• The Black Swan Restaurant
• Bert Jansch Youtube

Now this really is a switch: Scottish guitar hero and songwriter Bert Jansch (Pentangle) recording for Drag City, with a host of admirers in tow -- Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, Noah Georgeson (who performed and co-produced with Jansch), Helena Espvall, son Adam Jansch, and more. Black Swan is a collection of original and traditional tunes. Jansch turns in a performance that shows his typical restraint, and within it his wonder as a guitarist. His use of the blues, American, Celtic, and British Isles folk forms is also informed by music from Eastern Europe, and he ties them all together seamlessly. 'High Days,' a solo track, uses all three, as he winds out an elegy for a friend. 'When the Sun Comes Up' begins with Orton's vocal and David Roback's slide guitar and Otto Hauser's drums, shuffling underneath. Jansch spills it modal and bluesy, Orton grabs onto his changes and effortlessly lets her voice wrap around his lyric lines. Her signing on the traditional number 'Katie Cruel' has been brilliantly rearranged by Jansch. Banhart sings in a muted duet with Orton, but his vocal was unnecessary. It's a spooky track that's been prepared for by the preceding cuts. The slippery Piedmont blues style Jansch tucks into his British folk on 'My Pocket's Empty' is evocative of an earlier, simpler time, though as revealed by the tune, times were hard then, too. Jansch's singing is at its most expressive here; he's moaning in his reedy baritone. Orton makes one more appearance here on the gorgeous and-all-too-brief arrangement of the blues tune 'Watch the Stars.' Hers and Jansch's vocals take the tine out of the song's Southern American birthplace and brings it into the world, one grainy line at a time. It's a singalong blues that reveals the sheer expanse of the universe in the grain of their voices. Ultimately, this disc is not so different from Jansch's others, but it is wonderfully spirited and loose. It feels live, and backroomish. It's as informal a date as one can find among superstars -- and make no mistake, you may or may not know his name, but his large catalog proves it -- Jansch is one. As for the rest, the hardscrabble dirty, slide guitar-drenched English folk of 'A Woman Like You' rings as true as a Texas blues love song by Lightnin' Hopkins. Traditional public domain nuggets such as 'The Old Triangle' are almost radically reworked and ring spookily true for the current era. The blues-rock of the humorously political 'Texas Cowboy Blues,' complete with keyboards and popping acoustic 12-strings, shimmies and even shakes in places. The last few cuts, a gorgeous instrumental called 'Magdalina's Dance,' and 'Hey Pretty Girl' (performed solo), are drenched in historical tropes, but are thoroughly modern and soulful. The bottom line is this: for the past ten years Jansch has been undergoing a creative renaissance akin to Bob Dylan's and people are slowly but surely finding what he has on offer. Black Swan proves that the guitarist and songwriter has a bounty at his disposal. He is writing and recording music that is profound, funny, topical, worldly, and ultimately, necessary.

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1. Studio Album (9) - Compilation (1) - Live (1) Scottish Traditional Music; British Folk-Rock.
2. Bert Jansch; The Black Swan. It's the wellspring here, too: Helena Espvall's cello lines on opener 'The Black Swan' dress Jansch's guitar and voice in winter gloves, warming the.

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BMG [Release date 26.10.18]

The exquisitely talented Bert Jansch, the former Pentangle guitarist who died in 2011, has been inspiring musicians for decades – from Jimmy Page and Paul Simon to Johnny Marr and Graham Coxon. Indeed, it was another admirer, Suede’s Bernard Butler working with Jansch’s estate, who compiled this double double disc set. The ‘best of’ collection spans Jansch’s entire solo career.

The Black Swan Restaurant

Writing in the sleeve-notes, Butler makes a telling point: “Bert lived and breathed the sound of the guitar and its endless possibilities for communication, storytelling, conversation, emotional dialogue.”

This certainly comes out in the compilation. However talented and dexterous a guitarist Jansch was, his gift was always deployed in the pursuit of the songs and the stories and the emotional connection with his audience, never merely technique for the sake of technique.

Given Jansch’s considerable back catalogue of twenty-three studio albums, beginning with his first self-titled album in 1965 through to his final solo album The Black Swan from 2006, there is a huge amount of material to choose from – and this is just his solo career – the compilation doesn’t touch his Pentangle output or other collaborations. Butler has chosen well, however. Well-known classics like ‘Angie’ and ‘Needle Of Death’ rub alongside lesser known tracks like ‘Sweet Rose’ from the 1985 album From The Outside. Presented chronologically across thirty-nine tracks, each of the eras are well represented and it’s a thoughtful and thorough retrospective which beautifully showcases Jansch’s mastery of the acoustic guitar, his song-writing skills and his innovative interpretations of traditional material.

Just A Simple Soul works both for those looking for an introduction to Jansch’s back catalogue and for committed fans looking for a lovingly-compiled career overview. As Bernard Butler puts it: “We have a life’s work here, and what a life Bert Jansch has given us.” ****

Review by Darren Johnson

On Sunday 28 July 2019, David Randall celebrated his 600th show. “Assume The Position” started in June 2007 on UK City Radio before transferring a year later to Get Ready to ROCK! Radio. The show includes tracks played on the first show plus Upton Blues Festival highlights, new music and the regular features “Live Legends” and “Anniversary Rock” which this week celebrates the Island Records label 60th anniversary.

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Power Plays w/c 19 August (Mon-Fri)

BEFORE FIRE Dead Eyes (indie)
SCOTT & MARIA Never Give Up (indie)
CORELEONI Queen Of Hearts (AFM Records)
BERLIN Transcendance (Cleopatra Records)
PHIL CAMPBELL These Old Boots (Nuclear Blast)
PHIL LANZON Blue Mountain (Phil Lanzon Ditties/Cargo Records UK)

Featured Albums w/c 19 August (Mon-Fri)

09:00-12:00 SOLEIL MOON Warrior (Frontiers)
12:00-13:00 ROXY BLUE Roxy Blue (Frontiers)
14:00-16:00 DREW HOLCOMB & THE NEIGHBORS Dragons (Magnolia Music/Thirty Tigers)

Albums That Time Forgot (Mon-Fri)

JAMES STEVENSON Everything’s Getting Closer To Being Over (2013)

Bert Jansch Youtube

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