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I put Bert Jansch on a pallet
It may have been 1995 or perhaps a little earlier, I’m not sure looking back how any of it came to pass, there’s a fog surrounding that time that I just can’t seem to cut through or perhaps don’t want to. That might be something to do with self-preservation. Some bits I do clearly recall though.
I’d seen a little article in Q magazine saying that Bert was playing a weekly show at the 12 Bar Club in Denmark St Soho in front of about 75 people. That had struck me as out of kilter, somebody with that reputation, that legend, that mystical talent, playing a small venue like that. I was excited by it too - thought I’d like to see him in that tiny room. Also if he was playing in front of those kind of numbers I speculated that I might find a way of bringing him down to play where I lived, in West Wales.
Ringing the club, I got a number for someone who fixed his dates. The suggestion was that Bert make it work money-wise by playing a handful of shows in Wales (that eventually turned out to be two) supplemented by an appearance on BBC radio.
A German guy who’d been helping me out came with me to London to see him at the 12 Bar. In the blue grey light of the back room where the shows took place there was a bloke on stage in a dark denim jacket, a mass of grey-white hair and tinted glasses. With a couple of beers in hand we stood transfixed. He played beautiful folk guitar and sang in a voice without restraint. The singer turned out to be Wizz Jones who I’d never heard of. Some people there put me straight on that; said he was a legend or should have been. It seemed to me they were probably right and it made me wish I’d been in the know like them.
When Bert played I was struck by the intensity and the lack of flourish - this was anything but showbiz. After the gig I went up to him, shook his hand and said we’d be seeing him in Wales soon. He didn’t seem as certain as I was about that, but there was nothing that suggested he was against the idea, more that it hadn’t quite appeared on his radar. The German and i stayed in a damp room above a pub that stood on a junction where the traffic roared all night, I think we may have talked until dawn.
I collected Bert from the train and took him directly to the radio station in Swansea’s Alexandra Road, where I’d arranged for him to appear on Mal Pope’s show. Bert was quiet. Not sullen, just not wasting any words. Looking across at the side of his face I wondered what he was doing here, I was hoping he wasn’t thinking the same.
Fortunately, Mal Pope was the right man for the job and carried out the interview with the respect he knew Bert was due. Mike Peters of the Alarm was on the show too. It could have been one of those halting conversations that make you squirm - poor research, dumb questions, and an insult to the artist, but Mal gave it the right sense of occasion and he knew his stuff.
The Stable Door in Laugharne had no stage. The significance of this was lost on me until Bert asked where it was. Sheepishly, I showed him to the end of the room furthest away from the bar where the PA had already been set up. Bert was silent for a while and then asked “do you have a pallet or something?” Quietly he explained that there really ought to be something that separated the performer from the audience.
This, it turned out, was one of those moments that will stay with me until the end. Bert wasn’t in the best of shape career wise and I guess had suffered one or two indignities as he had faded from public view. I had a strong feeling that I’d just inflicted a new one. Bert Jansch is worshipped by the likes of Jimmy Page, Johnny Marr and Neil Young, and I’m pretty sure they would all loathe me for this and that’s not a comfortable feeling. I’m the guy who didn’t even provide Bert Jansch with a stage. I did find him a pallet though.
He didn’t ask much. A solitary room to play himself in for an hour before taking his place on the pallet and some non-alcoholic lager - but not Kaliber (Bert was a recovering alcoholic). The bar only had Kaliber, I sent someone out around the many pubs of Laugharne where I was right in thinking non-alcoholic lager was in limited demand. Those that had it, had Kaliber. Bert drank the Kaliber. A lot of the people who came had expected the whole thing to be a hoax. Could this be real? Bert Jansch in Laugharne, on a pallet, drinking a beverage he despised.
It was real enough and I imagine some there will never forget it. As for me I just wish I’d looked after him better, never more so than today.
Bert Jansch 11th November 1943 - 5th October 2011
