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BBC Scotland’s ‘Travelling Folk’ – Colin H on Bert J

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I was asked to do an interview on Bert Jansch, on the theme of the ‘Bert at the BBC’ box set, for BBC Scotland’s ‘Travelling Folk’ a couple of weeks back. It was broadcast tonight- here it is. It was a real pleasure talking with presenter Anna Massie, and cannily edited by Emma Gryczka. They make me sound coherent… 😀 For anyone interested, the Bert bit starts at 1:17.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fffx

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  3. Thanks for posting, Colin – I’ve just listened to the whole show, thoroughly enjoyed it. Made me strangely homesick – which is odd, considering I’m from Glasgow, not Lochaber…

    I have the BBC set but am just starting to make inroads on the listening – I have, of course, recorded your interview off-air to cassette, purely for the nostalgia!

    • Fantastic! In doing the archaeology for several BBC box sets, I notice that off-air recording more or less stopped after the 90s. Possibly one reason is that people assume everything in the digital era is retained at source, and also it’s logistically more involved to record off air in the post-cassette era. As a general observation, things like radio sessions/concerts at national BBC level, at least, and generally also at regional level (if pre-recorded rather than live-on-air spots) have been very likely to be retained from the mid 2000s on – e.g., one 2004/5 Bert J ‘Freak Zone’ session was missing, but his 2006 ‘FZ’ one was there (as were his other BBC2 / BBC6 sessions of the 2000s).

      Pre the digital era, it’s a lottery – for instance, of Martin Carthy’s 9 Peel sessions 1971-83, four survive at source (and they’re all fantastic) – that’s not a bad survival rate for the period. Curiously, the dearth of Carthy survival was in the 1980s – but fan off-air taping was in its peak period, thankfully. So… expect a 20CD (seriously) Carthy at the BBC set next year . 🙂

      • You’re right – I would have assumed everything still exists in the vaults since, say, the early 80s and people started to realise the cultural value of these broadcasts. The cassette point you make is probably valid – I went over to minidiscs for off air recording, but I suspect most people stopped.

  4. It’s Friday evening here in snowy Bagarmossen, and, while the rest of the family slumber, I’ve just had the pleasure of inviting Anna Massie and our very own Colin Harper to tiptoe into my (on-line) kitchen so that I could hear them discussing Bert Jansch and his legacy.

    I could very easily become a regular listener to Travelling Folk. Anna plays some excellent music and was born with a voice that came into being to do late-night radio.

    Anyway, I’d just like to inform you all that in my humble opinion this is THREAD OF THE WEEK on the AW.

    No disrespect intended to all the other interesting stuff that is being discussed!
    But to hear Colin talking about Bert Jansch was such a treat. I’ve been nattering online with him on this site for a few years about this and that. But to actually hear his voice and to hear him speaking so eloquently and enthusiastically about a subject about which he knows so very much was quite wonderful.

    I now feel I have a far better understanding of Jansch’s artistry and am very keen to hear more.

    So here we go!

    Great work Colin!! Thank you very much !

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