posted on 01 Oct 2015

Dazzling Stranger : Bert Jansch and the British folk and blues revival

By Colin Harper

There’s something genuinely affecting about witnessing the passing of the generation of musicians I grew up listening to and who seemed to be a permanent part of my cultural landscape. Bert Jansch the magical guitarist, singer, songwriter and guru of the folk/rock/blues boom of the late 60s and early 70s died a little while ago in 2011 and John Renbourn, his great friend and collaborator in the seminal group, Pentangle, followed him into the Great Beyond in the spring of this year. I was glad to say that I saw both artists perform live several times, both in solo shows and with Pentangle. I have the duo’s first album – the cover is an iconic shot of the two of them in bedsit mode – framed and hanging on the wall of one of my bedrooms and I have an almost photographic recall of buying the 1970 Pentangle album, Cruel Sister, in Birmingham’s Selly Oak when I was 16 and plunging into life in a Bournville further education college. I guess all this qualifies me as a fan.

John Renbourn’s death sent me back to reconsider Colin Harper’s superbly engaging study of Jansch and the circle he helped create and in which he moved – populated by some of the fabulously talented singer/songwriters who redrew the musical landscape of the time. Harper takes us through Jansch’s early years on the scene, sofa surfing and bumming gigs – always studying the guitar techniques of his heroes and learning how to create his very own sound and his own guitar tuning.

As well as the hard drinking and the drugs we get a picture of Jansch as quite a difficult personality when he wanted to be and not always easy even with his friends. Despite this he was clearly hugely loved by those he got close to – Dazzling Stranger is the name of a song written by the great Wizz Jones and the selection of this as the book’s title attests to the contradictions of Jansch  (How can you know me so well/ When you are the dazzling stranger? ).

I found the book quite hard to read without developing a lump in my throat. Not only were Jansch, Renbourn, Danny Thompson, Wizz Jones, Davey Graham fantastic musicians, they were, Harper makes clear, a tight bonded community who lived fast and played hard without forgetting how important the music was. Gratifyingly, after a lengthy flirtation with obscurity, a new generation of musicians have rediscovered this fantastic music and have been keen to acknowledge their debt to Jansch and his contemporaries.

 I loved having a chance to steal a privileged glimpse in a world I could never have been a part of but loved and admired from a distance. I was young when they first entranced me; I’m old now but I’m still entranced.

Terry Potter

October 2015