Folk legend, Bert Jansch, dies aged 67

Seminal Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, a founding member of the band Pentangle, has died at the age of 67.

He died in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a hospice in Hampstead, north London.

Born in Glasgow in 1943, the musician recorded his first album in 1965 and his last, The Black Swan, in 2006.

He was a member of Pentangle between 1967 and 1973 and was there when they reformed in 2008. In 2007 Pentange received a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Bert received the same award, in his own right, as a solo artist, in 2001.

His virtuosity as a guitarist prompted Neil Young to put him on the same level as Jimi Hendrix.

Bert was known as a quiet man who kept himself to himself. As John Barrow, a booking agent who worked with Jansch throughout his career, told the BBC in an interview, “People used to say to me, ‘he doesn’t talk much, does he?’ But when he could play the guitar like that, why should he be talking?”

Source: BBC

Posted by Dave Mac