PLEDGE WEEK: “Light Flight” by Pentangle

Summary

A Comprehensive Summary of "PLEDGE WEEK: 'Light Flight' by Pentangle" from Andrew Hickey's A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs

Introduction

In the PLEDGE WEEK: “Light Flight” by Pentangle episode of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, host Andrew Hickey delves into the intricate history of Pentangle, a seminal British folk-rock band, through the lens of their influential song "Light Flight." Released on July 26, 2025, this episode serves as a deep exploration of the band's formation, rise to fame, internal struggles, and enduring legacy in the rock and folk music landscapes.

Bert Jansch: The Guitar Virtuoso and Influential Figure
Timestamp: [00:00 - 04:26]

Andrew Hickey begins by spotlighting Bert Jansch, the central figure in Pentangle, whose profound influence on both folk and rock musicians cannot be overstated. Jansch, born in 1943 in Edinburgh, Scotland, emerged as a pivotal guitarist whose innovative techniques inspired legends like Johnny Marr, Jimmy Page, and Neil Young. Hickey shares notable testimonials:

• Johnny Marr: "Bert gave me new goals as a guitar player."
• Jimmy Page: "Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar."
• Neil Young: "As much of a great guitar player as Jimmy was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar."

Jansch's early fascination with Elvis Presley and the blues laid the foundation for his unique style, blending traditional folk with blues and incorporating advanced guitar techniques influenced by artists like Big Bill Broomsey and Davy Graham.

Early Musical Development and Influences
Timestamp: [04:26 - 11:24]

Jansch's journey into music was marked by his immersion in the folk clubs of Edinburgh, particularly the Howff, where he absorbed diverse musical styles and honed his guitar skills under the tutelage of local instructors like Jill Doyle and Archie Fisher. Despite facing challenges such as the theft of his first guitar, Jansch's dedication led him to emulate and eventually innovate beyond his influences. His collaboration with Fisher introduced him to clawhammer picking, a technique borrowed from bluegrass traditions via Ralph Rinzler.

A pivotal moment in Jansch's early career was his rendition of "Key to the Highway," a song that showcased his technical prowess and innovative approach. This experience not only solidified his skills but also paved the way for his future contributions to the British Folk Baroque movement.

Formation and Rise of Pentangle
Timestamp: [11:24 - 32:17]

Pentangle's formation was a confluence of talented musicians and shared artistic visions. Jansch, along with John Remborn, Jackie McShee, Danny Thompson, and Terry Cox, brought together a fusion of traditional folk, blues, and modern jazz. The band's name, inspired by the pentangle symbol from the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, embodied their commitment to truth, honesty, and the multifaceted nature of their musical talents.

Les Cousins, a pivotal folk club in London, served as the breeding ground for Pentangle's burgeoning reputation. As Hickey notes, "Pentangle became a magnet for anyone interested in the guitar, particularly from across the UK," highlighting the club's role in fostering a community of like-minded musicians and enthusiasts.

Peak Success and Influential Albums
Timestamp: [32:17 - 46:44]

Pentangle's discography is renowned for its groundbreaking fusion of genres and innovative guitar work. Albums like Sweet Child and Basket of Light exemplify the band's ability to blend traditional folk melodies with jazz improvisations and blues rhythms. "Basket of Light," in particular, stands out as their most consistent and eclectic album, seamlessly integrating diverse influences into a cohesive musical tapestry.

One of the standout tracks, "Light Flight," became synonymous with the band's mainstream success when it was featured as the theme for the popular TV show Take Three Girls, propelling the single to number 43 on the singles chart and the album to number five. This exposure transformed Pentangle from a niche folk ensemble into widely recognized pop stars, as Hickey describes: "Pentangle as a group stretched the boundaries of what was possible for an acoustic folk group and opened up the way for later artists."

Internal Struggles and Decline
Timestamp: [46:44 - 49:36]

Despite their artistic achievements, Pentangle grappled with internal conflicts, primarily stemming from Bert Jansch's escalating alcoholism. Hickey recounts how Jansch's substance abuse began to undermine the band's cohesion and professionalism: "Jansch was starting to feel stifled by the group, setting and putting his best songs aside for his solo records," leading to inconsistent performances and strained relationships within the band.

The transition to Reprise Records marked another turning point, where financial mismanagement and lackluster support from the label culminated in the underperformance of their album Solomon's Seal. This period of instability, coupled with declining live performances, ultimately led to Pentangle's dissolution in the early 1970s.

Legacy and Continued Influence
Timestamp: [49:36 - 55:35]

Pentangle's influence extends far beyond their active years, leaving an indelible mark on subsequent generations of musicians. Andrew Hickey emphasizes their foundational role in shaping the British folk revival and influencing a spectrum of artists from Nick Drake to Led Zeppelin and the Smiths. Pentangle's pioneering guitar techniques and genre-blending compositions opened doors for contemporary artists like Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom.

Post-Pentangle, the band members pursued diverse musical paths:

• Bert Jansch: Continued his illustrious solo career, producing acclaimed albums like La Turnaround and collaborating with emerging artists such as Beth Orton and Johnny Marr.
• Danny Thompson: Became one of Britain's most sought-after session musicians, contributing to a vast array of projects across multiple genres.
• Jackie McShee and Terry Cox: Continued to perform and collaborate within and outside the band context, with McShee maintaining a presence through various Pentangle iterations.

Pentangle's brief but impactful career is celebrated for its artistic innovation and lasting contributions to music, ensuring their place in the annals of rock and folk history.

Conclusion

Andrew Hickey's episode on Pentangle's "Light Flight" offers a rich and engaging narrative that not only chronicles the band's rise and fall but also underscores their profound influence on the broader music scene. Through insightful anecdotes, personal testimonies, and detailed analysis, the episode paints a comprehensive picture of Pentangle's legacy, making it an invaluable resource for both longtime fans and newcomers seeking to understand the intricate tapestry of rock music history.

Notable Quotes

• Bert Jansch on "Key to the Highway"
  [04:26]
  "I got the key to the highway Build out I'm bound to go..."

• Jimmy Page on Bert Jansch
  [04:26]
  "As much of a great guitar player as Jimmy was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar."

• Donovan on Pentangle Performances
  [09:22]
  "Nobody would teach how to play the guitar in my group. But when I went to Bert, I saw things that I wanted to learn."

• Bert Jansch on "Needle of Death"
  [12:23]
  "Needle of Death when sadness fills your heart and sorrow hides the longing to be when things go wrong each day you fix your mind to escape your misery."

• Bert Jansch on "Black Waterside"
  [25:17]
  "One Morning Fair, I Took the Air Down a bit like Waterside."

• Bert Jansch on "Light Flight"
  [32:17]
  "Mary open the door, open the door Cause it's cold sitting on the shed I won't tell you no Open the door, please open the door what you think you're doing?"

• Bert Jansch on "Solomon's Seal"
  [49:09]
  "There's people on the highway, people in the towns you just can't get away I'm not going to the mountains, going by the sea, you won't see me."

These quotes encapsulate key moments and themes from the episode, highlighting Jansch's lyrical prowess and the band's emotional and artistic depth.

Transcript

[Andrew Hickey]

This episode is part of pledge week 2025 for five days this week I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com andrewhickey whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy Just a quick note before I begin this one I have several times in earlier podcasts referred to Bert Janch, but pronounced his name as if it had a Y Yanch, which is how most people pronounce it and how I'd always heard it. In researching this episode, though, I've discovered that he pronounced it with a J Jansch and so that's how I'll try to do it here and in any future episodes where he comes up, though I might easily slip up because I've been talking about him off and on for 30 years or so. Also note that this episode contains some references to alcoholism and a song about drug addiction. Finally, I like to acknowledge when episodes rely heavily on one particular source. In this case, much of the information comes from Colin Harper's biography of Bert Janch, Dazzling Stranger Burt Janch is the person who gets talked about most when talking about Pentangle, because he is the member of the group whose influence on other musicians, especially in the rock sphere, is most profound. Johnny Marr said, Bert gave me new goals as a guitar player. Jimmy Page said at one point, I was absolutely obsessed by Burt Janch. His first album had a great effect on me. It was so far ahead of what anyone else was doing. That was what got me into playing acoustic. I watched him playing once at a folk club and it was like singing a classical guitarist. All the inversions he was playing were unrecognisable. He was the innovator of the time, Neil Young said of him. As much of a great guitar player as Jimmy was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar. Jansch was born in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, and like most people of his generation, he was infatuated as a kid with Elvis Presley, and it was through Elvis that Jansch felt his initial connection to the blues, saying later of him, he was folk as well. All his early songs were from the old blues singers. I rejected Bill Haley and stuck to Elvis. Then I left school and started going to folk clubs, and it was there that I slowly became aware that there was a lot more music than was being pumped out on the radio. Young Burt was not, though a Big buyer of records, he grew up poor and never got into the habit of buying them. But the first record he bought with his own money was more or less on a whim, an EP by Big Bill Broomsey. I've never seen anything saying which EP it was, but around that time a number of Brunesy eps released in the UK contained the track Big Bill's Guitar Blues, so there's a fair chance that it featured this track. Janch bought that record when he was 16 or 17, more or less, just because he liked Brunzy's name. And it was that more than anything else that led him soon to buy his own first guitar. He wanted to play like Big Bill Brunsey, who he later described as one of the only three people he ever tried to copy before finding his own style. Jantz soon started to frequent a folk club called the Howff. And while he never got to see Big Bill Brunsey, who last toured Britain a year or so before Jantch discovered his music, he did get to see Sonny Terry and Vanya McGee There, among many other great performers, McGee and Terry were touring with Chris Barber and playing a few shows themselves, recommended to Barber by Brunesie. Once Brunesie grew too ill to travel, according to stories Jansha's friends told of him, he sat in front of Magee and watched him play Key to the highway, the old blues song that Brunese had popularised and which McGee and Terry had recently recorded with Joe Meek.

[Bert Jansch]

I got the key to the highway Build out I'm bound to go I won't leave here running because walking is most too slow I'm going back to the border.

[Andrew Hickey]

Janch asked Magee to play the song a second time while Janch watched his hand, and from the next day Jansh was playing the song. Jansh apparently showed Magee some of his own playing and McGee, impressed. Asked how long he had been playing, Janch replied, six weeks. Jansch's early repertoire as a performer would be made up largely of Brunzy and Brianny McGee songs, but the reason he was at the club at all was that he'd seen that people there were offering guitar lessons. There were two teachers at the club, Jill Doyle, who Jansh fell in love with. Jansh apparently fell in love very quickly and out of love almost as quickly. He seems to have spent the vast majority of his life moving from one two month relationship to another, never without a partner, but who quickly ran out of things to teach him. And the more advanced Archie Fisher, Doyle's partner, who was the Second of the three guitarists Jansch ever wanted to imitate, and who around that time made a small number of records with his sister. Ray Fisher later joked, burt came along, spent one lesson with Jill and learned all she knew, and then spent two lessons with me. The reason it took me two lessons was I took him out and got him drunk during the first one. But in fact, Fisher taught Jantj how to do claw hammer picking, normally, a banjo technique which Fisher had learned from Ralph Rinzler, an American bluegrass player who had played one gig in Scotland and taught Fisher the basics of the technique, making him the only person in Scotland at the time who knew how to play it. Jansh's guitar was stolen soon after he purchased it, and for the next few years he would actually not own a guitar, but he had a remarkable knack of making friends with people who would let him use theirs. And by the time Doyle and Fisher moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow a few months after starting to teach Jansch, he was good enough that he took over as the house teacher. But Jansch remained in contact with Doyle, and when she got sent a tape of an EP her half brother had recorded with Alexis Corner, Jansch got to hear the most important track before it was released. That was Jansh's introduction to the third musician he ever tried to copy, Davy Graham, and he said after hearing Davy play, it was just all there. Graham, as we've talked about in the main podcast, was the first major player in the genre that became known as British Folk Baroque, a style which involves playing multiple contrapuntal lines, all finger picked, often using alternate tunings and playing modal melody lines that often show an influence of Indian or Middle Eastern music as well as of traditional folk. While Davy Graham was undoubtedly the most inspired guitarist of his generation, he was something of a reclusive figure with odd musical interests and would often go off voyaging to other countries for months at a time, and so never built a reputation outside those who loved obscure music. And it would become Jansh who would popularise Graham's most famous tune, Angie in particular by adding a jazz influence, bringing in a portion of Cannonball Adderley's work song into his arrange.

[Bert Jansch]

Sam.

[Andrew Hickey]

Paul Simon would of course later perform Angie on the second Simon and Garfunkel album, but he also took Jansha's interpolation of work song and reworked that into the Simon and Garfunkel track. We got a groovy thing going, Donovan later said of Jancher's performances of Angie. Nobody would teach how to play the guitar in my group. But when I went to Bert, I saw things that I wanted to learn. This descending pattern of Angie, this seminal song that opened up Stairway to Heaven for Jimmy Page, Sonny Good street for me, probably thousands of songs. The descending pattern can be taken back to Johann Sebastian Bach, but when it finally arrives at Bert Janche, he's doing things with it and he becomes a kind of doorway for lots of people. And what I found when I would go to Bert's place was that he didn't mind showing you. And that is the great magnanimity of the artist Bert Janch shared. But that would be a few years in the future. For now, Jansch had the three ingredients of his own style. The folk blues of Big Bill Droonsey, the the combination of bluegrass, clawhammer and traditional music of Archie Fisher and the eastern influenced baroque folk of Davy Graham. Though as is the way of the folk tradition, most of what Janch learned of Graham's technique he didn't learn from Graham himself, as the two men were always a little wary of each other. Rather, Martin Carthy, who regularly visited Edinburgh to play and was friendly with both men, would learn techniques from Graham and then show Janch what he'd learned. Janch became flatmates with Robin Williamson and Clive Palmer, who later formed the Incredible String Band and also briefly dated Licorice McKechnie who would also later join that group. Janch and Williamson would live together for a couple of years, sometimes with Palmer often in squats with basically no possessions as they both tried to start their own careers in music. Janch is rather hampered by him still not actually owning a guitar and being reliant on borrowing other people's for his shows. The two moved down to London for a short while in 1963 and there jansh encountered the singer Anne Briggs, who would be an on off musical and occasional romantic partner for a long time.

[Jackie McShee]

And my father won't like you for your lack of kindness Then she laid her hand on me and this she did say O it will not be long love till our wedding day.

[Andrew Hickey]

Williamson made his way back to Edinburgh for the moment, but Janch, essentially homeless in Dustingham friends homes, decided to stay semi based in London, reasoning that while you couldn't make money playing there, you could get your name printed in the Melody Maker and that would mean that every folk club in the country would book you. So you'd be better positioned to get gigs in Leeds or Hull or Manchester if you were based in London than anywhere else. Around this time, Jansh wrote the song that made his reputation as a songwriter in the small London folk scene.

[Bert Jansch]

Needle of Death when sadness fills your heart and sorrow hides the longing to be when things go wrong each day you fix your mind to escape your misery. Your troubled young life had made you turn to a needle of death.

[Andrew Hickey]

That song was about an addict friend who had died, but most people assumed that it was about Jansch himself, even though Janch's drug of choice was always alcohol, not heroin. Pete Townshend, who was acquainted with Janch at this time, said, I'm sure whenever I saw him I thought two things. One, he was a really good musician and two, was he carrying? My take at the time was that there was a possibility that Burt was a junkie. He did look like one. In hindsight he actually looked quite poor. But I suppose how he interpreted that in middle class West London was that he must have pissed it all away. But Needle of Death was an impressive song in a British folk scene which had not yet turned to singer songwriters. And Jantj was becoming known as a major songwriting talent, regularly getting compared to that American bloke Bob Something, who had come over to London briefly a few months before Burke got there. The song was so impressive, in fact, that a decade later, Neil Young accidentally plagiarised it for Ambulance Blues.

[Bert Jansch]

Back in the old folky days.

[Jackie McShee]

The.

[Bert Jansch]

Air was magic when we played.

[Jackie McShee]

The.

[Bert Jansch]

Riverboat was rocking in the rain.

[Andrew Hickey]

Young would in 2013, record his own version of Needle of Death as a belated acknowledgement. Anne Briggs became Jansch's big booster on the scene and persuaded Bill Leder, a folk record producer, to record an album with Jansch. There were at the time only two record labels releasing stuff from the folk scene, Topic Records and Transatlantic Records, and Leader was one of the major producers for both. Topic, though preferred musicians who were either very traditional or who had strong left wing politics. Jantz was never a political person except in the vaguest way, and he was playing his own material, so Transatlantic was the only option. Leda recorded the album in his own kitchen, soundproofed with egg cartons and blankets, and sold the resulting album outright to transatlantic for £100 with no royalties. The album included Jansha's version of Angie, an instrumental inspired by Charles Mingus and most of Jansha's club repertoire, including Needle of Death and one of his best known songs, Strolling down the highway.

[Bert Jansch]

Strolling down the highway I'm gonna get there my ways just still down I'm woke Can you hear my guitar rhyming? Watch strobe on down on down highway People think I'm a pray.

[Andrew Hickey]

It took a few months for the album to come out, and in that time Jantz got a new flatmate, John Remborn, another guitarist with a similar style, who was generally regarded as a technically better musician than Janch, but less innovative. Remborn was at the time primarily working as the accompanist for a black American folk singer, Doris Henderson, with whom he would appear regularly on the pop show Gadzooks, It's All Happening and record two albums, one in 1965 and one in 1967.

[Jackie McShee]

And if my true love was only waiting and I could hear his heart softly pulled if only he was lying by me and I could sleep in my bed once again I can see my reflection in the Venbone was an.

[Andrew Hickey]

Acoustic player, but he would also occasionally dabble in electric guitar, as in this 1967 cover version by Henderson of Loves A Message to Pretty People try to.

[Jackie McShee]

Tell me what they think is right I don't listen to them though no day from night I go through life searching Trying to find the one Cause I got to search search you go to Lipstick Away and I don't need you to help me find.

[Andrew Hickey]

Jansh and Renbourne started occasionally playing together as a duo, especially after. On the Same day that Jansha's first album came out, 16 April 1965, a new folk club opened up. It was meant to be pronounced Les Cousins in the French manner, but everyone who went there talked as if it was an English name. Les Cousins. At this time Jantj was still very unprofessional. There exists a note from him to a promoter around this time which reads, Dear Brian, I am terribly sorry I could not make it on Monday. I ran out of money and couldn't find anyone to borrow from and I'm afraid I was in no condition to hitchhike. There was also the problem of finding a guitar, hoping this did not inconvenience you too much. Yours sincerely, Bert Janch. There's another story of Pete Townshend having opened up a folk club and looking for musicians, asking Janch if he wanted to earn a pound and getting the reply, no thanks, I've already got one. Janch became the most regular performer at Les Cousins, which became the best known folk club to the cognoscenti thanks to regular adverts in the Melody Maker, which boosted the reputations of its performers and especially Janch. As a result, the club became a magnet for anyone interested in the guitar, particularly from across the uk, and any drop in visitors from the US it became the home of British folk baroque guitar playing and established that style in a generation of players. Jansch had a regular residency there, and both John Remborn and David Graham performed there often. The list of people who performed there, though, includes almost every major figure of British folk music of the next couple of decades, with a special emphasis on the young generation of folk baroque guitarists like Paul Simon, who brought the style across to the US around this time, Martin Carthy, Al Stewart, Ralph Mactell, Roy Harper and Jackson C. Frank, but also people from other areas of the folk and blues scenes. Long John Baldry, Alexis Corner, the Watersons, the Incredible String Band, Sandy Denny, Cat Stevens and many others. Jimmy Page was a regular at the venue, and almost all of Page's guitar technique, especially when playing acoustic or 12 string, comes from studying these players, especially Janch. But the biggest cultural effect Les Cousins had in the short term was as an influence on Donovan, who was an occasional performer and frequent audience member there and was already becoming a pop star. Janch gave Donovan the song Deed I Do for the latter's second album, one of the few Janch originals that he never recorded himself.

[Bert Jansch]

Now that makes no difference what you do I love you, babe well, I need your love I need a bad o dee to do now you don't believe me when I say I love you, babe I want to know the score All I want is more o dee to do I want to lay you down prove to you I love you, babe I want to turn you.

[Andrew Hickey]

On to my love Indeed, apparently, Donovan's managers thought that they had bought the rights to far more songs by Jantch than that. According to Remborn, they would go around to the flat where Janch and Remborn lived and try to buy songs from Janch, knowing that Donovan admired his work and that Janch had sold him the rights to D D relatively cheaply. But Janch and Remborn's flat was something of a social hub and usually had several other musicians using it as a temporary bass. And Donovan's management team were so clueless about the music they were promoting, though, they'd go around and ask to buy a song from Jantch, and one of the other musicians there would pretend to be him and sell them a song, and they never realised that they were buying from a different Bert Janch each time. For a while, Donovan and Janch were also both romantically involved with Beverly Kutner, later to marry and become Beverly Martin, as we discussed in the bonus on Happy New Year. And Donovan later recorded the song House of Janch about that love triangle.

[Bert Jansch]

Crystal ball is what I wish for you get it straight out of the both of you. Someone's gone through a cold turkey Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree I give you baby Contact I am.

[Andrew Hickey]

By this time, Janch and Remborn were semi regularly performing as a guitar duo and exploring the possibilities of combining the folk baroque guitar style they both played in with both jazz. Janch was a big admirer of Charles Mingus, and much of his original material was inspired by Mingus and the traditional folk songs that Remborn was increasingly becoming interested in at the time. It was generally a little frowned upon among folk purists to accompany traditional songs, and most of those songs were performed in rather austere a cappella versions. But a few people, notably Martin Carthy and Archie Fisher, had already started performing guitar accompaniment for these older songs, and Remborn was becoming interested in that. Janch had also started occasionally working out arrangements of these songs with Anne Briggs, combining new guitar parts invented by Janch with the traditional songs. These two strands, traditional music and jazz, combined in the guitar duets that Jansh and Remborn would play. These started to be recorded initially on solo albums by the two. Remborn's first eponymous album, which still showed the strong influence of the acoustic blues that had initially inspired both men, included two duets with Jansch and Renbourne played on a couple of tracks on Jansh's second album, It Don't Bother Me, including a version of Remborn's instrumental Lucky 13. By Janch's third album, Jack Orion, Janch was becoming more and more influenced by traditional song. Where his previous albums had been almost entirely originals, with one or two covers of guitar showcases written by his peers on the scene thrown in per album, Jack Orion was other than an instrumental cover of Ewan McCall's first time ever I Saw youw Face, entirely made up of arrangements of traditional folk songs of the kind he'd been working out with Anne Briggs. Half the tracks on that album featured Remburn playing a second guitar, but the most influential track on the album was one that Jansch played solo and had originally worked out with Briggs, a version of the old ballad Black Waterside, with a new guitar accompaniment of Janch's own composition.

[Bert Jansch]

One Morning Fair, I Took the Air Down a bit like Waterside.

[Andrew Hickey]

Knowing my audience, a lot of you will have found that guitar accompaniment very, very, very familiar. Al Stewart, another folkie who regularly played Les Cousins, taught himself that guitar part as soon as that record came out, but he wasn't as good a player as Jantj and fudged it a bit and also got a few bits wrong as you might when teaching yourself from a record. Stewart then did a recording session and while he was there he showed the session guitarist his attempt at playing Jansh's part and Jimmy Page learned the part as Stewart thought it was played rather than as it was. Jansch was, to put it very mildly, annoyed three years later when the first Led Zeppelin album came out with a track called Black Mountainside consisting just of Jansch's guitar part as slightly misremembered by Stewart, but with the songwriting credited to Jimmy Page.

[Jackie McShee]

Sam.

[Andrew Hickey]

Jansh and Remborn also recorded a duo album together around this time, mostly of new originals showing their jazz influences, along with one song by Anne Briggs and a cover version of Mingus, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. At one point the Burton John album was at number one on the Melody Maker Folk Albums chart, while Jantch's Jackarayan was at number two. Over the next year or so, both Janch and Remborn released more albums. Jansh released an album called Nicola, generally regarded as one of his weaker albums, an attempt to make an orchestral pop album, now most notable as featuring the first arrangement work of future Jethro Tull keyboard player Dee Palmer. He also started touring larger theatre venues as a solo act, while continuing sometimes to play with Renbourne. Renbourne released two more albums in the same time period and was starting to look for other musicians to play with instead of or as well as Jansch. His second album, Another Monday, featured on a couple of tracks a blues singer he'd been working with since Doris Henderson had briefly returned to the US Jackie McShee.

[Bert Jansch]

Ain'T nobody's falling my sister she taught me how to read Sister, she taught me how to read Final Reading My Soul Belarus Ain't nobody's fault of mine Ain't nobody's fault but my Remborn.

[Andrew Hickey]

And McShee performed occasionally as a duo and sometimes as a trio with Janch. Both Janch and Remborn had become interested in the possibilities of the rock scene, though Janch soon realised that he would not fit in a standard rock band after he ended up on a bill a couple of times with Jimi Hendrix. The two men both quickly realised that neither could do what the other could and developed a mutual respect, and Janch decided to stick to the acoustic. As a result, Janch and Remborn decided it might be an idea to form a full band to give them more possibilities, to branch out a larger instrumental palette the drummer they decided to work with was a session player named Terry Cox, who would become one of Britain's most in demand session drummers for a while, playing on sessions for Elton John, David Bowie, Charles Ajnevore, Scott Walker, the Bee Gees and many more over the next few years outside his membership of the band. Cox would go on to play on Vembone's third album, Sir John A Lot of Merry Englandy's Museek Thing and Ye Green Knight, an odd album which, as the title suggested, had a lot of influence from very old music, but also featured a cover of Booker t and the MG's Sweet Potato. That record came out in early 1968, by which time the new group had been together for about seven months but had not yet recorded. The group was named the Pentangle, though the band members and record labels would refer to it with and without the definite article and in later years, like other peers like the Pink Floyd and the Cream, is mostly referred to without. Remborn, who was most active in pulling the band together, chose the name because there were five members of the group, but also after the symbol on the shield of Sir Gawain in the story of Gawain and the Green Knight, a story which meant a lot to him. In that story, the pentangle symbolised truth and honesty, but also symbolized the five senses, various attributes of Christianity, and also the five fingers on a hand showing that a true knight or true musician can trust in their own hands. The fifth member, bass player Danny Thompson, was well on his way to becoming Britain's most sought after session double bass player. Thompson has throughout his life only played one double bass, saying if he tried to play any other double bass, it would feel like he was being unfaithful. He did, though, play bass guitar on one tour early in his career when he was booked to play bass with Roy Orbison. On the tour that Orbison did with the Beatles in 1963, Thompson disliked the experience and remained an acoustic player from then on. Cox and Thompson came as a unit. They'd originally started playing together in Alexis Corners band.

[Bert Jansch]

Mary open the door, open the door Cause it's cold sitting on the shed I won't tell you no Open the door, please open the door what you think you're doing?

[Andrew Hickey]

That song was written by a friend of Corner's, Duffy Power, who had started his career as a minor, Larry Parn's teen idol. After his brief period as a wannabe heartthrob had ended, Power had gone on to play more interesting music. He'd recorded a version of I Saw her standing there in 1963 with a backing band consisting of Graham Bond, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and John McLachlan, and had soon become a regular on London's blues circuit, as well as often popping into Les Cousins. Power had sung with Blues Incorporated for a while and had then formed his own band, Duffy's nucleus, with McLachlan, Thompson and Cox, which had only released one single, a cover version of Hound Dog.

[Bert Jansch]

Alone.

[Jackie McShee]

Just rolling around my door. You ain't nothing but a hound door, my door.

[Andrew Hickey]

But Power was suffering from severe mental health problems and got paranoid and refused to giggle. McLachlachlan and Thompson got in a flute player and started playing jazz gigs as the Danny Thompson Trio, which would continue after Pentangle formed for a while and Cox was doing his session work. But they were both eager to join janch, Renbourne and McShee in their new project, which would combine traditional folk, blues and modern jazz. The music they were planning had some resemblance to underground bands like the Pink Floyd, who Janch admired, and to the new folk rock groups that were springing up like Fairport Convention, and to Jansha's old friends, the Incredible String Band. But it would be very different from anything else around. The new group got a residency at a club, the Horseshoe Club, where their initial gigs were, by all accounts, very rough, as they were still working out how to blend the various styles of music they were interested in into a cohesive whole. In early shows, they often did three different sets. A duo set by Remborn and McShee, a solo set by Jansch, and then a short group set by all five of them as they tried to merge their repertoires into one whole. But soon they hit on a style that would become their trademark. The repertoire would become a mixture of originals, usually mostly written by Jansch, the most accomplished songwriter, but often credited to all five old blues songs, traditional music, often songs dating back to the 16th century or earlier. Given Rembon's fascination for early music, the odd cover of a pop song, and songs from Jansh and Remburn's older albums. These would be performed with Cox and Thompson playing as the jazz rhythm section, Jansh and Rembon playing in their folk baroque style, and McShee, and often Janch and sometimes Cox and Membourne singing in a traditional folk style. They would leave room for extensive instrumental solos by all the members in very loose exploratory sections, something like what the Grateful Dead were soon to start doing in America, but at least at first with the discipline that came from all of them having been successful professional musicians. The group also faced problems at first when they started to play away from the Horseshoe as they got booked on a series of bad bills. But that soon changed with their hiring a new manager, Joe Lustig, who decided to give the group an air of mystique by stopping them from performing live together or solo for several months until they put out their first album.

[Jackie McShee]

Come all you fair and tender girls that flourish in your prime Beware, beware Keep your garden fair Let me Let no man steal your time Let no man steal your time.

[Andrew Hickey]

That album was produced by Shel Talmy, who had recently produced the first two albums by another Les Cousins veteran, Roy Harper, but who was and is best known for his productions for the who, the Kinks, the Creation and other loud rock bands of the mid-60s. However, other than some playing around with stereo panning, that's very of its time. Talmi's production is very sensitive and captures the group wonderfully. The album had sleeve notes by the DJ John Peel, and once the group started performing live again after their imposed layoff, lustig got them 11 Radio 1 sessions and eight TV appearances in the remainder of the year. The album made number 21 and their return to the stage started with a big showcase gig at the Royal Festival hall, which was recorded to be one disc of their second album, a double album titled Sweet Child with a cover by Peter Blake, who had done the sergeant Pepper cover the year before.

[Bert Jansch]

Don'T.

[Jackie McShee]

You know the time has come.

[Andrew Hickey]

The live disc of Sweet Child was a good representation of their live sets at the time, with solo spots, traditional songs, two Mingus covers, including a full band version of Goodbye Poke My Hat, and covers of songs by people like the blues singer Furry Lewis. The studio disc had a few traditional songs, but was mostly made up of originals, or at least ostensible originals. Miles Davis might have been almost as annoyed at The Cox Janx McShee Remborn Thompson songwriting credit for I've Got A Feeling, as Jansch later was about Jimmy Page's credit for Black Mountainside.

[Jackie McShee]

I Got a Feeling Concern.

[Andrew Hickey]

The album featured solo spots for every band member, including a very rare one for Cox, who wrote and recorded this track about Moondog.

[Bert Jansch]

Passersby, that's all he is.

[Andrew Hickey]

The higher price for Sweet Child as a double album meant it didn't chart, but the group were by this point a massive success on the live circuit and getting regular TV and radio appearances and was set up for the third album that would be their undeniable masterpiece Basket of Light is both Pentangle's most consistent and most eclectic album, drawing all their distinct influences together into something that felt of a piece, despite their vastly different origins. It included a version of the J nett's girl group song Sally Go round the roses.

[Bert Jansch]

Roses, Sally, go round Roses.

[Jackie McShee]

Sally go round a pretty roses Roses.

[Bert Jansch]

They can't hunt you Roses, they can't hurt you Roses, they can't hunt you.

[Jackie McShee]

No the roses, they can hurt you oh Sally, don't you go, don't you go downtown Sally, don't you go, don't.

[Andrew Hickey]

You go down Train Song A blues that was one of the first songs Janch had ever written, when he was still learning guitar and influenced by Brunsey the Lywake Dirge, a song dating back at least to the early 17th century, written in archaic Yorkshire dialect about the punishment that would face the souls of the dead if they were uncharitable.

[Bert Jansch]

The witness shall bring thee to the.

[Jackie McShee]

Bare.

[Bert Jansch]

And Christ receive the soul from many moments Thou mayst pass every meter.

[Andrew Hickey]

And the song that would become as close as the group would come to having a hit single, Light Flight, which got used as the theme to the popular TV show Take Three Girls, and as a result made number 43 on the singles chart.

[Jackie McShee]

To die no time to reflect on what the time was spent on Nothing left Far away Dreams are straight Treasure.

[Andrew Hickey]

While the single only made number 43, the TV series was popular enough that the album made number five in the charts. And for a while, Pentangle were genuine pop stars, with their photos in teen magazines. And for most of 1970, they were getting booked in increasingly prestigious gigs, doing long tours of the us, headlining at venues like Carnegie hall and playing at shows like the Isle of Wight Festival, where Janch got to see his old acquaintance Jimi Hendwick's play, his last UK show. But there were problems in the group, mostly down to Janch. Jansch was starting to feel stifled by the group, setting and putting his best songs aside for his solo records. Both he and Remborn were still recording solo albums for Transatlantic along with the group records. He missed being a solo wanderer, going from place to place with just his guitar or someone else's borrowed one. He didn't like being a pop star and he was starting to drink a lot. He'd always been a big drinker, but by this point he was developing a serious alcohol problem with Jantz checked out. It was up to Remborn and McSheet to take charge of the next album, Cruel Sister. By this point, Remborn was deeply immersed in traditional music scholarship and was also starting to play more electric guitar. So rather than the eclectic set that Basket of Light had been, Cruel Sister was made up entirely of traditional songs, often with more conventional arrangements. And the lack of material was shown by the way that one entire side was taken up by an 18 minute version of Jack of Iron, the traditional song that had in a much shorter version. Given Jancha's third album, its title expanded with long electric solos by Remborn. The album, which was produced by Bill Leader rather than Tell Me, was far from a bad one, but it was far more ordinary than their previous three records. By this point, there was a whole sub genre of female fronted British bands playing traditional songs with electric guitars, bands like Steel I Span and Fairport Convention. And it could have been an album by any of them, which is not a bad thing, necessarily. Both those bands made some fine records, but it lost the uniqueness Pentangle had had up to that point. It certainly wasn't what the group's fans wanted, and it was a massive flop. The group were also starting to become sloppy and unprofessional live. Both Jansh and Remborn were also by now drinking far too much and would occasionally be unable to finish a show. As they played guitar seated. And a lot of the music was quite slow and sedate, they'd find themselves nodding off while hunched over their guitars during someone else's solos. Their fifth album, Reflection, was seen as something of a return to form, and many fans have said that had that been the album that came out after Basket of Light, their career might have been very different. It was again, mostly traditional material, but much more vitally arranged than the previous record.

[Jackie McShee]

Stitched around with a golden thread Already made trimmed in green Prettiest thing you've ever seen Ever seen Ever seen Prettiest.

[Bert Jansch]

Thing you've ever seen.

[Andrew Hickey]

The album was Jackie McShee's favorite Pentangle album, but it was very stressful to record. According to Bill Leader, the two pros, Danny and Terry, would be there on time. Bert and John would arrive at different times, depending on how much they'd had to drink and where they'd managed to lay their heads the night before. And it seems to me, in retrospect, that each day a different member of the group had decided that this was it. Sod this for a game of soldiers. I'm leaving the group. And we'd spend the rest of the day either trying to get him back or doing the best we could without that particular member. I don't Think Jackie threw that sort of tantrum. She was just very disappointed that this was going on. But certainly with the rest of the group, it was as if they'd drawn straws before coming in to see which one today was going to throw a moody. That was to be the group's last album with Transatlantic, but at first it looked like it would just be the beginning of a new chapter in the group's career. They got signed to a new, lucrative deal with Reprise Records, and for the first time, they had major label backing behind them. But they hadn't realised something important. The way a standard record contract works is that the label gives the artist an advance on their royalties, part of which the artist then uses to pay the recording costs. And they don't start to get paid royalties on their records until the advance has been paid back. So, say they got a £50,000 advance to cover the recording costs and their living expenses, and they were on a 10% royalty. They wouldn't start to get money from the record label until they'd sold half a million pounds worth of records. But Transatlantic had a different deal. They would pay the cost of the recordings themselves up front, and the artists would get their royalties from the first record, sold, though at a slightly lower royalty than other labels. But the artists would only continue to get royalties as long as they remained signed to the label. As soon as Pentangle signed to Reprise, they stopped getting royalties from their five albums to date, including the big hit Basket Of Light. And Jansh and Remborn also stopped getting paid for the 12 solo or duo albums they'd recorded for the label. As it turned out, they only recorded one album for Reprise, an album titled Solomon's Seal, generally regarded as the group's weakest.

[Bert Jansch]

There's people on the highway, people in the towns you just can't get away I'm not going to the mountains, going by the sea, you won't see me.

[Andrew Hickey]

By the time the album came out, the executive who had signed the group had been moved sideways, and Warners gave it no support. Janch and Remborn's drinking problems became worse. Danny Thompson had some heart problems and meant the group had to cancel a few gigs and Pentangle fizzled to an end. At the end of 1972, their first major label album had had such a big advance and sold so poorly that even after they were dropped by the label, they were still in debt to it a decade later. The group members went on to do other things. Remborn became a serious scholar of early music, going back to Transatlantic records and recording several albums of early music as solo guitar instrumental albums, as well as occasionally performing in a group with McShee. Cox joined Charles Ajnevoir's band, with whom he would tour for eight years, had a brief songwriting partnership with Lindsay De Paul and also played on some of Scott Walker's 70s solo albums. Danny Thompson had continued playing sessions while he was in Pentangle and went back to being a session player full time after the group split up. He's played with John Martin, Richard Thompson, Kate Bush, Donovan T. Rex, Rod Stewart, Graham Coxon, Peter Gabriel, Nick Drake, Billy Bragg, Alison Moye, Everything but the Girl and hundreds more, and has had by far the most successful non Pentangle career of any of the band members. Jansch was the first one to make a major artistic statement after the group broke up. His first post Pentangle album, La Turnaround, was widely regarded as a masterpiece. Produced by Michael Nesmith, formerly of the Monkees, it's sonically of a piece with Nesmith's own early 70s country rock records and features Nesmith on second guitar, Nesmith, steel player Red Rhodes, bass player Klaus Vorman and fiddle and mandolin player Byron Berliner, whose name I mispronounced in the recent Rolling Stones episode talking about his playing on Country Honk. So allow me to apologise for that here. All of whom were fans of Janch and gave him a sympathetic backing. It was a collection made up almost entirely of new originals, some of Jantch's best songwriting, but the highlight is often considered to be the remake of the song that had made his reputation as a writer. Needle of death.

[Bert Jansch]

Have ceased to bring a smile from everyone all tears have filled the eyes all friends that you once said walk to me your troubled young laughing.

[Andrew Hickey]

But Janx's drinking got so bad that a couple of years later he was regarded by the influential west coast punk band Flipper as a major inspiration. After he visited Berkeley, Bruce Luce, Flipper's bass player, met Janch and thought he was the most thoroughly nihilistic person he had ever seen, and got all the other punks to follow Janch around, observing his behaviour, Janch being too drunk to notice. According to John Remborn, when Remborn visited the area a few years after that, there was a legend in the punk community about a mythical figure known as the Bert. Pentangle reformed in 1981, mostly as a way to make some quick cash, the group remained together in name for the next 14 years, but for much of that time it wasn't the real Pentangle. Remborn quit the reunion quickly going to university to study composition, and one by one the other members were replaced until it was just McShee and a drunk Janch, plus a bunch of lesser players. Some of these line ups, including one where four of the original five were present, made albums, but none are worth tracking down except for the most hardcore of fans. In the late 80s, Jantz finally got himself sober and found himself tied to a band that were increasingly only in existence to play nostalgia shows. By 1994 he'd had enough and quit the band, which then renamed itself Jackie McShee's pentangle and which continues to this day. I saw the show by that band around 18 years ago, and while McShee sang as well as ever, the band were playing songs like Light Flight in muzaky arrangements with lounge sacks and cheesy keyboards. It was a sad experience. Jantj spent the late 90s and early 2000s in a kind of elder statesman role, returning to touring solo, making guest appearances on records by young fans of his old work like Mazzie Starr and Baby Shambles, and recording quietly well regarded albums which themselves featured guest appearances by other young admirers of his work like Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, Bernard Butler and Johnny Marr. Pentangle reunited in 2008 after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from Radio 2 and toured in 2008 and 2011, playing major festivals like Glastonbury and headlining venues like the Royal Festival Hall. The group was sounding as good as ever and working hard on new material, but sadly Janch died of cancer late in 2011 and then born of a heart attack in 2015. Terry Cox now seems to be retired, Jackie McShee still tours with Her Pentangle and Danny Thompson continues to be a sought after session musician, though he seems not to have been very active in the few years since COVID hit. Pentangle's career was only brief and they were more influential than successful, but the guitar playing of Remborn and especially Janch was the basis for multiple generations of especially British guitarists. Everyone from Nick Drake to Led Zeppelin to the Smiths owes a debt to them, and Pentangle as a group stretched the boundaries of what was possible for an acoustic folk group and opened up the way for later artists like the Fleet Foxes, Joanna Newsom, Vashti Bunyan, the Polyphonic Spree and that whole early 2000s generation of eccentric folk influenced musicians. But even so, none of their admirers has ever made an album quite like Basket of Light and likely none ever will.

[Jackie McShee]

Sway Will he swell in the spell.