Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival [Paperback]

Colin Harper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2001

The guitarists' guitarist and the songwriters' songwriter, Bert Jansch has been admired by stars as diverse as Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Marr, Bob Dylan and Jarvis Cocker. Others who have recorded his songs, befriended him or acknowledged his influence include: Paul Simon, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Marianne Faithfull, Donovan, Pete Townshend, Bernard Butler, Neil Young, Jimmy Page, and Morrissey. Born in Edinburgh in 1943, Jansch became celebrated in the innovative Glasgow/Edinburgh folk and blues community in the late 50s and early 60s. He moved to London in 1965 and became a central figure in Soho's folk music world. In 1967 he formed Pentangle with John Renbourn and enjoyed international success until 1973, when he turned solo. More recently he has enjoyed a career renaissance, triggered by his 1995 album, When the Circus Comes to Town.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'An excellent biography of one of folk's cult figures ... Harper's narrative is first-rate at putting the man and his influence in perspective. It is especially evocative when describing the folk underground which burgeoned in the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s' Independent on Sunday 'A work of considerable importance ... intuitive and informed' Q Magazine 'The legendary musical outsider described as "a dextrous guitar player, footloose and fancy-free" shines like a rare, uncut diamond in this biography, which captures his rise as a musician in the British folk and blues scene of the 1960s, from the coffee houses of Soho to friendship with The Who's Pete Townshend ... Past glories make Dazzling Stranger a feast for anyone interested in Jansch or the 1960s' Scotsman 'This is a book that needed to be written, and for folk, blues, and beyond enthusiasts, one that's required reading' Glasgow Herald --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Colin Harper was born in Belfast where he still lives and has been a music journalist since 1994. He writes regularly for Mojo, Q, Independent, The Irish Times and Irish News. He contributed to the BBC2 documentary Bert Jansch, Acoustic Routes, and is on the panel of the Belfast Arts Awards.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Ltd (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747553300
• ISBN-13: 978-0747553304
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,103,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential book on the dazzling Bert Jansch, October 8, 2003

By 

Penguin Egg (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival (Paperback)

If you are into the British folk and blues scene of the early 60s, then this is the book for you. It vividly describes the burgeoning Edinburgh folk scene of the Scottish revival where Jansch developed his unique guitar style, drawing heavily upon such blues stylists as Big Bill Broonzy and Brownie McGee. London had its own burgeoning folk scene, dominated by larger than life personalities like Ewan McColl, A.L.Loyd, Dominic Behan, and Davy Graham, who was furrowing a similar furrow to Jansch. Jansch drifted down to London where he met the English folk singer, Annie Briggs. They struck up a close relationship. He learnt a large part of his repertoire from her, to which he would apply his own blues oriented stylistic approach. This would bloom with his third album, "Jack Orion", where he approached traditional English folk songs as if he were a blues artist. For instance, "The Gardener" is sung in a wordless vocal similar to Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was The Night-Cold Was The Ground," while on the title track, he extends phrases and repeats them over and over again for a hypnotic and spellbinding 9 minutes. There had been nothing like this in folk music before. With this album, he extended and fully realised the folk-boroque style, which drew upon folk, blues, and jazz, and which was pioneered by Davy Graham.

Jansch was not only a unique and masterly guitarist and singer, but an excellent songwriter. Steering clear of politics, to the disgust of McColl, he honed in on the personal. He celebrated personal independence with "Strolling Down The Highway" and "Rambling's Going To Be The Death Of Me." He wrote incredibly moving love songs such as "A Dream, A Dream, A Dream" and "Oh How Your Love Is Strong." His anti-drug song, "Needle of Death", was greatly admired by Neil Young, and was to influence Young's own collection of anti-drug songs, "Tonight's the Night."

Jansch met up with John Renbourne and found someone who was not only on the same musical wavelength but who could match him for ability. They recorded "Bert & John" together, a beautiful album of guitar duets, and then they went on to form Pentangle, which had Bert and John on guitars, backed by a jazz rhythm section, and fronted by a traditional English folk singer. It was here that they hit the big time, touring the world and raking in the money.

Jansch is a private man, permanently scruffy and reserved, seemingly unconcerned with the trappings of stardom. However, Colin Harper has successfully brought this man to life, describing Jansch's weakness for alcohol, his failed marriages, and his various friendships, the most important of which seem to be Annie Briggs and John Renbourne. The best part of the book is the first half where he describes Jansch's developing talent and the music scene in which he developed it. The latter part of the book is not so interesting because Jansch is himself less interesting, no longer pioneering, and living off his past reputation.

If you love Jansch then you will want to read this book. If you love the British folk and blues revival, then you will also want to read it, because the period and the characters that dominated it are brought vividly to life. Colin Harper deserves credit for that.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bert's Boswell Comes Through, December 20, 2000

By 

David Evpak (Sacramento, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival (Hardcover)

Anyone with an interest in Scottish born guitarist Bert Jansch will know that author Colin Harper has been collecting material for this biography for some years now. Colin has collected interviews with friends, fans and family and those involved in the "business affairs" of Bert's past and present and has wove them into an in -depth, objective volume on the respected and, to many, awe -inspiring musician. Covering Bert's introduction to folk song and blues as a young man in Glasgow, to the 60s London scene, through difficult "health problems" during the 80s and the Bert "renaissance" of the 90s, Colin treats his subject with objective respect and just a touch of the fan enthusiasm one would hope for to make this a wonderful read. Well done Colin!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good encyclopedia, average book, great Jansch storie, January 31, 2009

By 

B. Schuman (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival (Paperback)

Colin Harper is a judgemental librarian and he writes like one. That makes this book very informative but that made it difficult for this reader to read it all the way through. I read it after reading Joe Boyd's White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, which is less informative but much better to read. Boyd's book is a fast-paced and clearly subjective account of one man's experience as a music businessman.
Harper's book aims to be as comprehensive and "objective" as a history textbook, which means that it values information more than style. Harper writes in a passive, dry manner that, fortunately, fails to dull its colorful characters.
Its interruptions of Bert's life story to provide historical accounts of different folk clubs is sometimes annoying, but I can't really criticize it because, on another hand, if I do want to know about Les Cousins, all I need to do is look it up in the index. It does not make a good novel, but it does make a good encyclopedia, and, when I decided to treat it that way, I really got to like it.
So, it's dry, encyclopedic quality is ultimately not a fault, but it is something that a reader should be prepared for.
There is, however, one true problem with the book, and that is its criminal downplaying of the originality and influence of the late Davy Graham. A reader who is only slightly familiar with Graham would walk away from this book with the impression that he was merely a spark that appeared before Jansch started a revolution, when the truth - as Jansch himself has said in interviews - is that Graham was an enormous influence on his playing and on all music that followed. Harper plays up Jansch's "originality," when the fact is, what is most remarkable about Jansch is not that he sounds like no one else but that he manages to sound so distinct while still sounding so much like Graham. Harper and many of his interviewees don't seem to get it, and, though he goes to great lengths to document the history of the entire folk scene, Harper, like a film critic obsessed by the idea of directors as "auteurs," sometimes seems too fixated on the idea that Jansch was the godlike epicenter of the picture, and relegates Davy Graham to the sidelines.
But, for all its faults, the book is invaluable for its accounts of Jansch himself. For anyone who has heard, seen, or met the man, the book is still a must-read for its accounts of his childhood in an Edinburgh tenement, his couch-surfing teen years, his mysterious way of learning to play the guitar, his antics in California and around the world in the '70s, and the way women were always drawn to his Celt-fro haircut and his awkward personality. To his credit, Harper never tries too hard to explain Jansch's psychology and lets the man's actions speak for themselves. "Dazzling Stranger" lets you know what Jansch would be like to hang out with while keeping him at enough of a distance to remain mysterious.
Until that Danny Thompson autobiography comes out, this one will have to do as the definitive book on the British folk and blues revival.