On 15 July, Bert Jansch recorded a BBC radio session for Bob Harris’ ‘Sounds of the 70s’. It has long been the holy grail of Bert’s BBC career – songs almost all from the ‘Rosemary Lane’ LP that in several cases he would never perform again. Six songs were recorded, split over two broadcasts: Twa Corbies, Nobody’s Bar and Bird Song plus some chat with Bert on 2 August 1971; and Omie Wise, Tell Me What is True Love and A Dream, A Dream, A Dream (plus a repeat of Bird Song) on 23 August 1971.
Christopher Gardiner, who made the priceless recording of Bert’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall on 30 June 1971 (previously shared on YouTube), taped all the songs from both of these broadcasts. Unfortunately, Twa Corbies is lost but everything else was on his reel in remarkable fidelity (albeit the 23/8/71 tracks being in mono and needing more restoration work). Cormac O’Kane has digitised, restored and mastered the recording – which, of course, came to light only a few months too late for Earth’s ‘Bert Jansch at the BBC’ 8CD set.
Enjoy!
Songs & date of broadcast:
1. Nobody’s Bar (2/8/71)
2. Bird Song (2/8/71)
3. Omie Wise (23/8/71)
4. Tell Me What is True Love (23/8/71)
5. A Dream, A Dream, A Dream (23/8/71)
6. Bird Song (repeat from 23/8/71, with comments from Bob at the start and end)
Holy Moly, I anticipate being on my death bed when the last thread I peruse on the Afterword tells me that Colin has tracked down another amateur recording that does have Twa Corbies intact, whereupon I promptly croak before I can hear it.
Seriously though, it’s amazing to hear this stuff, coming back to us over the decades. Cormac’s done a fine job, and Mr. Gardiner is owed many thanks for grabbing this material as it went out into the ether and then both hanging on to it for so long and then letting us all hear it again.
Indeed – hats off the Christopher. He may currently be rummaging for other items…
Hilarious comment @Vulpes Vulpes! You gave me a great chuckle.
Hats off to you too, Colin! You really are the Indiana Jones of vintage recordings, fearlessly exploring dark and mysterious nooks and grannies in search of the Lost Ark of Janschiana.
I can visualise you now: rocking your jungle hat and vigorously wielding your bullwhip.
😀 Ha! Not quite. Going to bed early to recuperate after shooting a Legends of Tomorrow promo vid yesterday that involved a lot of leap around a la Townshend.
Great job on the restoration Cormac, the guitar sounds gorgeous.
Colin, I have a Bowie/BOWie question for you. I have always thought that Bert’s surname is pronounced with a hard J, but I have often heard, as here, people say Yansch. I think I read somewhere that Bert thought it odd that people assumed it was Yansch.
I always have said a hard J.
Ah yes, Arthur: but you are, in a very real sense, Scottish…I (and all my Scottish friends and relatives) have always pronounced Jansch with a hard ‘J’…
And the letter “j” is pronounced “jai” not “jay”, while we are on the subject! 🙂
Bert did indeed pronounce it with a hard J. But the title of his second album seemed to underpin his view on anyone who pronounced it otherwise. 🙂 J D Souther, on the other hand, gets annoyed when people get his name ‘wrong’.
Very good! I like a joke where the punchline is delayed until you look up Wikipedia.