Sunday, January 04, 2009

For Fans of Nick Drake: Bert Jansch

I discovered Bert Jansch about 2 years ago. He's a Scottish folk singer. His guitar playing reminds me quite a bit of Nick Drake. His voice is not as gentle and dare I say fey as Nick Drake's, but both men evoke that same U.K. folk sound at the end of the day.

Unlike Drake, Bert Jansch is still alive and kicking somewhere, but I don't know much about him, other than that he was an influence on Jimmy Page, Neil Young, and even Drake himself.

At any rate, here are two of my favorite cuts from my "Best of Bert Jansch" CD.

"It Don't Bother Me"


"Tell Me What Is True Love"

3 comments:

Quinapalus said...

That's great stuff! It makes me think that there must be a lot of great UK folk music I don't know much about. A few years back I got seriously into folk/country music for awhile, but even then I was mostly hunting down obscure gravelly-voiced songwriters from Texas...the "fey" Nick Drake sound never held as much interest for me--which is not meant at all as a knock against the fantastic Mr. Drake, it's just that my taste ran more in the Townes Van Zandt vein.

At any rate, those songs are really good. If you have any other UK folk recommendations, I'd be curious to hear.

dr. kittybrains said...

Dris and Quin, you would both enjoy this album Jansch recorded with his group Pentangle:

http://femalevocals.blogspot.com/2008/04/pentangle-cruel-sister-1970.html

More information on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_Sister

drischord said...

Nice! I've wanted to hear Pentangle ever since I heard Jansch solo. Good stuff...