BERT JANSCH

Another month yet another Scottish folkie dating back to the 1960s to pour over, courtesy of my reviewing muse. To overuse a cliche that I am at least aware I am using, this fellow is truly a guitarist's guitarist. Unfortunately, that's also shorthand for "I am not a guitarist", and, while I am not oblivious to technical virtuosity on the acoustic platform, it's just not enough for me, and quite a number of the tracks are instrumental. The best of these by far is DAVEY GRAHAM's classic "Angie", which doesn't say much for JANSCH's own writing at this stage. Luckily quite a few tracks have vocals. Well, actually not that luckily. While his singing is not without its Scottish charm, his voice isn't very expressive, and so twangy that I briefly thought he hailed from Glasgow, Alabama.

In 1965, not many were doing this, so JANSCH's influence cannot be minimized, but it's hard to get excited about it today on listens 1 to 5, just so much water under the bridge since those early days. Again, at the risk of prosaism, I was painfully young in 1965 and I never heard this, and, while certain previously unheard works of that era do well up the nostalgia within me, this just doesn't. Nonetheless, with GORDON LIGHTFOOT singing, "I Have No time", "Needle of Death", "Running from Home", and "Dreams of Love" would all be 5 star glorious, so they are still nasally worthwhile as underperformed by JANSCH.

Only one way to go with this one. 3 tentatively solid stars, and onward.