|
“Jansch’s influence on modern music is incalculable” - TIME OUT
“As much of a great guitar player as Jimi [Hendrix] was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar…and my favourite” – Neil Young
“He completely re-invented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequalled today…Without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ‘60s and ‘70s would have been very different. You hear him in Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Donovan, The Beatles, Jimmy Page and Neil Young. There are people playing guitar who don’t even realise they’ve been influenced by him” – Johnny Marr
Bert Jansch, legendary songwriter and guitarist, is widely
acknowledged as one of the most influential musicians of all time. Since the
mid 1960s generation after generation have been held spellbound by his extraordinary
ground-breaking guitar playing and classic emotive songs. Jimmy Page, Neil Young,
Nick Drake, Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and Beth Orton have all been devotees,
and now yet another new generation of musicians and fans, led by Devendra Banhart,
are discovering Jansch for themselves.
Bert began performing his unique synthesis of folk, blues and jazz on the folk
club scene of the early 1960s, having hitch-hiked to London from his hometown
of Edinburgh. His first album, Bert Jansch (played
on a borrowed guitar and recorded on a reel-to-reel tape deck) was legendarily
sold to the Transatlantic label for £100. On its release in April 1965
Bert Jansch caused a sensation for its innovative guitar technique and powerful
songs and it has been phenomenally influential to this day, cited by legions
of guitar players (famous and otherwise) as a major inspiration.
Bert Jansch was followed by It Don’t
Bother Me, and the also hugely influential Jack Orion,
where Bert was already exploring innovative treatments of the traditional folk
ballad form, something he took further with Pentangle, the
unique acoustic supergroup he formed with John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Terry
Cox and Danny Thompson. Pentangle made six albums and enjoyed
an unprecedented degree of success for an acoustic band, touring the world including
several appearances at London’s Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York.
After Pentangle split in 1973, Bert returned to a prolific
solo career.
Bert’s twenty-first solo album, Crimson Moon (on
which he worked for the first time with long-time fans Johnny Marr and Bernard
Butler) appeared in 2000 to a torrent of press and TV attention, accompanied
by a Channel 4 documentary, Dreamweaver, and Bloomsbury’s
publication of a major biography: Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch
and the British Folk and Blues Revival by Colin Harper (reissued
in August 2006 in an expanded new edition with foreword by Johnny Marr). A double
CD tribute album, People On The Highway: a Bert Jansch Encomium,
featuring Bert’s songs specially recorded by other artists, was also released
in 2000. In 2001 Bert was awarded a BBC Radio 2 Lifetime Achievement
Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. His next album Edge
of a Dream (featuring Bernard Butler, Hope Sandoval, Dave Swarbrick
and Ralph McTell), was released in October 2002 to widespread critical acclaim
across Europe. In November 2003, Bert celebrated his 60th birthday with a BBC
TV Special shown on BBC4, and a triumphant sell-out
birthday concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with special guests.
In 2006, Bert worked with some of the latest musicians to emerge on the scene
on his highly acclaimed album The Black Swan,
(released 18 September 2006), including producer Noah Georgeson
(Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow, Joanna
Newsom - Milk-Eyed Mender), and musicians and vocalists Beth
Orton, Devendra Banhart, Otto Hauser
(Espers, Vetiver), Helena Espvall (Espers), and Kevin
Barker (Currituck Co.). In February 2006, Bert was involved in the
major BBC TV series Folk Britannia, and appeared in the associated
concerts at The Barbican in London. That May, he shared a bill at All Tomorrow’s
Parties with Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Espers, Jandek and others. Bert also
featured in a book, Guitar Man (published by Bloomsbury March 2006). On 5 June
2006 Bert received the MOJO Merit Award from MOJO magazine
at their Honours List ceremony. The award is "based around an expanded
career that still continues to be inspirational" and was presented by
Beth Orton and Roy Harper.
To date, Bert is still as active, innovative and influential as ever. Most
of his classic back catalogue has been digitally remastered and sumptuously
re-packaged boasting great sound quality, extensive booklets with brand new
and informative sleevenotes, new photographs and facsimiles of all the original
artwork (some also have bonus tracks). In March 2007, a four CD Pentangle box
set The Time Has Come 1967-1973, featuring Pentangle’s
seminal work plus much previously unheard material, was released to extensive
critical and commercial acclaim. Bert’s January 2007 show at The Roundhouse
in London was a sell-out and he was recently the special guest of Peter
Doherty - another young admirer - at Doherty’s solo
shows at the Hackney Empire.
In a live setting, Bert’s performances are a rare opportunity to see one
of the British music scene’s true legends play. His understated, low key
approach eschews hollow show business routines, and the audience is treated
to a guitar playing master class and an impressive catalogue of some of the
most haunting songs in the British canon.
|
