Graham Coxon: Bert Jansch's music is a great gift for everyone
It took me a while to fully appreciate Bert Jansch. Maybe because I associated him with terror for a number of years.
I played on the same bill as him in 2003 at Stephen Malkmus’s Down the Dustpipe festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. I had just come out of the Priory and was playing with a new and rather hurriedly rehearsed band. Not only that, I had drunk around 15 cups of coffee during Bert’s set and was going to start my show directly after him, all on my own with two or three acoustic songs. As I watched him I began to have a very bad feeling about the whole evening.
I was standing (which I would never do now), and as I started the first song I felt my knees turning to rubber, and my already weak voice took on an involuntary and very embarrassing vibrato. I was shaking and sweating and really struggling with my old Harmony Sovereign guitar and its tree-trunk strings. It was awful.
By 2005, I had decided to really give finger-style guitar a good go and had bought myself a beautiful new Martin OM28v. That same night, I’d planned to see Bert and Davy Graham play at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford. Encouraged by Mark Pavey, Davy’s new manager, I took along my new purchase and met everyone in the dressing room.
Bert Jansch: a modest man with an immodest talent
Read more
Davy was in manic mood, pacing a trench into the carpet and all the while crashing some Tibetan Tingsha bells. Meanwhile, Bert sat quietly on a sofa improvising blues. I tried to keep my cool and not stare at his fingers. As I got my new guitar from its case, Bert looked up and asked if he could have a peek – he had owned a similar one once. I shyly handed it over.
“Cor, those strings are thick! What gauge are they?” he frowned.
“Are they?” I suddenly felt very small indeed. “I think they’re 12s or 48s or something,” I stammered. “What do you use?”
“A very light gauge … it’s a lot more comfortable to play and do bends and stuff.” He handed me back the guitar and continued warming up.
Mark Pavey suddenly thought it would be a great idea for me to do a short set at half time, and told me I should probably tune up.
Tuning a guitar in front of guitarists you admire is thoroughly humiliating. I was so nervous at the prospect of playing and was starting to panic. “How on earth do you get a B string in tune?” I asked the room in exasperation, feeling very fraudulent.
“You can’t,” said Bert flatly. I looked up at him, expecting to see a sympathetic smile, but he was poker faced. His eyes were the wryest I have ever seen. Was it true or was he ribbing me? I didn’t have a clue and cackled nervously, my cool well and truly lost. It calmed my nerves a little, though, to think that maybe even Bert Jansch might struggle to tune up sometimes. If what he said was true, that is.
Since then, I have grown to adore Bert’s voice and guitar playing more and more. I have struggled to learn some of his songs and those of Pentangle – who continue to be one of my favourite ever bands. Jansch’s records have proved to be a great gift to everyone, and for me they are also an education and a well of inspiration. I sit and play a Bert song or two every day as part of my practice and for the sheer enjoyment of playing them. I like how the songs make my fingers move and I am always surprised at the sound coming from my guitar. I will never stop learning from Bert Jansch.
It’s an honour to be involved in the Bert Inspired series of concerts at Celtic Connections festival, and I will take the stage proudly with a guitar strung with very skinny strings, knowing that Bert will be there somewhere with that wry look in his eyes, and I again will be doing all I can to calm my nerves.
Graham Coxon is one of the performers – alongside Robert Plant, Bernard Butler and Ben Watt – at Bert Inspired: A Concert for Bert Jansch, at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow on 31 January and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 1 February. Details here.