Swallow Hill regrets to inform you that the Bert Jansch performance scheduled for Sunday, June 28 has been postponed indefintely. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Bert Jansch, legendary songwriter and guitarist, is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential musicians of all time. Since the mid-1960s, generation after generation has been held spellbound by his extraordinary ground-breaking guitar playing and classic emotive songs. Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and Beth Orton have all been devotees, and now yet another new generation of musicians and fans, led by Devendra Banhart, are discovering Jansch for themselves.
Jimmy Page says, "At one point, I was absolutely obsessed with Bert Jansch. When I first heard that LP [1965], I couldn't believe it. It was so far ahead of what everyone else was doing. No one in America could touch that."
Jansch began performing his unique synthesis of folk, blues and jazz on the folk club scene of the early 1960s, having hitch-hiked to London from his hometown of Edinburgh. His first self-titled album (played on a borrowed guitar and recorded on a reel-to-reel tape deck) was legendarily sold to the Transatlantic label for £100. On its release in April 1965, Jansch caused a sensation for its innovative guitar technique and powerful songs, and it has been phenomenally influential to this day, cited by legions of guitar players (famous and otherwise) as a major inspiration.
Its follow up, It Don't Bother Me, found Jansch exploring innovative treatments of the traditional folk ballad form—something he took further with Pentangle, the unique acoustic super group he formed with John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Terry Cox and Danny Thompson. Pentangle made six albums and enjoyed an unprecedented degree of success for an acoustic band, touring all over the world, including several appearances at Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Fillmores East and West.
After Pentangle split in 1973, Jansch returned to a prolific solo career. He has been the subject of a biography, a film documentary, a double CD tribute album called People on the Highway: A Bert Jansch Encomium, and was awarded a BBC Radio 2 Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2001. In November 2003, he celebrated his 60th birthday with a BBC TV special and a triumphant sell-out birthday concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.
In 2006 Bert worked with some of the latest musicians to emerge on the scene on his highly acclaimed new album, The Black Swan, including producer Noah Georgeson and musicians and vocalists Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, Otto Hauser, Helena Espvall, and Kevin Barker. That same year he received the MOJO Merit Award from MOJO magazine at their Honours List ceremony. The award is “based around an expanded career that still continues to be inspirational” and was presented by Beth Orton and Roy Harper. In 2007, Pentangle received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and Jansch received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Napier University in Edinburgh.
In a live setting, his performances are still a rare opportunity to see one of the British music scene's true legends play. His understated, low key approach eschews hollow show business routines, and the audience is treated to a guitar playing master class and an impressive catalogue of some of the most haunting songs in the British canon.
Sparse performer, slyly intelligent country-folk artist Nels Andrews will open the show.
