Reverence For Late Great Bert Jansch Has Reason For Renewal

It’s rather ironic that nearly 50 years after his rise to prominence in the U.K. and his help in founding the iconic British folk ensemble Pentangle, many Americans’ first encounter with Bert Jansch came when Neil Young tapped him to open his 2010 U.S. tour. One of the seminal figures of the British mid ‘60s folk scene, Jansch was both an accomplished guitarist and a revered master of both traditional and contemporary roots idioms.

While this superb box set might not be considered the perfect primer, given the fact that it covers his later recordings — spanning his ‘90s recordings as opposed to his seminal efforts of the mid ‘60s — it is an excellent companion piece to any of his earlier works, displaying a melodic grace and easy accessibility that’s all but impossible to deny. The three albums included herein — The Ornament Tree (1990), When the Circus Comes to Town (1995) and Toy Balloon (1998) — are each quite lovely in their own right, and added to a bonus disc of demos, outtakes and unreleased material, they form an ideal compendium of some of Jansch best work. In listening to tracks like “The Ornament Tree,” “Step Back,” “Honey Don’t You Understand,” “The Banks O’ Sicily,” “Toy Balloon,” “Paper Houses,”“The Blackbirds of Mullamore,” and the like, it’s easy to see why Jansch was so revered and why he remains so even today. The thorough liner notes add insight as part of the book-like packaging, although individual album credits would have also been a real plus.

A singular talent, Jansch cast a wide net and offered inspiration to scores of young guitarists who followed in his wake. This particular series of albums makes it all clear exactly why that remains the case even now. There’s no reason why he should linger in the shadows any longer.