During Bert Jansch's five-decade career, he released records where nothing seemed out of place. The folk singer, who died in 2011, often wrestled with the torment of young lovers and restless souls in his lyrics, but those worries came in near-perfect packages, in which the blues and intercontinental folk, jazz, and pop moved together with riverine fluidity. When a New Weird America contingent led by Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson worked to revive his career with the The Black Swan LP in 2006, it made sense; he and his band, Pentangle, were godheads for pockets of that scene. It was, however, an odd fit, since Jansch, even as the young man who had made Birthday Blues or It Don’t Bother Me 40 years earlier, never seemed one for letting loose and getting wild. There was very little freak in his folk.
Live at the 12 Bar—a 16-song set from 1996 that Earth Recordings has resurrected for the launch of an extensive series of Jansch reissues—is not some unbridled onstage affair. An intimate solo show, Jansch plays without much pause for about an hour, laughing at himself when he doesn’t leave the stage ahead of the encore. The sound of his amplified acoustic guitar is thin and modest, and his voice ranges from furtive murmur to broad-shouldered bellow. He speaks softly to the audience, and he doesn’t indulge in the great between-song yarns endemic to such releases.
You do, though, get a sense of Jansch’s modest personality, wry wit, and self-effacing charm. He momentarily forgets song titles and awkwardly stumbles through a birthday greeting for a gleeful audience after his definitive take on "Blackwaterside". He flubs or altogether drops some notes in the turnarounds of the gorgeous aubade, "Morning Brings Peace of Mind", and he strums hard enough during the protest number "Let Me Sing" to break the reverie his music inspires. For such an on-the-record perfectionist, Jansch sounds humble and approachable during Live at the 12 Bar. On this "authorized bootleg," a fan favorite for years, he lets the imperfections stand. The errors give his precise work a newly human touch, spotlighting the deep folk origins of his tender tunes.
There are nearly a dozen live releases crammed into Jansch’s catalogue. Live at the 12 Bar stands out in part for the sweep of its songs, a range that reflects the roots of his work and how much he was able to grow within its traditions. He moves from the impetuous opener of his 1965 debut, "Strolling Down the Highway", to "Walk Quietly By", the beautiful and bothered beginning of When the Circus Comes to Town, the album he released not long before this show. He saunters and pleas through American R&B ("Come Back Baby") and stands at the threshold of loneliness and love for an endearing turn on the Irish standard, "Curragh of Kildare". He picks gracefully through the transcontinental standard "The Lily of the West", and he seems to smile through the blues of "Trouble in Mind".
Four years after his death, Jansch’s legacy often revolves around his guitar playing. Frequently presented as an other-side-of-the-Atlantic foil to John Fahey, Jansch is the less deliberate of the two. Where it felt like Fahey was often pulling notes from his instrument, Jansch’s skill seemed to be holding their flow back long enough to articulate their shape. But this career-spanning set from a late London club known as an incubator for great songwriters is a welcome reminder of his skills in that regard, too. He plunges into romantic neuroticism for "A Woman Like You" and moves between sensuality and sensitivity for "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning". In turn, he gets mad, sad, and nostalgic, feelings he communicates as capably with his underrated voice as he does with his fingers and strings. No, Live at the 12 Bar, unlike much of Jansch’s catalogue, isn’t perfect. You hear mistakes, clumsy knocks at the microphone stand, and even his breath as he plays. But mostly, you hear this master traversing a musical map of his life, hard times and all.
