It was five years ago today on October 5, 2011 that Bert Jansch died. Along with Davey Graham and John Renbourn, Bert was one of the holy trinity of British folk blues guitarists who between them influenced countless guitarists that followed.
Of Bert’s generation, only Wizz Jones and Ralph McTell are still around and playing as well as ever.
Here’s Bert live on Norwegian TV from 1973 performing Blackwaterside one of his best known songs.
And from the same 1973 TV show here’s Bert and an unknown guitarist performing Running From Home.
I’ve not seen any of this footage before and it looks like the entire show is out there
Slightly different tradition, perhaps, but Martin Carthy is also still around.
Good point. Same generation and a master guitarist, if somewhat more traditional in his material
Ha! That’s a bit like saying the Pope is ‘a bit Catholic in his views’. I’ll be seeing Carthy next week, actually – a rare NI visit.
I saw Bert supporting Alison Moyet in Cambridge years ago at an all-seater gig. He shuffled onstage as unannounced ‘special guest’ and launched into Blackwaterside.
The woman directly in front of us started heckling “Boring! Get off” after every tune and moaning loudly through each. After 10 minutes I politely slipped her a fiver and asked if she’d like to go to the bar and buy herself a drink. She did, but I got daggers for the rest of the evening in return.
Bert was great but didn’t even acknowledge the audience until a polite “thankyou” at the end of his set (which ended with Anji, obviously). Even then, Mrs F still didn’t know who he was.
Nice story.
Bert was always lacking in presentation. He had it down to a fine art.
Not long before Bert died, he toured the US opening for Neil Young. I love this quote from Neil:
“I was living in a flat in Toronto with some other people, sleeping on the floor, and we always used to listen to his first record – the one with ‘Needle Of Death’ on it, but the whole record was just phenomenal. I could never forget it. I’d never heard anybody play like it. I’ve still never heard anybody play acoustic like it. He’s a great guitar player and that’s what everybody talks about, but they really can’t put their finger on the other thing which is his songs and his voice. He just sits and plays and if you listen you get it.
Bert Jansch is a complete original. I’ve been listening to him my whole life, so to get to have him with me and be able to present him to my audience so that they know what the real deal really is. Most of the time, even though my crowds are kind of rude in some ways to my opening acts, he holds his own almost all the time and does better than anybody else I’ve ever seen.
But that’s meaningless, because he is so great that he transcends all of that. He is to the acoustic guitar sort of like Hendrix is with the electric guitar. Why aren’t we playing together? He’s so good. I think I’d get in the way. But maybe, after we get really familiar and are able to just play in a room together, maybe something like that will happen.”
Lovely Neil Young quote. Not sure Pagey has ever felt able to publicly acknowledge his acoustic debt. Or was that DONOVAN…
Donovan shock, horror!!
I rewatched the Bert tribute from a while back. The Don was one of the acts featured. Amazingly he did not tell us what he taught Bert, but actually acknowledged that he learned from Bert.
Great interview with the Tickle on the Tum Hitmaker (McTell) in R2 (nee rock’n’Reel) which also discusses the relationship with Wizz Jones at length. The curse/legacy of Streets of london, a completely uncharacteristic albatross he has to bear, royalties notwithstanding, to his detriemnt.
Last time I saw Ralph, he kicked off the show with Streets Of London, then said “right, that’s got that out of the way, good evening”.
It was a lovely show. Ralph is a genuinely nice man. He could write a great book on the 60s UK folk scene.
My kids loved Ralph growing up. They were fed a steady diet of Alphabet Zoo.
In my dim and distant memory I think I won a competition on Manchester’s Key 103 radio station. The prize included a signed Bert Jansch LP that I have no recollection of playing. I think I gave it away to someone who would appreciate it more.
I used to work with a woman in the early ’90s whose husband was a guitarist and had toured the UK with Bert. I forget his surname, Peter something. That’s my entire Jansch-related knowledge/contribution. You’re welcome.
Bert recorded and toured with Peter Kirtley in the late 80s/early 90s. Could it be him?
Yes, I think that’s him. His wife was called Jenny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Kirtley Surely not the same?
Having said that, add an R and this guy has entries, if not a wiki
https://www.discogs.com/Peter-Kirtley-Peter-Kirtley/release/6549713
Here’s Bert with Peter Kirtley.
Some nice seated Telecaster work, sir!
And here they are doing Elvis
I was at that show – BBC Northern Ireland, 1992. That’s me whooping at the end and catching Peter’s eye. They’d been booked for it already but I’d mentioned to a researcher friend on the show – which was otherwise going to be an Elvis themed affair that week – that Bert had recorded ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ a decade earlier. Hence, they were asked to perform it – which meant Peter had to learn Bert’s version of it more or less overnight.
Gary Glitter was also a guest, as was one of Elvis’s hangers-on, who had seemed to forged a career out of being so, appearing on regional talk shows the world over. I remember Peter being distinctly suspicious of/repelled by Glitter – he was ahead of the game, there.
Bert also tutored Alison Moyet (after she was released from her major-label contract she had a crisis of confidence and developed agrophobia) and Beth Orton (to play guitar properly). A shame he didn’t teach Beth how to sing*
(*) OAAA
Bert was a wonderful player. I was gutted to find out that he’d been giving lessons in that London – which Beth Orton availed herself of I believe – and I didn’t.
The problem for me is when the voice starts and something in me says “arran sweaters, fol-de-rol” (see Blackwaterside above). I bought The Black Swan album and really enjoyed the BBC4 tribute concert tho, which seemed to minimise the trad folk vocal element. I’m sure all have seen it, but it’s nice to know it’s on Youtube. Bert’s later, gravelly voice really suits the material well. Blues Runs the Game – superb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU34MBykzYM
Castlemilk Folk Festival 1902-ish. A shaky conspideration of old bearded Glaswegian musos successfully pulled off a multi-act line-up headlined by Louden W.
Bert’s version’s of Angie was like trial by strummer.
T.S.M.N.W.A.
By kind coincidence the dodgers have dispatched the Pentangle reunion live album to me this very morning. Bert will get a good spin this evening chez Renard.
That’s good timing.
4LP 1990s BJ vinyl box coming from Earth Vinyl early next year (Ornament Tree, Circus, Toy Balloon + disc of unreleased studio tracks and demos from the 90s – some great). Notes by me, probably also well illustrated.
00s 4LP box and vinyl release for 1999 live album ‘Downunder’ to follow the above (though not with my involvement).
I wonder if Downunder will have your original sleeve notes Colin? The ones where you quoted from my Folk Roots review?
I can find out. I would have hoped they would have asked me, though! I’ve recommended a writer for it (from Oz). If that doesn’t work, there’s a guy in Perth… 🙂
*reaches for his copy of Downunder*
Colin- could you not find out the name of the percussionist who played with him? I am sure I have knowledgeable friends who would have attended the Continental Cafe shows.
I don’t believe even BJ knew at the time. The percussionist was overdubbed (a friend of the bass player) after the performance, in Oz, as I recall so didn’t actually play *with* BJ. Though it works very well and you’d never guess…
The Continental Cafe was a revered venue in Melbourne. Alas, I lived in Sydney in its heydey but it had a succession of quality international artists who thrived in its intimacy.
Well, if you want to accept the mission of finding out the percussionist’s name (if it really is missing from the Downunder booklet info – I can’t recall, and no longer own any BJ CDs), track down the bass player and ask him – and I’ll make sure it’s added to the forthcoming Earth vinyl version of it.
This photo was taken in Melbourne at (I think) The Basement in 1996 (or 1998).
The liner notes of Downunder do mention that the percussion was added later by “a friend” of bassist Pete Howell.
The inside booklet then credits Ian Clarke with percussion on tracks 10, 14 and 15,
http://i.imgur.com/zM1bWMM.jpg
So the whole thing’s sorted, then. Good pic. Your own, JC?
It was taken by a friend who works for the ABC in Melbourne. He knows I’m a fan and took it just for me.
Would you/he like it added to the Earth reissue? (with credits of course.) I believe I took the cover pic (in Belfast in 1998, I think). Possibly they were short of a cover pic and I offered – I can’t remember.
Yes, for sure. That would be great.
Email me a hi res copy…
Done. I cropped it for the blog, but sent you the whole thing.
Just to be clear the Basement is in Sydney, the Continental Cafe was in Melbourne. That doesn’t look like the Basement so assume it is the Continental Cafe.
As he is too modest to, I will plug ColinH’s biography of Bert. I thoroughly enjoyed it – struck the right note between being a fan (I assume) and having a world-wise critical eye.
Worth every cent I paid for it via the tax dodgers
Thanks Si. Yes, I was a fan.
I too would like to offer a ringing endorsement for Dazzling Stranger, just a superbly written book about the great man and the UK folk scene that is forever being re-read and is a constant on the bathroom reading pile. Even though I possess most of Bert’s albums the accompanying compilation also entitled Dazzling Stranger is a superb aural document of the great man. Also worth noting is Earth Records re-release programme of Bert’s material including a lovely couple of albums from the mid-eighties (?) that Bert cut with his then wife Lauren Auerbach
Seconded. Great read, but subsequently cost me a fortune. The rascal was fairly prolific, and there were a lot of gaps to plug…
Yes, lovely book. Essential if you’re a fan, I’d say.
Thirded. Top book. I have the blues one on the pile too.
Thanks all! I’ve already passed on JC’s name to the Earthmen re possible sleeve-notery.
Incidentally, if anyone here has read/enjoyed the BJ book, you’d probably enjoy the first two-thirds of the McLaughlin book too. The template is similar to DS – a wide look at slightly off the radatr London music scenes in the 60s (this time jazz, the soul end of R&B, the pop session work world, free improvisation). You don’t have to be interested in JMcL to enjoy it!
I saw Bert Jansch loads of times; Cottier Theatre Glasgow, The Barrowlands with Bernard Butler, St Brides Accoustic Centre in Edinburgh (with Davy Graham!) but the best one was, oddly enough, in Bellshill Community Centre.
It was him by himself in a very small, extremely provincial venue and he was something I had never seen him be before or since- almost chatty. I mean we’re not talking Richard Hawley here, but he spoke, he told stories, he was funny and self deprecating, he was everything which Bert Jansch never was. I have no idea if it was because it was a small venue, or because it wasn’t a “look at the legend” type of crowd or what, but it was remarkable. Me and my pals came out at the end wondering if it was someone really good at impersonating Bert Jansch.
He’s buried at Highgate Cemetary in the Karl Marx side, quite near Douglas Adams. Stumbled across him by accident.
Bert’s grave is right next to his wife Loren who died only months later. I took these pics in 2012 and always assumed these were temporary markers.
http://i.imgur.com/Nls5gR1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jyTEoJg.jpg
Jansch grave update:
This appeared on Bert’s Facebook page today.
http://i.imgur.com/A0QL5hf.jpg
I was at a couple of those same concerts, Gangle. By any chance were you at that strange, low key Davy Graham gig at Milngavie community centre (or something of that ilk) in about 2004? I only saw the little poster advertising the gig by chance when I was out walking the start of the West Highland Way.
No! I wasn’t… We went to the Jansch/Graham gig in a sort of “Brian Wilson’s back” kind of haze. I had assumed these were his first shows in yonks. I’d have gone to see him in Milngavie if I’d have known about it for sure.
Davie Graham hung about the bar for a bit afterwards though. I was too scared to talk to him. I can’t play the guitar, what can I say?