Strolling Down the Highway: Bert Jansch 1943 - 2011

Moody teenagers.... 1965... me and me school friend Ros obsessively listening to her LP of Bert Jansch on the old portable record player in the bedroom: Angie, Needle of Death, Courting Blues...

There's already been the sacred Bob in our lives with "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", and "The Times They Are a-Changin". (Of course one dutifully marvelled at the purity of Saint Joan Baez.) But I don't remember anyone else with near the same punch as sacred Bob

... except for Bert Jansch.

It's probably around this time I decides to walk about with no shoes on.... I mean walk to St. Ives, walk around school.... surely they didn't let me do that? St. Ives already warming up to beads, candles and the clanging of hippy bells... Me stopping walking around with no shoes on... after that foot infection. Slouching into folk clubs... but twas all very traditional there... Brenda Wootton and John the Fish.

No, after a while we had to slump by the harbour and stare at the water - contemplatin' getting back to the grittiness and miraculous guitar-playing of Bert Jansch.