Bert Jansch,
Live at the 12 Bar
(Earth)
The list of global superstars who acknowledge the influence of Glasgow-born, Edinburgh-raised guitarist and singer Bert Jansch, from before the days of his highest profile as a member of mid-1960s folk-rock supergroup Pentangle, is spectacular, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Jimmy Page among them. In common with many old bluesmen, Jansch had his music ripped off by the juggernaut that was Led Zeppelin, and that song, Blackwaterside, is one of the highlights of this celebrated live set from later in his career. These 16 tracks were recorded for posterity in a London club in 1995, where a reverential audience heard Jansch perform what was basically a top class "greatest hits" solo set with just a few selections from the When The Circus Comes To Town album he was supposed to be promoting at the time. Twenty years on, there is still as little as possible between the listener and the performance, captured by a Digital Audio Tape recorder linked to the club's mixing desk. Jansch must have liked the results, because he had CDs of the "authorised bootleg" pressed to sell at future gigs. He died in 2011 and the rights for the recording have now passed to a label that is messianic about preserving his work. It is even available on vinyl for the first time.
Keith Bruce
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