Allegedly, neither Bert Jansch nor John Renbourn can remember exactly why, having just released their first UK Reprise album, Solomon’s Seal, in 1972, Pentangle broke up. Jansch had originally been a gardener in Edinburgh and, digging delta blues and the modal guitar improvisations of Davy Graham, set out for London searching for success. In 1963 he met John Renbourn, an Early Music scholar with similar tastes to Jansch (Les Cousins in Greek St, Soho, was one of their favourite haunts).
Certainly the ‘expanded consciousness’ of the 60s informed Pentangle’s formation in 1967. Adding established folk chanteuse Jacqui McShee (a lady whose pure voice could shatter glass at 50 paces), and Danny Thompson and Terry Cox (a bass/percussion duo from Duffy Power’s Nucleus and, more notably, Alexis Korner’s Blues Inc), Pentangle began rehearsing in earnest in London’s Tottenham Court Road’s Horsehoe Pub during the Summer Of Love.
Of course, what started out as an avid experiment in the crossover of folk/blues/jazz/ethnic (Thompson had already played with Indian musicians) unexpectedly led to huge chart success, world tours and all the stuff that goes with the rock’n’roll lifestyle. By 1972 the pressure had obviously got too much for Jansch and Renbourn (a duo whose commitment to the music was paramount), resulting in the implosion. Yet one only has to listen to the majestic Once I Had A Sweetheart, where the instrumental interplay between the sitar and double-bass becomes as forceful and incredible as Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven, to realise what a great band Pentangle were. And history proves that both Jimmy Page and Neil Young owe a lump of their careers to this daring English five-piece.
Jumping into this 4-CD, 65-track box set is like walking through an exotic land where, at every turn, there is fresh flora and fauna to tantalise the senses. Experts and musos will pick over the 20 unreleased tracks, the supreme marshalling of outtakes, singles, B-sides, live concert and television performances, film soundtrack work and BBC radio sessions by Pentangle archivist Colin Harper, but to these ears the spread is research rather than great listening. For example, the music from the Ava Gardner film, Tam Lin (1971), is one part folk and the other a misguided voyage into mainstream pop. And why is there no Lyke Wake Dirge, possibly their greatest recording, pre-dating Steelye Span’s Gaudete by three years? Taken from their most popular album, Basket Of Light (a UK Top 5 record in 1969), this track is almost singular in English music. While Light Flight propelled the group into the pop maelstrom (heard weekly on the BBC’s first colour drama series, Take Three Girls), the group had a spiritual depth which can be best heard on Lyke Wake. Its plainchant style and open acceptance of the grace of God obviously did not play well with those in the fuzzy zeitgeist of the 60s record industry and, judging by its omission from this eclectic and scholarly compilation, it’s still one potato too hot to handle.
