Welcome to November and three posts in five days, all about three wildly divergent songwriters who all have milestone birthdays.
I've posted about today's honoree before, but only in the context of a particular band of which he once was a member.
He'd have been the big 75 today had he not left us a few years back, so in his honor we will focus on his solo stuff in this here Saturday evening post.
One of the most emulated guitar players of all time, he himself often claimed to be copying Big Bill Broonzy and Davy Graham.
He helped pilot the mid-1960s folk revival in England, eventually forming that band I was mentioning earlier.
They toured the five corners of the globe and made a reputation as one of, if not the most eclectic and amazing groups of those times.
Eventually they broke up and after a break to work on a farm, he returned to music in the second half of the Seventies as a solo troubadour.
From that time on, he never stopped until he passed away in 2011.
Whether in the context of The Pentangle or on his own, there can be no overstating the impact upon the music of our age of Bert Jansch, born this day in Scotland in 1943.
One of the most effortlessly skillful pickers of any epoch, and as prolific a writer as any of the British Folk or Blues Boomers, his swingingly Baroque style has influenced a million guitar players from Jimmy Page to Richard Thompson.
To celebrate his platinum day, we have a full solo concert taped for KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz, California a little over 40 years ago, and sourced from the pristine pre-broadcast reels no less.
Bert Jansch
Moraga Hall
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA
7.8.1978
set 1
01 Cat & Mouse
02 talk
03 Poor Mouth
04 talk
05 Daybreak
06 One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer
07 talk
08 Avocet
09 talk
10 Blackwaterside
11 Pretty Saro
12 talk
13 Down River
14 Come Back Baby
15 Tell Me Where'd My Life Go
16 One for Jo
set 2
01 Blues Run the Game
02 Lost Love
03 Time and Time Again
04 Candyman
05 Let Me Sing
06 Running from Home
07 Curragh of Kildare
08 Tell Me What Is True Love?
09 talk
10 Ask Your Daddy
11 Anji
12 I Am Lonely
13 thanks, crowd & talk
14 In My Mind
Total time: 1:28:31
Bert Jansch - guitar & vocals
pre-broadcast reels from KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz
440 MB FLAC/November 2018 archive link
This is a gloriously intimate show from the campus of UC Santa Cruz and Herbert does not disappoint the adoring assembled. His stories between songs are also pretty funny.
I shall return Monday with another tribute, this time to an even more esoteric British vocalist and songwriting stalwart.
But for now we are here to homage the incredible House of Jansch with this delicious, nearly-perfect-sounding concert from four decades ago.
I hope you'll let it mellow your weekend mind and as you do, reflect if you will on the life and legacy of this most extraordinary player, 75 today and never to be forgotten.--J.
11.3.1943 - 10.5.2011