Customer Reviews

Nicola

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3 star:		(1)
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Don't beleive the other review. This is a great album. I have 5 or 6 Bert Jansch albums and this is one of my favorite. It's really unique. It opens with the stunning "Go Your Way My Love", which is also done jaw-droppingly good by Annie Briggs who you will LOVE if you like Jansch. She's like a female version! Both artists are credited for the song - seems to have some relation to Pentangle years. And Bert's working here is no slouch attempt. It's excellent. I found myself very much enjoying his take on a favorite song I'd only known previously from Briggs.

No, this is a great album and one reason I love it is that it IS so diverse. He really changes it up with a few 60s vibe swinging numbers with a band, and trademark solo guitar-picking which vascilate between country blues and British folk. The poppy numbers are quirky and light - and usually short - I find them a weird but welcome addition in between solo picking tunes. He has to be "consistent"? I think not. The two bonus tracks (1972) are the only weak point in the album, you can hear him fooling around with his singing style - a little Dylan or Zeppelin influence creep in and you can see perhaps why they weren't included originally - no problem - curio value noted. But the album shouldn't be faulted for this. Overall, his expirimenting a bit outside the perimeters yields up a kind of light-hearted feeling - which only compliments and lends weight to the trademark folk poetry and soul that is also here in abundance. It's Bert Jansch from a vintage year, "summer of love" 1967 - how bad can it be? Recommended.

Also recommended if you can find it for a reasonable price:

Ralph McTell * 8 Frames A Second

Anne Briggs * The Time Has Come

Gerry Rafferty * Can I Have My Money Back (includes second album "The New Humblebums")

Roy Harper * Stormcock, Valentine

Dave Van Ronk * Inside Dave Van Ronk

Nick Drake * Pink Moon (jewel in the crown), but Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter are also great though I prefer the former; also worth checking out is the posthumous "Family Tree" which was actually recorded before any of his other albums, focusing on a lot of early folk blues covers.

Bert Jansch's 1967 album "Nicola" represents an attempt to create a more commercial sound on some, but not all of the tracks. The problem is that with Jansch you are talking one of the great acoustic guitar players in the history of the world, so when he stops playing the guitar and just sings with an orchestra accompaniment it is just plain wrong. Yes, Eric Clapton has turned into a pretty decent singer, but the same cannot be said for Jansch, although I must confess that "Go Your Way My Love" is one of the first tracks where I have enjoyed Jansch's singing. He was never Donovan, but at least on this one he is heading in that direction. But then there are flutes and strings playing in "Woe Is Love My Dear" and it is just too weird, especially since that was obviously the track they intended to be the hit single in violation of all of our expectations for his music.

Even though there are some of the most atypical tracks in the Jansch oeuvre on this album, such as the outright pop song "Live Depends on Love," there are some songs that play to Jansch's strengths. The title track is a guitar and flute duet, with a nice Renaissance touch. "Come Back Baby" is Jansch playing and singing the blues, as is "Weeping Willow Blues." But then "A Little Sweet Sunshine" has an electric guitar on it (as the jaws of listeners drop on cue) and proves that this album might be the most diverse mix of musical stylings he ever recorded. The lesson here is what it has always been when listening to Jansch. Just give me the man playing his guitar like he does on "Box of Love."

Of the dozen cuts on Jansch's third solo album he wrote nine of them, which means on most of these tracks you get to hear him play the guitar and mix together the blues with traditional British Isle folk music. "Nicola" would not be high on the list of Bert Jansch albums to recommend to people, and since it was combined with his 1969 album "Birthday Blues" on one CD I have to say that is the way to go with this one, because it is really too odd to pick up by itself. I would rate it at 3-and-a-half stars and round down simply to indicate its position relative to the rest of his early work, although that first track is one of his best.