Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 As musicians, many of you will understand the phenomenon of "your influences' influences". Well, Bert Jansch -- an amazing player in his own right -- was also the key acoustic influence of Neil Young and Jimmy Page, among many, many others. Most of the obituaries will call him a "Scottish folk guitarist from Pentangle", but I just think he was a master of emotive acoustic guitar playing, with no specific genre attached. Many of his signature styles -- hammering on in the middle of a chord cluster -- have become integral to my own playing. I'm not sure why Bert isn't more revered among guitarists, but he really should be. By all accounts he was as wonderful of a person as he was a player. He will be missed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 For some of you Zeppelin fans, this might sound familiar. [video=youtube;hkX7Q2J7k48] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 Johnny Marr from the Smiths had a great statement about Bert: "He completely reinvented 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 realize they've been influenced by him one step removed." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sailorman Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 agreed; he and his Pentangle bandmate, John Renbourn are 2 of my favorites. I studied Renbourn more than Jansch but appreciate both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alndln2 Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 I'm an early fan. Too sad. R.I.P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 This makes me really sad. I love Pentangle. They've always been one of my very favorite bands. I've been listening to Jansch, Renbourn, Pentangle, and a number of other Brit folkies all morning... It's a rare few days that go by without me hearing Jansch in some form. (And Pentangle's "No Exit" just came on, actually. Three songs ago, their very cool "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat.") I've seen Jansch solo and with Renbourn. I've seen all of Pentangle but never saw them all in one place at one time. All at the tiny McCabes, which puts you only a few yards away from the performers. It's going to take me a while to absorb this. RIP, Mr Jansch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 agreed; he and his Pentangle bandmate, John Renbourn are 2 of my favorites. I studied Renbourn more than Jansch but appreciate both.I spent much of the 70s and 80s listening to Renbourn devoutly, but in the last couple decades, I've really started appreciating Jansch's playing. I guess it goes without saying he was really good... Despite the sometimes troubled relationship between the two guitarists, the interplay between them is, at times, just drop dead amazing. When I saw them together in the 90s, they joked about it and implied that there was at times something of a romantic triangle in the band.* I almost never read band news, bios, etc, so I don't know how much was just joking and how much was joking to cover real pain. But it was interesting. They played great together. Not surprisingly. (*Or was the romantic competition over Jansch's one-time -- around the pre-Pentangle time when he and Renbourn were flatmates -- GF, Anne Briggs?) Good article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8809432/Bert-Jansch.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 It's going to take me a while to absorb this. I think there's only one way I can truly pay my respects to this guy, and it's to make sure that people know what his impact has been on music of the past 40+ years. The only thing I find sad is that most musicians have no idea who he was, much less casual music listeners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 Zak Claxton should do a Pentangle/Jansch salute. R.I.P. His influence on music cannot be overstated. Well, okay, it could be, but it'd be difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 For Mog subscribers, here's a big collection (417 songs) of Bert, solo, and with Pentangle: http://mog.com/playlists/890909 Even I was surprised at how many albums Bert recorded. (I tried to avoid any collections/greatest hits, etc, so there should be minimal duplicates, I hope.) (I assume MOG Free users can access it, but I'm using the old player [and if I switch to the new player I can't get back to the old 'white' player which I prefer] Anyhow, if you can't, just search on Bert and Pentangle and you can recreate it, yourself, for the most part.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 never heard of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 never heard of him. 98% of people, and probably 88% of musicians as well, seem not to have, so don't feel bad. But the guy was just amazing, and it's not too late to do some listening. I was playing his stuff all day today (which was perfectly appropriate on a gloomy rain-soaked Wednesday). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 98% of people, and probably 88% of musicians as well, seem not to have, so don't feel bad. But the guy was just amazing, and it's not too late to do some listening. I was playing his stuff all day today (which was perfectly appropriate on a gloomy rain-soaked Wednesday). I like it. Reminds me of the crap a friend of mine listens to, so I just delegated this listening project to him. I think he's already begun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 Yeah... Jimmy Page almost learned some of that. I guess the effort was so taxing it caused one of Jimmy's many memory lapses when it came time to fill out the copyright forms for the album... Seems like Jimmy had that problem a lot. The song is, of course, a traditional song, performed by a number of artists, but Jansch felt that page ripped off his arrangement -- and said as much -- although, ultimately, no legal action was taken. Interestingly, it appears that it was Al Stewart, a fan of Jansch, who was the one who taught the arrangement to Page, who had been engaged to play on Stewart's debut album. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_by_Blackwaterside Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted October 5, 2011 Members Share Posted October 5, 2011 Maybe when I am older, and have a bear fur in front of the chimney and a 20 year old chick in my arms, I will listen to some Renbourn, but only when the chick is a melancholic one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Raymar Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 I've never heard of him either and I first heard Page's "rendition" back in the early 70s. The song sounds really nice now after just hearing about Steve Jobs going today as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 98% of people, and probably 88% of musicians as well, seem not to have, so don't feel bad. But the guy was just amazing, and it's not too late to do some listening. I was playing his stuff all day today (which was perfectly appropriate on a gloomy rain-soaked Wednesday). He's more someone you might know if you were a complete freak who likes tracing back who your favorite guitar players may have been influenced by, something I often do. I heard Page and Plant going on about Pentangle and Fairport Convention (if you haven't heard Richard Thompson's stuff, you really owe it to yourself to check his work and Fairport Convention out), and of course, they had Sandy Denny singing on Led Zeppelin IV. But to most people, no, they wouldn't have heard of him...or probably Pentangle, for that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sventvkg Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 ya know, I knew the name but I have to admit, I was unfamiliar with his music. Nevertheless, RIP and thanks for the contribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 You think about all these guitarists who were so heavily influential, but they are not well-known...giants such as not only Bert Jansch but also Django Reinhardt or Roy Buchanan. But there you go. We can't know everybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urca Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 never heard of him. Neither have I, but I will investigate..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 He was one of the first of the English folkies from the 60s I knew about. A friend of mine in high school played a version of "Anji" (aka "Angi," aka "Angie") and said he learned it from a Simon and Garfunkel record and that Paul Simon had learned it from Jansch. So, a few years later when the first Pentangle record came out, I considered it something of a supergroup, even though Jansch was the only guy I had known about before. [video=youtube;-4jXfMEu1YY] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 6, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 You know, if anything, I'm glad I'm able to turn a few people on to Bert who otherwise may have never heard of him had I not brought it up. That's cool. There are a number of artists (including one of Bert's most obvious proteges, Nick Drake) who I didn't discover until long after their deaths, but who became very important to my growth as a musician. It's the aspect of what we do that gives us some small measure of immortality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 6, 2011 Members Share Posted October 6, 2011 It's truly a shame more people don't know about Jansch, Renbourn, and the rest of the Pentangle crew (the iconic and ethereal Jacqui McShee, and the brilliant and jazz-driven rhythm section of Danny Thompson (bass) and Terry Cox (drums, percussion). [video=youtube;JnezFYm9HfM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnezFYm9HfM But the whole Brit folk scene of the 60s was magical: Davy Graham, Martin Carthy, Anne Briggs, so many others.. a huge influence, even on folks who were already active or who would follow by only a few years: Nick Drake, as mentioned, Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny (both from early incarnations of Fairport Convention), Maddy Prior... Davey Graham (who wrote "Angie") was an influence on Jansch, Renbourn, and probably every other British acoustic guitarist of the era... [video=youtube;L7Si_glXOzc] And this is one of my favorite clips from the era... [video=youtube;tWeejHJxGjs] (I doubt Mr Jansch will mind me devoting a couple vids to Mr Graham.) But, really, for me, my mission is to get more people onto Pentangle (and from there, hopefully they will explore), since Pentangle was so powerful, such incredible instrumentalists working in a beautifully organic hybrid of folk and jazz, it seems like they should all but instantly grab folks who might at first give only a passing listen to some of the other artists who might not be as immediately impressive to someone from outside the genre, but whose artistry and influence nonetheless make them historic linchpins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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