Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST,Philip Andrews, aka ((:o)x
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 10:07 AM

Greetings from Shetland!

At the danger of being very boring, I'll include excerpts for general consideration, from a couple of recent email exchanges with a good friend of mine in Notts:


"    I got the Beeb 4 'Genius of Bert Jansch' recording on the second try - truly one of the greats. Hats off IMHO to all who contributed to making it such a sympathetic and revealing exposition of Jansch's life - and if it has the effect of drawing attention to the whole of Bert's incredible musical back catalogue, it'll do a considerable service to future generations of thinking and contemplative folk musicians."

And:


"> I thought simpson had significantly changed the melody.


    I wondered about that during the first verse - and then realised that, just like all of the skilled Kottke copyists, he couldn't very well just crank out a standard version of Jansch's own arrangement (both guitar and vocal) and expect to get away with it. Apart from anything else, Simpson's own style on guitar would have got in the way. It would be like coming up here as a known incomer, and trying to talk to the locals in a Shetland accent - it would be viewed as bogus and suspect at best, and insulting and duplicitous otherwise. In the same way, I think that all of the players on that tribute show were stuck with the same problem - because, even if they'd been able to reproduce Bert's arrangements and twiddly bits for all the rest of the tunes, where would be the point? (I did that for years, as an amateur folk-club floor-spottist - but my 'excuse' was that I didn't view myyself as being a guitar player at all: I was a would-be singer, who wanted to sing the songs with their original accompaniments; and that applied to material by Jansch, Donovan, James Taylor and a great many others besides ... I just loved singing the songs, and for me, that was where it began and ended - until my stupid smoking habit finally caught up with me in 1993, and brought any ideas of singing to a very sudden end. All I get now when I try it is choking fits - and since there's insufficient emotional content involved in simply playing the guitar, there went the motivation to do either. The Kottke thing that came later was genuine - but it still turned out to contain too little of what I needed without the vocals to be worth continuing with, which is why, for now, it's in abeyance.) If the screening of that show revives specific interest in Jansch among the latest generation of folkies and would-be folkies, and increases general younger-generation interest in the folk scene, that would be a substantial legacy for Bert Jansch to have left behind him - and more power to his friends for doing the show for him so well and respectfully.



> Anyway, why no renbourn for gods sake? Did they fall out?


    I wouldn't have thought so - it's far more likely that Jansch fell out with playing the guitar for a living (consider how rough his playing became in his last few years, and how he couldn't remember the old arrangements to tunes such as 'Strolling Down The Highway' etc, possibly due to how heavily he used to drink); and in the process of effectively stopping doing it, he'd have lost any common ground he might have had with Renbourn. These things happen, unfortunately, and they don't always take a falling-out to cause them."

I missed Jansch's early musical adventures by about ten years, apart from seeing Pentangle at Bradford Uni in 1969. The age difference between us (ten years), plus the lack of resources on my part, prevented me from wandering around the country at will, soaking up his music 'live', as I did for decades with later players. One of Bert's tunes, 'Alice's Wonderland', has kept my interest in (and curiosity with) the guitar alive for nearly fifty years - and it still intrigues me in all of its neatness. One of my brightest musical memories is that of playing 'Running From Home' on two guitars with another good friend - George Baker - at the Ducklington Folk Club in 1981. (I did the easy bit - George was the better player of the two of us, and followed the guitar arrangement one bar behind. We didn't get thrown out for doing it - possibly because the club organiser was a very civilised person, and quite probably still is.) All I can say is a heartfelt 'thanks' to the likes of people such as Bert Jansch, for creating the small musical wonders that lit up my enthusiasm for so many decades, and which still do whenever I return to them (which is more often these days).

More than you all wanted to read, I bet :o)

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 01:01 PM

not at all enjoyed your reflections - feel free to write more anytime. I've got a facebook page and I would be interested in what you have to say.
not sure I agree about Martin Simpson. he plays half a dozen styles very creditably. his decision to speed the piece up and add all the piedmont style fancy bits was presumably his choice. he could have done it in the standard way with bass F on the C - slowing it down and giving that yearning feeling. but he must have decided not to.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST,Philip Andrews, aka ((:o)x
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 06:18 PM

Haven't got much to say really - I ran headlong on all fronts from about early 1973 to a few months ago without stopping for breath, and am only now picking up all of the bits and trying to make sense of what I've done.

I wasn't being critical of Martin Simpson earlier - not in the least - and I am well aware of his skill and creative ability, ever since seeing him for the first time at the Bedford (New St. George) Folk Club in 1979. All I was trying to say is that he couldn't very well just lift the original LA Turnaround arrangement for the Tribute Concert. (As an aside, I learned 'Blues Run The Game' from an excellent guitar player from Hull by the name of Dave Parker, last seen somewhere in the vicinity of Cheltenham in the early '70s, after he moved there with his job. I had no idea that what he played was more or less the way Bert put it together on LA Turnaround in 1974 - except that I made Dave's recording of it - which I've lost, unfortunately, or maybe not - it could be here - in 1971.)

I have a Facebook page too, but I'm not self-absorbed enough to think that much (if any) of how I've spent my time on Earth is actually worth retailing to anyone - and especially not to a world-full of strangers, pardon my diffidence. I haven't the literary skills that I'd need to be able to deploy, in order to describe the floating sensation I'd get (sober and straight, mind) when listening 'live' to players such as Bert. His gig at the New Theatre in Oxford in 1975, though, was almost a complete bust: because he'd clearly necked a few sherbets before the gig started, and carried on drinking throughout the set. After a few fumbles and mumbles, suddenly 'here it comes' - a fantastic fifteen minutes of sheer lucid brilliance ... which was succeeded by an almost incoherent and steadily-more-drunken wander through a few more tunes, before the gig sort of just ran out. I was pretty disappointed - it was the first solo gig of Bert's that I'd managed to catch, and my own small adventures in front of very forgiving folk club audiences during the preceding 2-3 years had taught me not to drink at all before the gig (in order to get up enough courage to play - 'sober and straight or not at all' became my unbreakable rule, or I knew that the performance would go to pieces and I'd be ill later as well); and yet here was the professional-musician guy I'd loved and admired for so long, literally falling off his chair with drink less than halfway through his gig. He more than made up for it a few years later at Whittlebury Folk Club, though - he was touring 'Avocet' with his band at the time, and was consistently and utterly brilliant throughout the evening. He was also completely sober, which may have had something to do with it. The deceptively thrown-away stand-out track of the night, emotionally, was 'Ask Your Daddy' (which I'd never heard before, and which had a similar effect on me as hearing 'I Am Lonely', performed ten years eariler at Bradford Uni during the Pentangle gig, also as a throwaway) - so the band would presumably have been Conundrum as at around 'Thirteen Down' time, with Polly something-or-other on perfectly-supportive vocals. It was a very good gig indeed - and on that occasion, the only problem the organiser had was to find where the band had disappeared to during the intermission. (They were seated around a table in the bar, heavily involved in a card game.)

The folk clubs were, of course, a lot more than just small music venues. They were - and presumably still are - social nexi, where a person on their own (and maybe in a new and strange area) could go along, join in or not but be accepted and included anyway, hear some great music virtually for free, and generally feel like a proper normal human being for a few hours. That, for me, was the true value of such places - that they had two functions, only one of which was musical. An outstanding place of that kind was, and I very much hope still is, The Grove in Leeds, where I hung out for a number of happy years before the long-term ill-effects of smoking home-rolled cigarettes finally caught up with me. After that series of episodes, I couldn't be in any place where there was smoke - of any kind - or dust either, in the air. At one stroke, my entire social life vanished in 1993, and hasn't been revived yet, even though most places are now smoke-free. I can count myself lucky that my tobacco-induced throat condition remains pre-cancerous (so far), and that I had so many good years of innocent entertainment playing the clubs and chasing around after a variety of excellent players. I would just have preferred that it had gone on for a bit longer ... which is why BBC Four and its music content is such a fantastic resource (for me) these days, because it's revived some of what I thought I'd lost forever and has also presented me with a great deal of thought-provking material that I'd never have had the resources (or imagination) to get access to any other way. And in spite of a certain amount of criticism that I've read of the Bert Jansch Tribute Concert, I'd say that everyone who played it did their part correctly - by leaving their egos in the cloakroom and doing their best to honour the memory of one of the most intriguing and genuinely valuable folk musicians of the era. In other words, they all acted like true old-style folkies - even though a lot of them weren't even born when Bert was busy upending things in spots like Les Cousins, playing 'proper' guitar for the rockers who'd dropped in for a music lesson, after their own gig was over.

OK ... I've just seen a couple of men in white coats walking past my window, carrying a gorilla net between them - so it's probably time for me to split. I'll have less to say next time, I expect ... all about stalking various solo players and pub bands with a cassette player and a microphone in hand, on my continuing quest to obtain outstanding but definitely niche-audience music. I had a great time, met some excellent people, and still have the recordings I made (which is certainly the best part). That way, all of those people are still very much alive (for me), even though so many of them have passed on.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 07:45 PM

I have just rewatched the show. The remnants of Pentangle great - hated Donovan - Ralph McTell good. Blokes who sang 900 sorry but not for me Robert Plant no Martin Carthy and girl singer very good indeed rest OKish I liked Wizz Jones and admire his playing ditto Martin SImpson well I like his playing anyway

I have got on the Iplayer the Bert Jansch concert which I will enjoy no doubt

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: breezy
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 03:58 AM

Thanks Phil, I read your CV I was touched, have been for a while.

I was in the Grove 64-7 when at collge in Leeds our paths may have crossed

Portable machines were useful.

I'll be appearing at the Loughton Folk Club on Thursday 15th May and I dont care who knows.

we all owe much to the Folk club scene.

Dont you worry 'bout the men in white coats, let them worry for themselves but worry for the gorilla.

as for martin S , nah I dont get him. Over rated.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 03:34 PM

Yo Breezy -

The men in white coats turned out to be some passing sheep. A quick trip to Specsavers fixed my problem. All I have to do now is somehow to get these gorilla nets off me ...

Fair comment on MS (and Donovan too, for earlier posters), up to a point - but bearing in mind that all music is a form of synchronised noise, and that the urge to 'instant replay' a particular track (or tracks) from any given player is wholly a matter of personal taste and opinion, I'd have to suggest that there isn't any 'good' or 'bad' music at all. What it comes down to IMHO is the reaction of amazement and wonder that results from hearing a specifc offering, and how durable it turns out to be over time - so let's not get too critical when that doesn't happen, eh? That was my own unspoken and instinctive reaction to what I heard on the radio and on records when I was a child, long before it was suggested to me by my late uncle that maybe I should take up the guitar and have a go at it myself. I duly did that, and ended up with a straight-line trajectory from The Shadows to Donovan, to Bert Jansch, to Joni Mitchell, to Isaac Guillory (from whom I learned that 'it doesn't always have to be the same'), to Leo Kottke and beyond.

From the regrettably late Isaac Guillory in particular, I learned to listen with an open mind, and to give everything I heard a fair shake, regardless of circumstances and who was playing. (I attended what was very nearly Ike's last gig at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, towards the end of the year 2000, knowing all too well that he was very nearly gone by then; and I was amazed at how well he held it all together, in spite of the appalling amount of pain he was in by then.)

I also attended what turned out to be one of the very last gigs ever played by Tim Hardin, before he ODed on heroin and brought his act to an unnegotiable end. It took place on a summer's evening in 1980 in a pub down in Putney, just along the embankment from the boat sheds ... I'd gone down on spec. from where I was living at the time, to see what was what - and found to my great pleasure that he was presenting a lot of new material. I realised right away that I definitely wanted to hear it - because it was jolly good stuff, and IMHO was at least as engaging as his earlier 'pop' material. Unfortunately, his audience that evening consisted mainly of people who were a good deal younger and more brash than I, and who were also uniformly uncool, possibly shouldn't have been there at all, and clamoured loudly and annoyingly throughout his set to hear his older creations ('Baltimore' etc, which I also still feel were very good). After a few numbers of this nonsense and insolence going on, and with all these people shouting ignorantly right through his performance, he gave a resigned shrug and a half-smile and obliged them with the older material. Barely three months after that ruined gig, his final accidental and unfortunate encounter with heroin silenced him forever, to the very considerable loss of the folk-musical world. How much effort would it have taken for those people to simply have sat and listened, and maybe in the process have discovered something new and valuable, and encouraged the man sufficiently to keep him off the needle and continue with his voluntary retreat from his killer habit? It's far too late to say now - but not too late to bear in mind the negative effects of unreasonable criticism, and to mindfully withhold it in all of its futile destructiveness under all circumstances.

There you go - more garbled musings from the madman from Shetland ... but who else is going to speak up for those incredible musicians, who all crashed and burned too early through accidenta or unwise lifestyle choices? There are far too many of them already, and no doubt there'll be more of them in the future. The best we can do is to encourage them to keep on playing and creating new material, make them feel to be wanted and valued, and in the process somehow keep them between the ditches.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 08:26 AM

wouldn't it be great if we could all go out and see him play tonight. I wish i'd been to see him more now. wish I made more effort to talk to him. a simple human thing.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 11:57 AM

I spoke with Bert quite a few times. One thing I've never forgotten is his advice to "play it your way".

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 12:15 PM

I duuno - sometimes your own way is crap

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST,Philip Andrews, aka ((:o)x
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 02:41 PM

All good players admit that - Bruce Welsh (of The Shadows) said that same thing on a recent Beeb 4 doucmentary - but he also said that if you keep at it, it'll change and improve. If you know it's crap, you're more than half-way to being able to fix it, surely? Very few players ever hit the ground running - there's always a learning curve. Bert was right.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: cooperman
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 08:31 AM

Agreed - good advice there from Bert and Bruce

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 12:53 PM

Come on Al, we're your friends, you can tell us! LOL.

Martin Simpson agrees with Bert and Bruce. There again, I play Bert's stuff the way he does. Mostly.

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 23 May 14 - 05:22 AM

The Neil Young recording of Needle of Death that I liked so much (and others didn't) has now been released as part of a new NY album recorded entirely in that booth. The Guardian review of the album is here:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/22/neil-young-a-letter-home-review

R

Subject: RE: Bert Jansch - UK TV (BBC4) tonight
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 23 May 14 - 06:32 AM

I've spent the last forty years trying to play like Bert. I never succeeded but, man, what an enjoyable journey.

In the last few years of his life I made a point of going to his gigs, wherever they were. We got to know each other. I once drank champagne with him at St Brides, Edinburgh in the company of Loren, his lovely wife and Tam White. An unforgettable moment.

The last gig of his I saw was at Birkenhead. I was sitting with Loren and remarked how well he was looking. She agreed. I never saw either of them again.

I'm just going to keep on trying to play like him.

Thanks Bert.