BERT JANSCH

4.0. Spoiler alert: no prog here, even if a little presence of Mingusian jazz is felt on 'Alice's Wonderland'.

I really like the album. It doesn't feel like a 3.5-star kind of stuff. There are plenty of strong numbers and a couple of truly outstanding tracks. All of the creations here are very short and accessible, so you shouldn't be having any problems digging this album. One more thing here: don't even bother about prog aspects except for virtuosity and instrumental "song"- writing. This is a folk album.

Of all the tracks on here my most favorite ones are the ones that are short, like 'Finches'. If you enjoy Steve Hackett's acoustic guitar noodling but haven't ever heard Bert, this should be your first purchase or download. The bottom line is that these tracks are a must-hear box of chocolates.

"What about the other tracks on the record?" Those are good too. We hear Bert displaying flashes of virtuosity for a good cause, i.e. those flashes add to the beauty, so they are functional. Of all the songs on the record my favorites are 'Strolling Down the Highway' and 'Rambling's Gonna Be the Death of Me', but the rest has a good value too.

1. 'Strolling Down the Highway' - ****

2. 'Smokey River' - ****

3. 'Oh How Your Love is Strong' - ***

4. 'I Have No Time' - ***

5. 'Finches' - ****

6. 'Rambling's Gonna Be the Death of Me' - ****

7. 'Veronica' - *****

8. 'Needle of Death' - ****

9. 'Do You Hear Me Now' - ***

10. 'Alice's Wonderland' - *****

11. 'Running, Running from Home' - ****

12. 'Courting Blues' - ***

13. 'Casbah' - ***

14. 'Dreams of Love' - ***

15. 'Angi' - **

Stamp: "I like it."

Beyond the hype, music, sweet music.

It's easy to place Bert Jansch's and his Pentangle partner John Renbourn's early solo albums as a type of addendum to their Pentangle canon. A type of unofficial 'immersion' material, if you will, as many of the 'folk baroque' trademarks that the duo pioneered presage the trademark Pentangle sound as well as posting a crossover of solo songs onto later Pentangle albums where fans can track their development.

However, Jansch's first solo album, while being hailed as a British folk rock icon, goes well beyond that. To put it simply, beyond it's ground breaking fill of self penned songs and dexterous guitar instrumentals, the music and voice of the man soars to a height that Jansch rarely bettered in his entire recorded lifetime. That's mainly because Jansch was so well versed in this material, probably for years, before they were immortalized in black vinyl. When the album starts with the bucolic 'Strolling Down The Highway' not only is this beautiful song sung pitch perfect, but every slight and secondary guitar note was meticulously thought out and accompanies the song's dominant chords and melodies in a way that makes the music always sound so much more than just a man recorded with a single acoustic guitar. Jansch's oft celebrated song for a passed friend 'Needle of Death' with it's heart tugging lyric seems to have all the sweep and grandeur of an orchestra that simply isn't there. But Jansch makes you think it, feel it and believe it. And this, along with his definitive ligatos, pull offs, slurs, string pulls and all other tricks that are hard to define by his slight of playing hand , as on the Davy Graham instrumental standard 'Angi', not only made Jansch a musician's musician, it put him into a category of British folk artist that was heretofore unknown.

But again, aside form the accolades of Jansch's solo debut, it's the music that delivers more than 50 years since it was first recorded. And with that, it really deserves more accolades than just being an addendum to a folk rock super group. 4.5 stars rounded up 5.

Another month yet another Scottish folkie dating back to the 1960s to pour over, courtesy of my reviewing muse. To overuse a cliche that I am at least aware I am using, this fellow is truly a guitarist's guitarist. Unfortunately, that's also shorthand for "I am not a guitarist", and, while I am not oblivious to technical virtuosity on the acoustic platform, it's just not enough for me, and quite a number of the tracks are instrumental. The best of these by far is DAVEY GRAHAM's classic "Angie", which doesn't say much for JANSCH's own writing at this stage. Luckily quite a few tracks have vocals. Well, actually not that luckily. While his singing is not without its Scottish charm, his voice isn't very expressive, and so twangy that I briefly thought he hailed from Glasgow, Alabama.

In 1965, not many were doing this, so JANSCH's influence cannot be minimized, but it's hard to get excited about it today on listens 1 to 5, just so much water under the bridge since those early days. Again, at the risk of prosaism, I was painfully young in 1965 and I never heard this, and, while certain previously unheard works of that era do well up the nostalgia within me, this just doesn't. Nonetheless, with GORDON LIGHTFOOT singing, "I Have No time", "Needle of Death", "Running from Home", and "Dreams of Love" would all be 5 star glorious, so they are still nasally worthwhile as underperformed by JANSCH.

Only one way to go with this one. 3 tentatively solid stars, and onward.