Welcome to my Talking Guitar podcast with legendary fingerstyle guitarist Bert Jansch. His fan Neil Young has called Bert “the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar.” Jimmy Page has echoed Neil’s sentiment, claiming, “As much as Hendrix has done on the electric, Bert’s done on the acoustic.”
In the United Kingdom during the early to mid 1960s, there was a great flowering of folk music and country blues played on acoustic guitar. This was partly due to the 1950s skiffle trend that found British youths approximating American blues and folk music, and partly due to the visits and recordings of American blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Brownie McGhee. The three leading figures of Britain’s acoustic guitar renaissance were Davy Graham and John Renbourn, both born in England, and Bert Jansch, who was Scottish. All three recorded influential solo albums, and Jansch and Renbourn played together in the internationally popular band Pentangle.
The day before I interviewed Bert, I called John Renbourn to ask his opinion of Bert’s playing. The intro to this podcast includes a snippet of what John had to say. John cautioned me that Bert was extremely introverted and not to read his tendency to be quiet and soft-spoken as a sign that he wasn’t interested in speaking to me. My interview with Bert took place on February 1, 1994. He’d just finished making the BBC documentary Acoustic Routes, which brought him the opportunity to play with his musical hero Brownie McGhee. I began by asking Bert his reaction to Jimmy Page and Neil Young comparing him to Jimi Hendrix.
Here’s a sample for free subscribers and visitors: Bert Jansch Describes His Right-Hand Technique
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