tracks, although the tracks themselves had all been recorded originally for a variety of domestic BBC programmes. (Also identified were six tracks from the Pentangle reunion at Cambridge Folk Festival 1982 and six tracks from Bert’s Cambridge Folk Festival 1977 appearance – backed by Danny Thompson, Martin Jenkins and featuring special guest Mary Hopkin). Additionally, some two dozen further radio session tracks from off-air sources came to light. This CD is conseq
uently now the definitive gathering of the group’s BBC radio career, although for reasons of space it omits the 1969 session version of ‘Hunting Song’ and doesn’t include any of the In Concert material. Of greatest interest among the new discoveries are a full-band arrangement of Terry Cox’s solo number ‘Moondog’, ‘The Name of the Game’ (a song recorded for the film Tam Lin but otherwise lost) and John & Jacqui’s otherwise unrecorded blues cover ‘Every Night When the Sun Goes In’.

  CD: Hux Records HUX 049 (2004) with sleeve note by Colin Harper.

  The Time Has Come (Box Set): 1967–1973 (Sanctuary)

  Released: 2006/2007 (TBC)

  Note: A 4CD set designed by Philip Lloyd-Smee and compiled and substantially annotated by Colin Harper, with two live discs and two studio discs. Acting as both a best-of for the curious and a treasure trove of unreleased performances for the faithful, the set features previously unknown studio recordings from 1967, previously unreleased outtakes and alternate takes from The Pentangle and Reflection, unreleased film soundtrack material from Tam Lin and Christian the Lion, BBC radio session tracks from 1968, live television tracks from 1968, 1970, 1971 and 1972 and unreleased professional concert recordings from Aberdeen (March 1970) and the Isle of Wight Festival (August 1970).

  Selected Compilations

  As is the case with Bert Jansch as a solo artist, there have been any number of Pentangle compilations on any number of labels on both vinyl and CD. Pentangle and Jansch tracks have also appeared on numerous ‘various artists’ albums. With one or two exceptions, these compilations are of little interest and are consequently not listed below.

  Various Artists

  The Contemporary Guitar Sampler Vol. 2 (Transatlantic TRA SAM 15)

  Released: 1970

  Tracks: Included unique edits of ‘Bells’ and ‘Hole in the Coal’, almost certainly done without the group’s knowledge or approval. These edited versions later appeared as bonus tracks on the 1996 Wooded Hill label’s CD reissue of Bert and John.

  History Book (Transatlantic TRA SAM 23)

  Released: July 1972

  Note: The only Pentangle compilation to appear during their original existence, albeit after they had left the Transatlantic label, this featured group and pre-group solo tracks with sleevenote from Nat Joseph.

  Pentangling (Transatlantic TRA SAM 29)

  Released: c. May 1973

  Note: The last of the first wave of Pentangle, Jansch and Renbourn compilations – or the first of the next wave? And there would be many. This one was promoted with a three-track single reissue of ‘Light Flight’.

  Pentangling: The Collection (Sanctuary Midline SMETD129)

  Released: 2004

  Note: A 3CD set containing one disc each for Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and the Pentangle – with tracks drawn from the remastered CDs of all of the group’s original albums and from Bert and John’s albums up to 1973, with a sleeve note by Colin Harper. While containing nothing unavailable elsewhere, this budget-priced set is probably the best place for the curious to sample the group and its soloists – or for lapsed aficionados to see if this remastered malarkey justifies rebuying the individual albums (yes, it does).

  Current CD: Sanctuary Midline SMETD129

  Pentangle & Bert Jansch on Video/DVD

  The Bert Jansch Conundrum: In Concert (Shanachie Ramblin’ 807)

  Released: 1991 (video) on both PAL and NTSC. Recorded: Ohio University, 1980. Personnel: Bert Jansch (guitar/vocal), Martin Jenkins (mandocello/violin/vocal), Nigel Portman Smith (bass)

  Poor Mouth / Daybreak / Blues Run the Game / Bittern / Ask Your Daddy / Running From Home / Let Me Sing / Blackwaterside [BJ solo] / Jigs & Reels [MJ solo] / Nightfall / Sovay / Alimony’

  Note: A concert originally broadcast by a US cable station in a series called Ramblin’. Like the two collections below, this is one of many guitar-centric video and DVD releases masterminded by Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop Inc.

  Fingerstyle Guitar: New Dimensions & Explorations Vol.1 (Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop OV11274)

  Released: 1994 (video) on both PAL and NTSC Tracks: Bert Jansch: ‘Blackwaterside’ and ‘One For Jo’

  Note: ‘Blackwaterside’ is taken from the 1980 Ohio concert (see above) while ‘One for Jo’ comes from a Danish programme called Fire Guitarer (Four Guitars) broadcast 15/6/75. Not that the sleeve notes to this video – copious as they are – would bother to tell you any of that.

  John Renbourn: Rare Performances 1965–1995 (Vestapol OV11370)

  Released: 1995 (video) on both PAL and NTSC, 2002 (DVD). Tracks: Bert Jansch & John Renbourn: ‘Bells’, Pentangle: ‘Let No Man Steal Your Thyme / Travelling Song / In Time’

  Note: Another Grossman release. Although, for no good reason, claiming that its two earliest clips date from 1965 – Renbourn performing ‘I Know My Rider’ [sic] at Les Cousins and the unique footage of Bert & John rehearsing ‘Bells’ – both are in fact from the Danish TV documentary Folksangere – i London broadcast in Denmark on 15/7/67 and filmed in London within the previous few weeks. Of the three Pentangle performances two are from their first UK TV appearance, on BBC’s Degrees of Folk (filmed 14/5/68, broadcast 1/ 7/68), while ‘In Time’ is from BBC’s In Concert (filmed 20/6/70, broadcast 4/1/71).

  Sensational Sounds of the ’70s: Vol. 2 (Quantum Leap QL 0093)

  Released: 1999 (video)

  Note: A collection of promotional films from the very early seventies featuring mostly second and third division British pop acts (Marmalade, Edison Lighthouse, Mungo Jerry being among the better known names) but also including a Pentangle promo for ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’ – a track from Reflection (1971) that was not issued as a single in Britain but was at least a B-side, and from the evidence of this film presumably also an A-side, in parts of Europe. The group mime to the track inside what appears to be a studio, intercut with what appears to be a water-wheel (a circle, of course) spinning. The film’s provenance remains obscure. (NB: A DVD of the same title released by the same label in 2000 may or may not include the Pentangle track.)

  Pentangle: Captured Live (Intense Vision INT005)

  Released: 2003 (DVD)

  Will the Circle Be Unbroken? / No Love Is Sorrow / Wedding Dress / Reflection / Willy O’Winsbury / People on the Highway

  Note: Released via the sprawling web of the Classic Rock Productions group of labels, apparently without any of the group’s involvement, this is a 30-minute live performance recorded in a bare studio during 1972 and originally broadcast on 4/1/73 on the Belgian TV channel RTBF. The group look a little the worse for wear but the performances are still capable of mesmerising.

  Ralph McTell: The London Show (Leola Music TPGDVD25)

  Released: December 2005 (DVD) Recorded: Royal Festival Hall, London, November 2004. Track: Bert Jansch & Ralph McTell: ‘Moonshine’

  Note: An edited account of the well-regarded singer-songwriter’s sixtieth birthday concert, featuring a number of guest artists including Wizz Jones, Cara Dillon and, of course, Bert Jansch. The pair duet on Bert’s ‘Moonshine’ – as they had a year earlier at Bert’s sixtieth celebration concert, and many times before. Ralph finishes the show with his own version of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, with the London Community Gospel Choir – the song he had produced as a single for Bert in 1974. This DVD is available exclusively from Ralph’s website: www.ralphmctell.co.uk

  Pentangle Discography: The Reunion Era

  Perhaps ironically, this period of Bert’s (and the band’s) discographical history is, at the time of writing, the least-known and poorest-served on CD. The various CD releases of these albums remain, to UK buyers, obscure and to my knowledge none has been reissued recently enough to have benefited from modern remastering.

  Albums 1984—1994

  Open the Door (Spindrift SPIN 111)

  Released: June 1985. Recorded: c.1983/1984 at Livingston Studios, London. Produced: John & Richard Chelew Personnel: Bert Jansch (guitar/vocal), Jacqui McShee (vocal
), Mike Piggott (violin/guitar), Danny Thompson (bass), Terry Cox (drums/percussion/ vocal)

  Open the Door / Dragonfly / Mother Earth / Child of the Winter / The Dolphin / Lost Love / Sad Lady / Taste of Love / Yarrow / Street Song

  CD: Plane (1985) [German-only]

  Note: Both the ‘published’ and ‘copyright’ dates on this album state ‘1984’, suggesting it had been recorded and planned for release well before June 1985. Both the traditional songs – ‘Open The Door’ (learned by Bert from Archie Fisher) and ‘Yarrow’ – are erroneously credited to the group’s composition. ‘Dragonfly’ is a different composition to the Bert Jansch solo recording of that name, as released on the Danish pressing of A Rare Conundrum.

  In the Round (Making Waves SPIN 120)

  Released: 1986. Recorded: c.1986 at Raezor Studios, London. Produced: Doug Beveridge & Pentangle. Personnel: Bert Jansch (guitar/banjo/vocal), Jacqui McShee (vocal), Mike Piggott (violin/mandolin/guitar), Nigel Portman Smith (bass/keyboards/vocal), Terry Cox (drums/percussion/vocal)

  Play the Game / The Open Sea / She Moved Through the Fair / Set Me Free (When the Night Is Over) / Come to Me Baby / Sunday Morning Blues / Chase that Devil Away / The Saturday Movie / Suil Agrar / Circle the Moon / Let Me Be

  CD: Plane (1986) [German-only], Varrick (late ‘80s?) [US-only], Episode (1990) [territory unknown]

  So Early in the Spring (Plane C-4001)

  Released: August 1989. Recorded: 1989 at Raezor Studios, London. Produced: Pentangle & Nigel Portman Smith. Personnel: Bert Jansch (guitar/vocal), Jacqui McShee (vocal), Rod Clements (mandolin/guitar), Nigel Portman Smith (bass/keyboards), Gerry Conway (drums/percussion)

  So Early in the Spring / The Blacksmith / Reynardine / Lucky Black Cat / Eminstra / Bramble Briar [aka Bruton Town] / Lassie Gathering Nuts / Gaea / The Baron of Brackley