I was watching The Squid & the Whale today and it got me thinking about him.

The Black Swan is pretty beautiful, at least what I've heard of it.

NOT CRAP

As much as I liked Zep's Black Mountainside, Bert's version goes one better. And he did it first.

Not crap, there isn't a huge amount of folk I can listen to without being in the mood for it, but I can always dig Bert

Oh man, just the greatest records.

Incidentally, my girlfriend got me Jack Orion for Christmas, she said it was under a "Jack Onion" section section in HMV. She didn't bring the seperation card to prove it though.

Really good on his own, and really good in the Pentagle.

Huge influence on Jimmy Page and many other British heavyweights, and in the Shakey book Neil Young calls him "the acoustic Hendrix."

N/C

He played here in NYC recently, and I was unable to go.

Kicking myself.

I once accidentally killed a silverfish with a 180 gram vinyl reissue of Jansch's first album. The silverfish was playing around in the plastic sleeve that accompanied the record and it got flattened when i put the lp back into its place. Didn't notice what happened until a little while later though. Imagine my horror when I discovered all these nasty ass bug legs stuck to an otherwise great record.

Anyway, Bert Jansch... Great great voice, good lyrics, and some mighty fine guitar playing. Bert Jansch is consistently not crap. There's a pretty good two disc anthology, Dazzling Stranger, which i recommend to those in search of a primer. It's quite well mastered. Some kid stole the second disc from me while I was on a bus to Milwaukee. The anthology is chronological and spans most of Jansch's career. No lulls really. The whole thing is good.

Needle of Death. I fucking love that song.

"Come sing me a happy song to prove we all can get along the lumpy, bumpy, long and dusty road"

Definitely...
NOT CRAP

Bert FUCKING Jansch is playing at AS220 in June.

This is insane! (I am quite fond of this man's music.)

I think Jansch has aged really well as an artist.