Bert Jansch is dead and
that is both a very sad loss and a great shock as it had seemed that he
was up and about again, recovered from his initial problem with lung
cancer. There you go... Bert was a big fixture in my younger life,
helping me, (after Bob Dylan) convert to an interest in folk/acoustic
music and an engagement with the Brit folk scene of the sixties which
for a brief few years was actually a cool place to inhabit, mainly
because of Bert and his sidekick John Renbourn and a couple of other
faces from the Soho scene, centred round Les Cousins in Greek Street
but taking in the old Scots Hoose pub at the top of Old Compton
Street where I saw him perform some stunning sets with a nonchalant,
tousled grace. There were bad nights, apparently. Too much booze
and rumours of darker areas, the whole romantic troubadour schtick.
But I don't remember seeing any: the occasional wobble but no more.
Maybe this is selective, but Bert was probably no more or less of a
raker than the rest of us – and we were legion. The music was the
main hit: he had, after all, written the late Buck Polly's epitaph
after he went down to smack – 'Needle of Death,' hardly a
celebration of opiate abuse. But all this was and is irrelevant in
the larger sweep of things...
The music. Bill Broonzy
is always quoted as a big influence but alongside that, I always
wondered if somewhere down the line he had copped an ear to Scrapper
Blackwell's percussive acoustic guitar leads from those classic blues
tracks with Leroy Carr in the twenties and thirties – that snapping
hit on the strings which gave his playing such an edge. Maybe not –
maybe he figured it out for himself. But there was a lot of blues –
and jazz – in his playing. Listen to the seminal
'Bert and John' where Jansch and John Renbourne blend their guitars into a new style that
could go anywhere. Called 'folk baroque' – which always seemed too
pretty and limiting to me, but we need our labels, I suppose. Bert
was also, in my book, an underrated singer who knew how to place a
song over his unique guitar accompaniments, maybe not the most
technical of vocalists, but what is technique? It is there to serve
the song, and Bert had an intuitive feel for whatever he sang, his
slightly gruff delivery giving a vibrato-less edge that cut through
to the essence, the emotional weight balanced just right. Never
over-emoting, which especially suited his renditions of traditional
material, as well as his own material... His voice was a paradox that
mirrored his persona – intimate and yet with a certain distance.
Down to earth, yet possessing a certain mystique... Returning to his
guitar playing, yeah, sure, no doubt he copped some licks from Davy
Graham, as who didn't? – but he had rapidly developed his own style
and Bert was a much better singer, whose records stand up better as
well, in my opinion. Davy, for all his hubristic wonder, lives on in
my memory as primarily a live performer, erratically brilliant, with one classic album that
he made with Shirley Collins - tellingly, a singer - the rest
unfortunately, for me, coming nowhere near capturing his magic on stage.
Screw the comparisons anyway. They were both unique, as was and is
John Renbourn who came at the music from another angle. Put it all
together and you have a style that flows out of the narrow confines
of 'folk' into something new and vibrant. A fusion that meant
something, as opposed to much of the vacuity performed under that
name when jazz met rock (Miles Davis excepted)...
I loved Bert's solo
sets and his duets with John R. Memories of nights down Les Cousins
mesmerised by the crisscrossing dance they created. But maybe
the band Pentangle took the heights of their influences and originalities and
expanded them to a different level to create a music
that looked back to folk roots without being overtly ridiculous,
irrelevant or twee and forwards to the present and future. We all
have our prejudices – with regard to 'folk' music plus rhythm section and some amplification, I rate Pentangle very highly as the ones who got it best in the U.K. Fairport,
for me, forever lumpy, clumping around like a bunch of cider drunks
at a bad barn dance, only redeemed by the sublime Sandy Denny when
she was with them. Pentangle were almost emblematic of the Les
Cousins cool strain of music that came out of London at that time,
jazzy, subtle, blending the guitar styles into the bass and drums to
take Bert and John's playing to new exploratory spaces. Although by the time
they were coming together, they had moved up the road a bit to the
Horseshoe pub on Tottenham Court Road – probably for spatial reasons as much as anything
else – bass, drums, guitars and singer would have been a crush down
in Les Cousins. And then on to greater glories... But I still
cherish the fading memories of that scruffy old crucible of the new
on Greek Street where I first was enchanted by Bert.
And Pentangle came back
recently, if only for a brief shot, now that one of the points on the
star has disappeared, not as nostalgia but a vital force still, if
the reviews are to be believed. Coupled to Bert's resurgent profile, maybe there is some small consolation in the thought
that he died at the top his game, after several years of refound fame
and recognition. Maybe.
