Bert Jansch

Singer/guitarist Bert Jansch was one of the most prominent artists of the ’60s folk-rock scene, famed both for his work in the pioneering band Pentangle and for his solo career. Born in Glasgow in 1943 and raised in Edinburgh, he started playing guitar in his teens and fell in love with American folk and blues. He played Scottish and British folk clubs in the early ’60s, developing his knowledge of musical traditions, and in 1963 he moved to London, where he became a fixture on the scene. With a timeless vocal style and a guitar approach that mixed folk, blues and jazz influences, Jansch released his first album in 1965, soon followed by two celebrated LPs with Londom-born guitarist John Renbourn. In 1967 Jansch and Renbourn started Pentangle, who became heroes of folk rock. Pentangle split in 1973, but Jansch had never abandoned his solo career, which continued through the rest of his life. (In the ’80s and ’90s he also played and recorded with a reunited Pentangle.) Jansch passed in 2011 having left his mark on generations of folk and rock artists, not least of which was Led Zeppelin, who notoriously appropriated his arrangement of the folk song “Black Water Side” on their first album without attribution.