Bert Jansch performed precisely one solo concert during the original full-time Pentangle era (between March 1968 and the end of 1972). It was at the RFH in June 1971. Pentangle’s manager, Jo Lustig, had booked the place to promote a Van Morrison show. Van being Van, something went awry and Jo found himself needing an act to fill the date. Happily, Bert – on the cusp of releasing his high water-mark album ‘Rosemary Lane’ – did the honours, with Anne Briggs and COB (separately) opening the show.
Christopher Gardiner – a young fan with a Sony cassette recorder – recorded Bert’s set in mono from the front row. Chris very kindly gave me a copy of the recording in the early 2000s, which he had digitally transferred via the headphone output. I had shared my own non-pro EQ-ing of this transfer on YouTube four years ago. Pro mastering engineer Cormac O’Kane – who worked on the recent ‘Bert Jansch at the BBC’ 8CD set – has restored the untreated audio – again, from that early 2000s non-pro transfer – and given it a slight stereo picture. It seems unlikely that an official commercial release will happen for this historic performance, but were that to change, a pro digitisation of Chris’ original cassette could be made and the restoration/mastering undertaken anew.
Several of the songs Bert performed at this concert would never be performed again, although two weeks later he would record five of the numbers he played at the Festival Hall for a BBC radio ‘Sounds of the 70s’ session (Nobody’s Bar, Twa Corbies, Bird Song, Omie Wise, Tell Me What is True Love). Happily, albeit months after the painstakingly curated ‘Bert Jansch at the BBC’ 8CD set was released, a copy of that recording has turned up… in Christopher’s loft!
Huge thanks to Christopher for recording the show!
@colin-h Apropos the 8CD set, this is available for a minimum of £99 from Bandcamp, yet the dodgers have it for under £60. Are they both the same thing?
Indeed so.
Weird!
Yes. Generally, one might encourage Bandcamp purchase as it benefits the artist. But the artist in this case no longer requires cash.
Well quite. I wondered about the missing thirty-odd quid – does it go to his estate?
Are they still paying off some Colombians? See below.
Saw this on Twitter yesterday.
Pete Frame (who worked for Charisma at that time) had seen a similar / the same expenses claim.
I don’t know about these things, but £1,250 seems extraordinary.
Even Donald Trump doesn’t drink that much Coke.
I think it involved the entire team of people involved in ‘Santa Barbara Honeymoon’s production.