Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

Bert Jansch Remembered

21/12/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture

The photo on the album cover showed a painfully thin, unlovely young man holding a guitar. In contrast to all the other albums on display, no attempt had been made to show a pretty picture. “If a man as ugly as that has made a record, his music must be good” I reasoned, and bought it, without hearing a note of his music first. This was pretty reckless of me because it cost 32s 6d, which, as my pocket money was only £3 a term, was nearly half of everything I had.

My teenage instinct turned out to be spot on. Bert Jansch’s first album was one of the best folk/blues records made. I became such as fan that I even persuaded my school to invite him to play at a concert. Heavens knows what the dour Glaswegian made of the posh public school, or of the boy who followed him into the gents and got him to sign his album.

Bert Jansch went on to found Pentangle, a folk band who were too girlie for me. But not long ago he recorded a new solo album, Black Swan, which recalled his glory days. Over the years his looks had changed to the extent that he had become painfully fat and his record company made a sensible move in putting a picture of a black swan on the album cover.
These reflections have been prompted by the news of his death (news which reached me late, as I was abroad when he died in October). I’m dismayed that none of his early recordings are on Youtube, but the video below contains ‘Needle of Death’, from his eponymous album.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2020. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me