Bert Jansch – Bert at the BBC

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When Neil Young toured with Bert Jansch in the spring of 2011, it was, in a sense, a master guitar player honouring one of the truly legendary figures in musical history. His passing, only months later, only served to reinforce his legacy as a musician who knew no bounds and could record in virtually any style imaginable. With truly unbelievable generosity, the BBC open their vaults leading to the release of Live at the BBC, a collection that amasses effectively all his live recordings for the Beeb (including radio and TV sessions from 1966 to 2009).

The earliest recordings date back to 1966 sessions on Guitar Club, and thanks to the men in white coats, these recordings sound much better than most recordings from that era. Opening with Whiskey Man, one realizes early on that behind the precise playing, there is also an air of melancholy permeating his work. There’s also a strangeness to some of the early interviews where Jansch is being questioned by folks who have no idea who he is or what he really plays.

His rendition of Handel’s Sarabande (The Pentangle, BBC Radio 1, 1969) exposes a classical background that contrasts his later recordings that highlighted music in a more popular domain. Yet the history of this classical piece is quite fascinating; based on a slow dance derived from Spanish sources in the colonies, it was considered quite scandalous in its day and was subsequently banned in Spain (in 1583).  

Whether playing songs from his own repertoire or those from other writers, Jansch is able to instil a sense of world-weariness to the proceedings, illustrating less about his own personal situations and more about the human condition. Ending the first disc are a series of recordings from the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1977 (recorded for Folkweave on the BBC World Service), where he was joined by Martin Jenkins and Danny Thompson. Recordings like Blues Run The Game and Daybreak illustrate the brilliance of this particular aggregation. Jenkins’s fiddle is a highlight of Pretty Saro. Joined on stage by Mary Hopkin, Ask Your Daddy and If I Had a Lover take on a tone similar to the golden days of Pentangle, whose first incarnation had ended a few years before.

Highlighting Disc 2 is a series of numbers from 1982 featuring Albert Lee on electric guitar and mandolin. On Heartbreak Hotel, Lee’s playing is particularly good in getting to the bluesy rock at the core of the tune and ends with an impromptu commercial for Jansch’s guitar shop on New King’s Road in Fulham.

The initial half of Disc 3 documents sessions from 1988, when Jansch was undergoing a transformation of sorts. In late 1987 he was taken to Ashington Hospital, where he was told in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t give up alcohol, he would end up dead. In Dazzling Stranger, Colin Harper’s biography on Jansch, who also meticulously researched this release, recounts Jansch saying, ‘My pancreas had just given in. There was this lady doctor at Ashington who really counselled me through the whole thing. She had nothing to do with me as a patient but she was a fan. I never did find out her name.’ Despite not knowing her name, he delivered a ‘fragile baroque hommage’ to her on his 1995 album ‘When the Circus Comes to Town’ with an instrumental track titled ‘The Lady Doctor from Ashington’.

Confronted with the damage alcohol had done to his body, drinking became a thing of the past, and he began to regain the form that had made him one of the world’s preeminent acoustic guitarists. A 31-date tour of the U.K. with Rod Clement was booked, with Clement serving both as guitar foil and chaperone. One of the pieces from that period that strikes an interesting chord is Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land, an unlikely choice, yet when it comes to the Jansch repertoire, ‘unlikely’ is a highly relative term.

Tracks from 1993 recorded for Bob Harris and his late-night show reveal an increasingly healthy Jansch on tracks like Stealing the Night Away and Lily of the West. They show him on his way back to full health and more full-bodied guitar playing. Fluid lines and full-throated singing illustrate a man coming to grips with not only his past but his future.

The last few tracks feature a reinvented Pentangle with Jacqui McShee and Peter Kirtley. While not the late 60s and early 70s group, this formation provided an appealing blending of old and new.

Over the ten years covered on Disc 4, Jansch had re-established his solo career, which included a residency at Soho’s 12 Bar Club. Not being in a band improved his playing, leading to a contract with Cooking Vinyl, where he ended up under the watchful eye of publicist Mick Houghton who also happened to be a fan. Before long, he was appearing on “Later… with Jools Holland”, playing When the Circus Comes To Town and Blackwater Side in a duet with the incomparable Altan. Performances with Bernard Butler and Johnny Marr only served to solidify his reputation with a new generation.

Discs 5, 6 and 7 feature Jansch performing entire concerts. The first of these, the 60^th Birthday Concert (something of a misnomer since the actual concert on November 11, 2003, was never recorded), is from October 24th, featuring a similar guest list, including Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler, Jacqui McShee and Johnny Hodge. On Discs 6 and 7, a concert from Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh is offered up in two parts. Occasional duos with Johnny Hodge, a musician and free spirit that Jansch enjoyed playing with, both in the studio and live.

The final disc in this exhaustive compilation is a set of extras that came to light too late for the initial tracking sessions but needed to be heard and released. While this may not appeal to everyone (8 discs of Bert Jansch is a lot to get through), it is a collection designed to illustrate how Jansch came alive when performing for an audience.

Bert at the BBC is a truly glorious collection, yet, if there is one thing that may be missing, it is Jansch’s rather wicked sense of humour. For that, we leave you with this recollection from Mary Hopkin. “Tony (Visconti her husband) asked him how he counted the bars and beats of his songs, with their complex time changes. Bert replied, ‘Oh I just count one, one, one, one…’” Bert Jansch was a true original.

Order it here (Digital/CD/Vinyl) https://earthrecordings.lnk.to/BertJanschAtTheBBC