What song is in your head?

[Sido]

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvsQ9hYKq7c killer moves

[Lemonade]

Devil's table by The Dolmen. It's stuck...

[Emil Miller]

There have been countless articles and a number of books written about this lady, but take away the makeup, the publicity, the adulation and what's left? I would say the best female vocalist ever to have come out of the USA.

http://youtu.be/82VYlyr_Xpk

[Sido]

Tous les garcons et les filles - Francoise Hardy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aLoezucIzk Can't get it out of my head

[Helga]

The Lumberjack song- the Monty Pythons

[NikolaiI]

True Love Knows no Season, by Planxty

[Pompey Bum]

17 Pink Sugar Elephants. MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! OH GOD NIKOLAI, MAKE IT STOP!

(Just kidding )

[108 fountains]

Here's a trick: If you want a particluar song to play in your head all day, play it while you're wearing headphones and then stop playing it somewhere in the middle of the song. I think it might have to do with the brain wanting to complete the cycle. In any case, it works.

[NikolaiI]

Now it's Moonshine, by Bert Jansch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_KQiz1-0qk

in case you're interested Pompey

[NikolaiI]

Here's a trick: If you want a particluar song to play in your head all day, play it while you're wearing headphones and then stop playing it somewhere in the middle of the song. I think it might have to do with the brain wanting to complete the cycle. In any case, it works.

It's only fair to say this if you also give the antidote. So..? And it can't just be doing the same thing with another song!

[Pompey Bum]

Now it's Moonshine, by Bert Jansch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_KQiz1-0qk

in case you're interested Pompey

Thanks. I've been a huge Bert Jansch fan for years. I love Vashti Bunyan's beautiful, icy, slightly tense voice, too (though I greatly prefer her early demos to most of Diamond Day). I was just teasing you because I can tell you're totally in love with her.

It sounds like we have somewhat similar tastes in music.

[NikolaiI]

Yep, yep. Do you know Planxty? If not, Blind Harper and Banaesa's Green Glade are two incredible live performances.

It's cool to meet another Jansch fan. I think he's one of the best ever. And he also opened up a lot of music to me; Andy Irvine, Kevin Burke, Archie Fisher, etc.

Do you have any favorite, unknown Jansch songs?

Agreed about Vashti; I love the earlier stuff more... the latter don't impress me as much, but I am sure they will grow on me. I am definitely impressed with how well she sings and plays at age 70.

[Pompey Bum]

Yep, yep. Do you know Planxty? If not, Blind Harper and Banaesa's Green Glade are two incredible live performances.

It's cool to meet another Jansch fan. I think he's one of the best ever. And he also opened up a lot of music to me; Andy Irvine, Kevin Burke, Archie Fisher, etc.

Do you have any favorite, unknown Jansch?

I remember Planxty/Christy Moore from way back the 1970s. Not only am I that old, but I grew up in Boston where a lot of the music we listened to was Irish.

Burt Jansch is (and always was) less well known by audiences than by other performers. He taught himself an acoustic guitar style based on American delta blues players like Furry Lewis and Big Bill Broonzy, that no one else in his generation could do quite as well. Jerry Garcia, Neil Young, and Led Zeppelin all talked about how they learned their style by trying to play like him. (That didn't stop Zeppelin from ripping off his Black Waterside and not giving him credit, though). To this day, he's not that well known, at least on this side of the Atlantic. I remember his obituary in the New York Times: "Influential guitarist dies." That just about says it all.

I don't know if I know any "unknown" Bert Jansch, but this is a early seventies video of Jansch as a hippy, with Jacqui McShee (whose sweet clear voice he tried to use to mask his own croaky Dylan-esque one). I don't think the song will have much appeal to this generation, but it's endearing (in a hilarious way) to those of us who dressed like that, thought like that, smoked the Dunhills, drank the wine, and got to know the lady. He obviously made better songs than this, but this one slays me, so you'll have to deal with it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7BS7MQdrEG4

[NikolaiI]

Well, by unknown I mean off the beaten track. For instance if you search for Jansch songs, you'll find a lot of the same ones, like "Black Swan," "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning," etc... Pretty quickly you'll come to his first album, etc.. I love all I've heard of him, pretty much... but some stand out more, like "Read All About It," and a lot of the songs from that album.. I just consider it a little off the main fare. I was impressed when I came across "From the Outside" because it's his 15th album.. that hen I really understood how prolific he is, although I'd heard a fairly wide range of his styles before.

You mention American delta blues and two artists I haven't heard of - thanks, btw, I'll check them out; do you know Bukka White? - but I know he also learned plenty from the people around him, from Davy Graham, et al. And of course Renbourn.

It used to bother me so that "White Summer" was used without any credit given, stolen, but that was a long time ago. I also heard it done different by Jansch, another arrangement maybe, and without lyrics.. I thought it was mislabelled maybe. Then I came across this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpTVn_Ltzc

So I don't know how the mystery ends. But it stopped being an issue of indignation when I came across Graham's version as well. It might just be a traditional song, dating before any of them.


Hehe, okay. Good choice... I've heard all of that session dozens of times. It's like, one of the best performances of music ever done. Ever.

I don't consider it unknown but that's okay :]

[Pompey Bum]

Well, by unknown I mean off the beaten track. For instance if you search for Jansch songs, you'll find a lot of the same ones, like "Black Swan," "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning," etc... Pretty quickly you'll come to his first album, etc.. I love all I've heard of him, pretty much... but some stand out more, like "Read All About It," and a lot of the songs from that album.. I just consider it a little off the main fare. I was impressed when I came across "From the Outside" because it's his 15th album.. that hen I really understood how prolific he is, although I'd heard a fairly wide range of his styles before.

Sorry Nik, somehow I missed your response the other day.

Here's Jansch playing guitar for a Hope Sandoval song not long before he died. I don't know if it's obscure or not.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pd1rJuQGbMI

Needle of Death is a fairly well regarded early Jansch song (from around 1965), about heroin death. It's pretty famous, so you've probably already heard it. It's a beautiful song in its way, but it doesn't really show his finger style that well.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V-HkBak9lmM

Speaking of early work, Jansch is supposed to have either done the arrangement for Annie Briggs' version of Blackwaterside or learned it from her (they were close at the time). Either way you can hear the later Pentangle song in Briggs' version:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxOouYO5tY4

Here's Jansch's famous version (with Pentangle), with his incredible finger work:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Gcu0Sv6lk

And here's the studio version of Led Zeppelin's rip off of his/her/their work (yes, the song itself is traditional, but you can really hear how Paige is doing Jansch on guitar and the whole thing is following the Jansch/Briggs arrangement).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OtCKByQfW30

If you don't know Briggs, by the way, she was like Vashti Bunyan in that she essentially walked away from a recording career in disgust; and like Jansch in that people who had successful careers (Bob Dylan, Donovan Leitch, Joan Baez, Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee, and many others) were actively trying to imitate her. She recorded very little (and supposedly hated what she recorded), but she had played small clubs for ages and everyone knew her repertoire and vocal style.

This is a song that Briggs wrote when she was close with Jansch. I'm know the Pentangle version--its a good example of how indebted McShee's vocals were to Briggs.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kYNJrtNrxiM

Graham's introduction to She Moved Through the Fair is new to me, by the way, Frankly It sounds like Zeppelin ripped both of them off (or all three, if you count Briggs). I mean, everyone did She Moved Through the Fair--Sandy Denny most effectively (she had the perfect spooky voice for it), but even she was just following Briggs;

Briggs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3dyUsXgL7ow

Fairport/Denny: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0nn8TV9qc

I'm trying to think if I know any more out of the way music Jansch. You seem to know his later work (after he had pretty much thrown his career away to alcoholism), which is exactly the part I don't know very well. But I did run I to a late-ish song recently that I liked. You probably know it already, but I'll include it on this literature site because it's about Journey to the West, the great Chinese classic about the monkey king, Sun Wukong Buddhist scripture to Tang China. It's got some great Jansch guitar picking on it even if he was a bit burnt out at the time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AAo-N1RBRFI

You may also have seen this interview with Jansch, done shortly before his death, in which he seems like a sweet, vaguely sad old man. (Beware hipsters, passing by/As you are, once was I! ). He talks a little about Bill Broonzy and Bukka White. He also does the Jackson Frank song "The Blues Run the Game." Frank is another of these "unknown legends" His story gets pretty bizarre at times (you may know it already); but he certainly didn't have the genius of a Bert Jansch (or even a Vashti Bunyan).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs-WlU2CwnI

You mention American delta blues and two artists I haven't heard of - thanks, btw, I'll check them out; do you know Bukka White? - but I know he also learned plenty from the people around him, from Davy Graham, et al. And of course Renbourn.

If you're interested, you should also check out the two greatest delta blues players, Robert Johnson and Skip James. James' early recordings were mostly of poor technical quality, but luckily he had lost none of his talent when he was "discovered" as an old man by whites (with good microphones) in the 50s and 60s. Johnson you probably already know since his work was so influential. His recordings are somewhat clearer, but he was long dead by the time very many whites decided wanted to know him. Johnson is usually considered the greatest of the delta blues artists, but personally I prefer James' weird, spooky falsetto.

Johnson:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVgH9JqSnQ

James:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X6ok7RhBHmI