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"The
Pentangle" (1968)
Let No Man Steal Your
Thyme/Bells/Hear My Call/Pentangling// Mirage/Way Behind The Sun/Burton
Town/Waltz
The only album to list the band as 'The Pentangle'
will, as it turns out, be not 'the' Pentangle at all but 'a' Pentangle, one of
many variants fans will get to hear over the years. Not yet the all-singing
all-dancing jazz/folk/blues/rock/psychedelia amalgam the band will be in two
albums' time and not yet the folk purists the band will transform into, this is
instead Pentangle the jazz band, albeit a jazz band who have only folk songs in
their repertoire. In another 'clue' to their not-quite formed identity, there
isn't a single picture of Pentangle anywhere on the original cover, which
instead features the band in a distinctive silhouette image that will go on to
become their most familiar logo, used on pretty much every other compilation in
the CD age. Not only is it completely
unlike any other record ever made in the era, it's not that much like the other
Pentangle records either (ask a Pentangle fan from 1967, 1969 or 1972 about
what the band's signature sound was and I'm willing to bet you'd get at least
three different answers). Though
Pentangle wouldn't tour as the Grateful Dead's support act for another year or
two, this is the record fans have in mind when they talk about Pentangle being
the 'English' Dead or the 'folk' Dead (and the 'inspiration for the Dead's
first 'acoustic' sets in fact): the album contains four short folk standards
played with a jazzy edge and four epic improvisations that are far edgier than
anything the band will go on to play in later years. All of it, even the
shorter songs in the set, comes with solos - usually on the double bass.
Though similar things had been done solo in folk
circles - including albums by guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn - no
other 'band' had ever quite pulled off such a feat. 'The Pentangle' was new and
exciting - and impossible to repeat, so the band simply didn't bother, choosing
instead to explore their varied record collections on later albums and, bit by
bit, lose the jazz sound that dominates this record. In a way that's how it
should be: Pentangle are so new at this time that every move they make seems
like a surprise to everyone in the room, every note played inventive simply
because it's being played by five such different musicians with such different
backgrounds and tastes at once. This sound
is an exotic wild animal that's only just been discovered and is still
so new the band don't want to tame it and bring it to heel yet either, so for
now they let it roam free as much as 'it' wants in its natural habitat, which
happens to be jazz, the 'loosest' of all genres. Future Pentangle albums will
attempt to collar this animal, translate it's barks and squeals and work out
what it has in common with other genres to better understand it, with even the
sequel (the sprawling double record set 'Sweet Child') interested in exploring
all the different features under a microscope in turn rather than all at once
in one long breathless rush. But for now
this is a wild beast with too much spring in its step to ever be caged, with
this debut album by far the 'purest' essence of what that mysterious Pentangle
actually is: played by folk and occasionally rock and psychedelic instruments,
with bluesy moods and a jazzy after-taste. Though almost half of the album is
impressively old (the Middle Ages) the sound is cutting edge contemporary and
could only have been made in the freer second half of the 1960s (even though
'The Pentangle', with its monochrome cover and traditional songs about
yesteryear , is hardly your typical summer of love album either). No wonder
onlookers then and now feel confused by it: not only does this beast look like
it has several body parts from other animals stuck together (Pentangle are the
tapir of all bands), musical historians can't even date it properly: is this
band a new branch of evolution, given how little it shares with the year of
1967? If not is it a band that dates back to the dawning of civilisation and
folk songs (as per much of the material, surely sung as oral traditions many
centuries before the 'official' dates given in this book, which simply happens
to be when they were written down)? Or is it a 'bandanimal' from our future,
sent back after a hideous genetic mutation?
I'm still in two minds what I think of this wild
animal in its natural habitat, which is a far wilder wide than any of the other
Pentangle albums. Much as I long to see musical animals roam free in their
natural habitat, this one is a little too - well - frisky at times, sticking
it's claws deep into the listener's skin and squawking with such wild abandon
and noise that you wonder whether you read the record label right and this
isn't actually an album by some avant garde heavy metal band instead. There's
nothing 'easy listening' about this record - even the four shorter songs
feature the same intensity and madness, just in a more compact way than the
elongated jazz improvs: 'Let No One Steal Your Thyme' for instance may well be
the maddest, saddest, baddest start to any AAA debut LP: a feminist anthem from
the seventeenth century no less, sung almost a capella on the first half apart
from some see-sawing double bass riffs from Danny Thomson that are quite unlike
any other sound around (in folk circles at least). Often this record has sharp
claws cut on later records: there's a murder as early in Pentangle's canon as
'Bruton Town', a particularly nasty affair sung with an angular melody that
seems to be mirroring the sheer ugliness that the human race is capable of.
There are sections on 'Bells' and 'Waltz' too where the beast suddenly rolls
over from having it's tummy tickled and screams so loudly and abruptly in your
ears that you half-vow never to go there again. There's a moment in the middle
of 'Pentangling' where you fear this beast is never going to let you go or get
back into it's box, that it's simply going to feature four shrieking musicians
and a singer going 'aaaaah' like a banshee possessed forever, that you've been
lured to your death out of musical curiosity, siren-style. There are long
periods too where nothing seems to be happening - something that later longer
Pentangle albums can get away with but which this one (a mere half hour long from head to tail)
just can't afford.
However just as animals kept in zoos are only living
out a folk memory of what made them wild in the first process, so no other
later Pentangle album will ever feel quite this gloriously 'free' again. We
marvel in reviews of later Pentangle records at the musician's abilities to
read each other so well after years of playing together. On this record, though
the band have known each other in twos and threes for quite long stretches of
time, they've only just begun to play as a quintet and you can hear the very
real doubt in the band's minds as they breath in nervously and cross their
fingers and hope that somehow they will all find their way back to the straight
and narrow at the same time, after walking into a wholly un-catalogued part of
the jungle. Amazingly the official word on this album is that Pentangle (of
whom only Bert and John were used to recording studios) recorded almost every
song on this album on the first take - the few songs that collapsed being taped
safely in two or three takes. It's that element that's so astonishing to me: I
could well believe that Pentangle could manage the old 'monkeys in front of
typewriters' thing and just keeping taping over all their 'bad' nights until
they caught a good one. I would have understood too if the band had played
safe, repeating the songs they'd already recorded together while guesting on
each other's solo albums or recorded the sort of material they'll do later (the
more 'obvious' folk standards, from 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken?' to 'Sally
Free And Easy' - well, perhaps we'd better make that 'obvious assuming you grew
up above a folk club'). Instead we get three traditional songs very few people
would have known, one recent cover song that you'd still have to be a pretty
big folk collector to know (and still probably wouldn't recognise as done here)
and four musical jams. That's a tall order for any band to get right but
Pentangle, at their youngest and hungriest, sound as if they've been doing this
all their lives.
To some extent, of course, they had - adult lives
anyway. 'Pentangle' were the CSN of the folk world in many ways, a
'super-group' of five performers who'd already made a name for themselves and
had gotten together not so much to further their careers but because that's the
way the music seemed to be taking them (and just as CSN were well known enough
to play their second ever gig in public at Woodstock, so Pentangle's second
'real' gig was a sell out show at the Royal Festival Hall in May 1968, after
lots of great performances for locals at a London folk club called 'The
Horseshoe Hotel'in Tottenham Court Road across the early part of 1967 - shame
no one had a tape recorder). Bert had already made four solo albums by the time
of this debut LP, while John had made three, while the two friends had already
made a joint album together in 1966 that in many ways is the genesis of the
'Pentangle' sound as well as guesting on each other's solo records. Though the
pair were technically rivals, battling it out for the prestigious spots at folk
clubs, the pair's styles were so different to each other that they were more
like mutual admirers who found several shared passions (Bert's purist folk was
driven by words and rhythms and his solo albums almost always feature
instrumentals featuring fast finger-flying chord exercises - John's background
was in blues and was based more around melody and mood, while his own
fast-flying guitar solos tended to be clear and precise; if Pentangle had been
a rock band Bert would have been the rhythm player and John the soloist but as
usual the lines were more blurred than that in Pentangle).
They quickly became such good friends that they
agreed to share the rent of a flat in London's St John's Wood together, which
quickly became the scene for several extravagant folk parties and the in-place
to hang out (including a film camera from Denmark who captured Bert and John
rehearsing together in their flat for the documentary series 'Folksangre' -
they play a mean version of 'Bells', with John laughing in delight at how well
their styles mesh together). Three of the people who hung out were Jacqui,
Danny and drummer Terry Cox, who hadn't yet made an album between them before
but were big names in their own right on the local folk scene. Of the three
Jacqui had perhaps the most interesting career: she got so tired of not being
allowed to sing that she sank her own money into running a folk club called The
Red Lion at a pub in Surrey and filled in for every singer who were too
inebriated to turn up. Like Renbourn she had a really wide knowledge of early
folk songs and knew most of what local bands liked performing anyway. Hearing
about Bert's impressive following, she booked him to appear and the pair became
friends - John too through Bert, who as the nerviest singer in the band found
Jacqui an ideal partner for his guitar playing with the two becoming a firm
double act (Bert, as usual, preferred to go it alone). Jacqui became a key
guest on John's final pre-Pentangle album 'Another Monday', which along with
'Bert and John' sounds very much like an early regeneration of 'Pentangle', but
the later purer folk Pentangle than this first LP. Danny had been playing in
Alexis Korner's Blues Band and wishing he could play more folk when Alexis
hired Terry as the band's new drummer -whose first love was also folk. The pair
became fast friends and continued as a sort of ad hoc rhythm section for a
number of bands after the Korner band finally folded. The pair happened to be
playing together as the support act on a bill that included both Bert solo and
John and Jacqui together at the Horseshoe Hotel and they discovered between
them that they played similar music which also happened to sound nothing like what
anyone else happened to be playing. Though it was Bert backstage who first
mused 'hey wouldn't it be a great idea if we all got together and made up a new
band based around all our similarities and differences?', he was simply
dreaming of something he didn't think was likely to happen: all five had their
own careers already with their own audiences and they weren't likely to see
each other again. John in particular, though, thought that the idea was a
brilliant one and made sure it would happen, approaching the others about their
thoughts and deciding that everyone thought it was worth a shot.
It was, to some extent, a gamble: none of the five
had ever performed in a band the size of Pentangle and folk music,
traditionally, tended to be played by soloists or in twos and threes. Though
The Incredible String Band in particular can lay claim to be the first folk
'band' long before Pentangle, 'pure' folk bands (rather than folk-rock bands
like The Byrds) were rare. Pentangle was a very conscious leap into the unknown
the band didn't have to make, as all five had their own careers going for them.
Translating the material the band already knew into new arrangements for a five
piece were going to be tricky too, while getting the different 'feel' of the
five different performers (based around folk, blues and jazz) seemed near
impossible. Given the need to differentiate between the two guitarists, Bert
and John came up with the plan to either alternate acoustic and electric (still
something that made folk purists gnash their teeth even two years after Bob
Dylan was nicknamed 'Judas' for plugging in on stage) and, where possible, a different instrument
with Bert getting out his banjo and John 'borrowing' Bert's battered
second-hand sitar (bought in shadowy circumstances according to the sleevenotes
of Pentangle's 'The Time Has Come' box set). However though the members of
Pentangle were very different in many ways, they shared a similar musical
curiosity. The fact that no other band had ever tried to do something quite
like Pentangle before was, rather than something to be feared, something to be
celebrated. And if the band kept their tentative rehearsals quiet then they
could just go back to their old jobs anyway in a few weeks' time, the folk
world none the wiser. Far from being formed by a desire to change the folk
music landscape forever, Pentangle were more of a 'gee wouldn't it be nice if
we?...' kind of a band and who were, it seems, as surprised as anybody at how
different their combined style was to anything any of them had individually
made before.
The band needed a name - and Renbourn happened to
have one ready, as if he'd been waiting for this moment to come along all his
life. 'Pentangle' were a super-group made up of five 'stars' so it made sense
to give them the name of a five-star emblem that, though forgotten by 1967,
used to be a 'special' sign in his beloved Medieval manuscripts (basically
another word for a 'pentagram'). A magical sign intended to ward off evil
spirits, it's thought Renbourn got the idea from the shield King Arthur was
meant to have had at Camelot according to a series of mystery sources (that
were already somewhat middle aged in the Middle Ages). Though it's to be
debated whether the logo really did help the band steer off bad vibes given
that the band only lasted six years, with more than their fair share of
heartbreak along the way (perhaps the emblem only worked for a certain limited
time?) it certainly seemed to 'fit': to folk fans who knew enough about old
manuscripts it was a nice traditional symbol; to the psychedelic rock fan its
association with magic and the supernatural made it perfect for a band formed
in the year 1967 and to the general public it was just a distinctive logo that
stood out on concert posters and record covers. What's more, the picture summed
up Pentangle's ethos: though the 'pentangle' ended in five points, the
intercuts between the lines resulted in an 'extra' five triangles, with the
five stars overlapping and interweaving with one another. This wasn't a band in
stasis, with set boundaries - this was a band that delighted in going anywhere,
with every section of the picture representing a different 'style' that could
be explored at will, brought to the table by any of the five band members.
Audiences, used to one thing or the other, were at
first confused by Pentangle. There's a famous story that the first time
Pentangle played together outside their Horseshoe Hotel home at a Jazz and
Blues Festival in Windsor - sandwiched on the bill between the pure folk of
Joan Baez and the pure blues of Fleetwood Mac and Cream - a member of the front
row assumed they were a comedy band and laughed his socks off throughout the
performance, while the rest of the audience either tittered nervously along or
watched in stony silence. That was nearly Pentangle's last gig too, but enough
people around the band had faith to let them continue. Transatlantic Records
had already signed Bert and John (paying them a pittance for record sales but
allowing them almost total freedom - a price worth paying for both men) and the
pair's record together had, by Transatlantic standards, been an impressively
strong seller. How better, then, to have an extra three potential audiences to
buy into this new band? Manager and entrepreneur Jo Lustig also instantly 'got'
the possibilities Pentangle offered that no one else could and offered the band
a one-shot makeover 'deal'. If the band 'retired' from their Horseshoe Hotel
gigs and worked up enough material for an album, he would 'launch' them afresh
via the Royal Festival Hall, something the media savvy Lustig marked up as a
big 'event'. All Pentangle had to do was turn up and play and instead of going
after the media (something a band like Pentangle were always deeply reluctant
to do) the media came to them. As a result, while 'The Pentangle' wasn't a big
seller (people really weren't sure what to make of it) it got an awful lot of
notice for a debut album by a 'new' band. Reviews were slightly mixed too:
unsure of quite what reviewers to send the album to, Lustig sent it to everyone
and, surprisingly, most of the genre reviewers at least mentioned it (often as
'disc of the week'). As a very wide generalisation the jazz community
(suspicious of genre-bending) condemned it, the folk community really scratched
their heads over it (did recording some of the oldest and obscurest folk songs
known to exist in a cutting edge style make this the most traditional folk
album ever or the least?) and the blues community largely ignored it. However
the rock and pop community did 'get' it - at least enough to see the tie-in
first single (sadly not on the album) 'Traveling Song' rated as 'disc of the
week' above The Rolling Stones' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' out at the same time and
for enough reviewers to enjoy the 'no holds barred' adventurous spirit seeping
through every pore (even if the jazzier passages left one or two a little
chilly).
So, after all that history and wonderfully random
preparation, is 'The Pentangle' an album that lives up to its reputation and
no-holds-barred impact? Well, yes and no. The interplay between the band
members is wonderful and the saving grace of the album - though Pentangle will
remain a tight and largely telepathic band right to the last, here the group
feel as if they're actively searching the edges of their boundaries, seeing how
far they can push things before a song collapses in on itself (quite far, as it
happens). Some of the moments here really are amongst the best things the band
ever did: Jacqui and Danny - who'd only just met months before the recording of
'Let No Man Steal Your Thyme' - turn in one of the definitive Pentangle
performances which transforms what could have been a twee song about a fair
maiden using herbs as metaphors for her virginity into a scary adult world of
new confusing rules that everybody understands but no one talks about. Though I
love Jacqui's pure voice as much as the next fan - possibly more - for me this
most uncharacteristic is her definitive
performance, adding a sultry mocking sneer alongside her protestations,
suggesting the lady doth protest a bit too much (very sixties). 'Bells' may
well be the best of the small handful of instrumentals Pentangle will go on to
do (half of them are on this album as it turns out), a playful darting melody
that's passed between Bert and John like two athlete relay runners at the peak
of their fitness. The jolly 'Way Behind The Sun', a traditional folk song so
obscure only one other bands has ever covered it (and what do you know, it's
another AAA band - The Byrds, whose bass player John York fell head over heels
in love with it after buying this album) shows that Pentangle can do jolly as
well as the blues where doesn't merely sing but purrs. Parts of the mammoth jam
sessions (the lyrical beginning and the breathtakingly noisy finale of
'Pentangling' and the middle of 'Waltz' when the band stop toying with us and
hit straight back into the song's strutting riff, complete with handclaps) are
brilliant too in only an as-live by-the-seat-of-your-pants recording can be (curiously
Pentangle sound almost stiff by comparison on the 'actual' live recording on
second album 'Sweet Child', too concerned with being precise than with being
brave).
However, compared to the albums to come (especially
the second and third) this isn't a feast but a snack (seeing as it's a double
album, 'Sweet Child' can be considered a banquet). Though I understand why the
jazz licks are so prominent here - this is, after all, a band who are still
getting to know each other and what better way to get to know another musician
than to jam with them? - they're arguably less interesting than the folk
overload of albums two and four-to-six or the let's-include-everything
gloriousness of third album 'Basket Of Light'. At a mere half hour this is
Pentangle's shortest album by some margin and sounds like it too - though the
seven minute 'Pentangling' and five minute closing pair of 'Bruton Town' and
'Waltz' are daring for their day, all of
them feel slightly shortened (particularly compared to later lie arrangements),
a fascinating day trip rather than the week-long vacation they appeared to
promise from the cover and period reviews. 'Hear My Call' and 'Mirage' are
amongst the weakest songs the early Pentangle had in their set - the CD
re-issue thankfully adds a further three songs considered for release and
arguably they all should be here, if not instead of then as well as to make
this album feel as substantial as many of its parts do: 'Koan' adds a touch of
Arabic flavour to the band's sound and while it's a take away from getting
things right it's an important enough piece of the puzzle to have deserved
inclusion; 'The Wheel' is a curious blues guitar/drums workout that sounds at
one with earlier Jansch pieces like 'The Waggoner's Lad'; 'The Casbah' would
have fleshed out the record's blues quota a bit more too with a nicely smoky
creepy atmosphere. The CD also includes four alternate versions of the
recordings (more or less making it a 'complete' collection of everything
Pentangle did for their first album), of which the best is a rockier go at
'Bruton Town'. Even so, with all these extras the album still only lasts fifty
minutes and feels slightly underwhelming and less active than the list of the
album's achievements have suggested down the years (we came all this way to see
the beast and he's flipping asleep!)
Even so, AAA albums always get bonus points for
invention and bravery and this is where 'The Pentangle' catches back up with
its peers in a big way. Though often the description that 'it's the only one of
its kind' is an insult, here it's a comment made with admiration. Even the
other Pentangle records don't sound like this one, which is so close to the
'fire' of the excitement and discovery that made Pentangle want to work
together you can still get burnt from this album half a century or so later.
Many fans rate it as their best work in fact, but there's still something
slightly unfinished and lightweight about it all, with the material not always
up to the performances for now. Better, deeper, stronger, longer Pentangle
albums are available, then, but that doesn't stop this debut being a
fascinating first course or from being perhaps the band's most 'fun' album
(despite the heavy emphasis on blues). Let no man steal your copy - this is the
sort of record that sounds like a one-off, then and now, in both good ways and
bad.
'Let No Man Steal Your Thyme' is in many ways the
perfect song for Pentangle to start their career with. Though the song dates
back to 1689 and almost certainly earlier (like many of the references in these
articles, that's just the date it was first written down), 'Thyme' sounds like
a very contemporary sort of song that works on multiple levels. On the one hand
it's a simple tale of a bit of herb thievery with some botanical references
thrown in ('A woman is a branchy tree, a man a clinging vine'). On another it's
a feminist statement, a warning to other fair maidens not to let men take their
virginity easily because 'when your thyme is past and gone, he'll care no more
for you'. On yet another the pun on the word 'thyme' makes it clear that it's a
part of your life you'll lose forever if you get pregnant while unmarried and
cast out by society - that it's your future 'time' you'll lose. As early as the
opening growling double-bass note from Danny you're hooked: this is a sound
like no other band around in 1967/1968 and acts like a guard dog, growling at
all those who would harm the narrator to back off. Jacqui, meanwhile, is the
epitome of a pure innocent maid - except when she isn't, adding several blues
style hollerings into her voice that also make her sound as if she's singing
from experience, struggling to regain her earlier innocent years when this song
really would have seemed about a 'herb garden' not a metaphor for being
exploited. Though male, the rest of Pentangle wrap her voice up in a cocoon to
keep her safe, with twin meshed guitars from Jansch and Renbourn that really
take flight off on a glorious instrumental as if chasing all would-be-suitors
away and a rat-a-tat drumming from Terry nailing the lid shut on a box that no
one can penetrate. Though other folk acts had recorded this song in the past
(usually under the song's alternate name 'The Sprig Of Thyme') most versions
tend to pick up on the nursery rhyme style melody and make the song curiously
happy. Pentangle don't do that, instead turning this into a painful lament full
of fear and fright, but above all loneliness: Jacqui's narrator has, depending on
how you read this version, either been jilted herself or is doomed by her own
hand to a life of loneliness and isolation, afraid of men who 'take what they
can find'. An excellent beginning, with all the band on good form but
especially Jacqui who delivers a complex narrative with just the right range of
moods.
'Bells' is a charming four minute guitar workout invented
by Bert and John who found it a great way of showing off their respective
styles back when they were a folk duo. That's Bert's blues-based wailings on
the electric on the left and John's more traditionally folky acoustic on the
right, interweaving a fascinating tapestry of madly dancing staccato rhythms.
The oldest song in Pentangle terms on the album - the pair had been playing
this for a good year before starting work on this first record - its best heard
in 'rehearsal' form on that Folksangre documentary where it's wilder and faster
and shows off even more differences between the pair. This version is slower
and slightly more static, perhaps because Bert and John have found space in the
arrangement for Danny and Terry, but while the heavy drum rolls at the end do
add a certain gravitas to the sound, this is a song that should have stayed as
a double guitar workout I think. The song is rather oddly named too - it
doesn't remind me of ringing bills so much as clucking hens or - that perennial
Pentangle favourite - the steam train rattling down a long and winding track.
Even so, the central riff is a good one and an obvious candidate for Pentangle's
jazzy improv era, a step above most of the instrumentals on the guitarists' own
solo albums. The extended CD re-issue of the 'Sweet Child' album contains a
particularly good live version of the song too.
Pentangle weren't just about the covers from their
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. Occasionally they covered
songs by their peers as well, usually at the rate of one per album, starting
with this album's 'Hear My Call' as first recorded by the Staple Singers. A
Pentangle style mix of jazz and gospel, you can see why this song would have
appealed, although as usual Pentangle go a little further in teasing out all
the nuances of the original, switching from an introspective tiny voice asking
for help from God into a stormy sea of noise and confusion hinting at the drama
rattling along underneath the surface. Once again, Jacqui's purity and Danny's
outrageous jazz improvs on the double bass make for a particularly potent
combination, as if the narrator is trying hard to sound prim and proper and
respectful but has too many inner wild emotions bubbling up inside. Alas the
melody is a little less gripping than most on the record and is a little too
forgettable compared to the other tracks, while Jacqui's voice is perhaps a
little too 'folk' for a song so steeped in blues, gospel and jazz. The lyrics too
are rather more poetical and fragmentary than Pentangle's usual style to come
and Jacqui doesn't sound quite as comfortable here as she will on more
character driven songs. As early as the third song Pentangle also seem to have
got slightly stuck into a mid-tempo boom-cha-cha boom-cha-cha rhythm style which
is in danger of restricting them. All in all one of the weaker songs on the
album.
Side closer 'Pentangling', though, is an epic that
breaks every rule, every restriction. Credited to the whole band, it's a jazz
jam that lasts for a full seven minutes (live versions tended to last for even
longer - there's a fab seventeen minute
version on the 'Time Has Come' box set for instance). The song starts as a
quiet ballad as sung by Jacqui which was written by 'word association', with
everyone coming up with a line each and passing it on to the next person to see
what they would do with it. This is a style that seems to have really united
the band and results in some of the most alluring, poetical Pentangle writing: 'The
summer slips below the surface, floating slowly in clear water' (surely a
Renbourn line given the similarities with his later track 'So Clear') and
'Heart and soul, life passes from one to another, death alone walks with no one
to converse with' (which sounds more like something from a Jansch solo LP). If
there is a story to be taken from all this, it seems to be of a lonely narrator
taking a trip to the river, jealous at all her friends and siblings falling in
love while she's left with no one and contemplating jumping in it to take her
blues away. In the second verse Jacqui switches from pure folk ballad into
funky blues, joined by Bert's voice as if mocking her own pure tones. Somewhere
at the end of this the song changes tacks again, turning into a monumental solo
section that sounds like some sort of big 'revelation'. Suddenly without
warning we're in the middle of a frenetic jazz workout with Bert pinging up and
John finger-picking down, over a groovy bass and drum workout that in truth
sounds a little tame on this recording but will on the stage become the stuff
of legend. Suddenly at 3:30 the song lurches to a full stop with Danny getting
a full minute of double bass whoops to himself with an other-worldly racket
that does a pretty good of suggesting the narrator has just dunked themselves
in the water. Somehow, though, the life force is too strong and just as the
bass sounds appear to sound like 'drowning', Danny kicks himself back into the
groove with Bert and Jacqui chiming in too over the top with another twist: 'I
had a dream of love, all night long, I thought I heard a siren sing a song of
love'. That hope is enough to put the song back on the straight and narrow
although both singers sound slightly deranged here, manic and possessed rather
than purely optimistic.
Next up comes a fast-paced guitar riff Bert had had
kicking around for years looking for a home as the singers debate back and
forth what this river 'really' is. Many folk songs have rivers and lakes and
wide wide oceans as metaphors for love - the unfathomable, the unknowable,
working to its own curious tide. That might be the case here as Jacqui sings
'Does this river belong to me? Or anybody I know?' There's also the hint that
the narrator has arrived in the next world, the river her earthly body has just
drowned in taking her spiritual soul somewhere new. Bert protests he didn't
really mean to die, that 'I just fished a little to ease my body and soul'
while the big finale is ambiguous: 'Let my mind relax, let my consciousness be
free and easy'. The music, though, is anything but free and easy, with John and
Terry getting increasingly carried away as they set out on a battle royale to
see who can play in the most outrageous way, eventually fading out as the two
finally run out of steam a little (result: a draw). Though the version played
here is a little too tentative, with great obvious switches of gears between
the parts, you can tell that this is already a band favourite, the first
'Pentangle' song rather than a 'hey I've been playing this song for years and
thought it might suit us' one from the past. It's a song that needs all the
five elements of the band to work and gives them all chances to shine, pushing
back the boundaries of what each of them had been used to and that sense of
excitement is clearly there in the room. It's just a shame that the band still
don't know each other well enough yet to really go for it - like many a track
on this album it's a shame they didn't keep this one as the 'safe' banker
recording and try to go even more all out the next time; the later live
recordings show what a daring and provocative track this could be at its live
peak. Still, you've never Pentangled unless you've heard 'Pentangling', one of
the greatest examples of why this band were like no other of their era - or
anybody's eras.
'Mirage' is the only song credited to an individual
in the band and no surprise that it's one of Bert's. Very much the most
experienced writer in Pentangle at this time, this track would have sounded
right at home on one of his first solo albums, with the same melancholia
flecked with hope as second album 'It Don't Bother Me' especially. However it's
a sensible choice to put aside for Pentangle: the rhythm section give this song
a darkness and danger the track would never have had if Bert had performed it
solo and Jacqui's velvet tones make the contrast between a pure idea of romance
and the harsh realities of life that much greater than if Bert had sang it solo
in his usual endearing scowl. The track is not obviously like any previous
Jansch song though. 'Come here sweet lover, come carry me away from here...' it
starts, like it's about to be a romantic love song from a musical or Cliff
Richard (or worse, a musical about Cliff Richard). However, while Jacqui floats
in the heavens, Danny's urgent and increasingly desperate bass riffs sound like
someone's legs flailing desperately in the air trying to find land again,
working hard without ever really getting anywhere. Hence, perhaps, the second
verse: 'Take me across deserts red, mirage take me there'. The narrator knows
this isn't 'real' love, the way he's always dreamed of - its a passing illusion
before he finds out all the negative traits of his beloved, the difference
between loving someone from afar and seeing all the truths up close. By the
end, though, he's too desperate with the idea of love to care if this is mirage
or not: 'Take me to the end of a rainbow dream, falling into your arms...'
Unique in both Jansch and Pentangle canons, 'Mirage' sticks out like a sore
plectrum, with less of the folk jazz and
blues practices of the rest of this album. Instead it sounds like a rock band
trying to do a ballad when they've never done one before - or balladeers who've
just hired The Who's rhythm section by accident and don't quite know how to
keep up with them. I'm not sure the result quite works, switching too heavily
from one gear to another, but as ever with this album the fact that Pentangle
end up with a song that sounds like nothing else anybody else ever made is
something to be proud of, not ashamed.
One of the most influential songs on the album is
'Way Behind The Sun'. A very traditional folk song so obscure and yet so
contemporary sounding almost everyone who bought or reviewed this album assumed
it was an original, the earliest recording I can find is a 1964 recording by
blues singer Barbara Dane. Pentangle sound nothing like that version though -
this is perhaps their most out and out jazz song (as opposed to jam session),
with Jacqui sounding like a totally different singer as she channels the ghost
of Billie Holiday, the two guitarists turning their guitars so they sound more
like John's beloved Big Bill Broonzy and Terry playing the sort of scattershot
shuffle common to 1960s jazz recordings. The song is a good choice, with Jacqui
given a rare chance to play predator rather than victim, offering up another
warning to girls everywhere to 'beware' of men ('He'll roll you over in the
clover and never come back again!') However, far from being passive, Jacqui's
character is on the hunt for a man of her own, perhaps in another world 'way
behind the sun' where all the rules have changed and it's the girls who are on
the search for 'honey' ('and if I find it I might just bring you some!') It's a
curious fact that many traditional English folk songs automatically have
psychedelic overtones. Life, for many of the people writing these sorts of songs,
was a sort of 'code' - a system of rules that people had to follow which none
of them quite understood, with references that had to be written in such a way
that they could plead perfect innocence whilst simultaneously saying what they
wanted to say. As a result many folk songs sound as if the writers had been on
drug trips, with references to space and metaphors loaded with meaning that
sound curious out of context of their times, and even though drugs aren't the
invention of the 1960s as everybody seems to think now, it's unlikely the
writer of this song, for instance, had ever tasting anything stronger than mead
(whoever he or she was). However the end result on 'Way Behind The Sun'
especially is a song that could so easily be a psychedelic classic: a song that
dreams of another life away from this one, set to a different set of rules,
where the word 'honey' even to modern ears sound risqué when applied to love
and downright dodgy when applied to drugs, though it's a word many other period
songs use innocently enough; this is a Jefferson Airplane song right here! Though
actually it was folk-rockers The Byrds that became the AAA band who recorded
it, John York the bass player from 1968 to 1969 having adored this album when
it first came out. Though the teenager had little influence over his hardened
veteran colleagues the albums 'Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde' and 'Ballad Of Easy Rider'
have a particularly Pentangle slant. The Byrds initially unreleased version
(heard on the 'Easy Rider' bonus tracks or either Byrds box set) is a merry
jaunt, but Pentangle's sounds like life and death despite being as fun and as
exciting as anything else on the album. Played with gusto by the band a sneer
from Jacqui that makes her sound like Liam Gallagher's long lost twin sister,
'Way Behind The Sun' is one of the better short songs on this first album and
perhaps the first to really show what Pentangle were all about: reminding the
world that the past had once been as real as the present and that though times
change people rarely do. There'll be much more of this sort of thing on the
next five Pentangle albums.
'Bruton Town' remains however, the single most 'Pentangle'
moment on the first album, the closest to a template here on this debut album. Bruton
was and is a real town located in Yeovil, Somerset and as far as anyone can
tell after a distance of eight hundred odd years (plus?) a murder really take
place in the town as described in the song. Usually titled 'The Bramble's
Briar', it is most likely a seventeenth century re-telling of a fourteenth
century tale known as 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil', which may itself be
based on a much older tale. A posh little rich girl falls in love with her
servant and the pair elope, much to the horror of her family. Her two brothers,
fearful that she's thrown her life away, pretend to invite him out hunting with
them and murder him, throwing his body into a ditch (or a hedge of brambled in
the original). They pretend to their sister that the servant ran off and
couldn't be found. The servant returns in a dream, though, and shows her where
the body is. Riding out the next morning, she finds the body and mourns for
three days and nights before going back to accuse her brothers (thankfully,
perhaps, Pentangle's version 'loses' a gruesome verse from the original about
cutting his head off and putting it in a jar to show them). Interestingly in
the original she gets revenge, of a sort, denouncing her family and causing
them to fall in reputation to the point where they'd have been glad to see her
married off to a servant. In Pentangle's version, though, everyone loses: the
lady simply slinks back home 'where she was obliged to go' unable to face up to
the revelations this would cause. As is so often the case on their albums, a
sudden moment's fall from grace via a moment of love-struck foolishness creates
monumental ripples, turning formerly upstanding people into murderers and
leading to the death of an innocent man. Pentangle even end their song on that
line played in slow motion, turning 'goooooo' into a four syllable word, as if
taunting us with our preconception that there will be a happy ending. Not in
this world. Not in the real world of English counties and class systems and
jealousy. An early Pentangle live favourite 'Bruton Town' is a song easy to
admire with Bert and Jacqui trading lines and verses to great effect, but hard
to love: there's something cold and distant about this song which lacks the
warmth of most Pentangle songs from yesteryear. The song's stop-start melody is
also not built for easy listening, even though as ever with Pentangle everything
is gloriously placed, with Renbourn's solemn lament of a solo especially
capturing the mood of futility over the whole situation. Though praised
deservedly at the time for delivering a rock grunt to a traditional folk song
that was still played authentically (the only folk song here most folkies might
have actually known), 'Bruton Town' isn't quite as electrifying as other later
Pentangle folk recordings to come.
The album ends with 'Waltz', a song credited to the
whole band but which is really a couple of instrumentals by Bert and John stuck
together. John had even recorded his song, also titled 'Waltz', as part of his
'Another Monday' album and it's merry jig will prove to be popular with
compilers of Renbourn CDs for some time. Bert's song 'The Casbah', meanwhile
(which is the jazzy bit in the middle) was also recorded by the band early in
the album but abandoned when Pentangle decided to combine the two. The song
isn't in 3/4 'waltz' time for very long by the way - and good luck dancing to
this one! - but was named by John after memories of growing up near the baudy
lights of a carnival that came every summer, full of rides and glitz and glamour.
Though a great showcase for the whole band this song is especially strong for
the rhythm section, who play with a power and grit they don't often get a
chance to show off. While the guitarists keep the song on the straight and
narrow, Danny and Terry play cat and mouse with our emotions throughout the
song, coasting off in tandem before jumping back in again hard at key moments
across the song. Danny's double bass solo towards the end is exquisite, pausing
for breath unexpectedly on seemingly random notes before somehow finding his
way back into the song's funky groove (even sniffing at one point in
concentration at around the 4:00 mark, which curiously cleans up rather well on
CD!) Terry, too, signals each return into the song with a glorious 'circle' of
drums, teasing us with when he's actually going to hit back into this song full
pelt. The song's highlight though is surely towards the end when everyone else
backs away leaving John to pick out the song's rhythm on his own while Bert,
Danny and Terry simultaneously break into flamenco handclaps before, equally
united, pounding into the song again. A glorious display of Pentangle's
interplay, this track is deliciously live and you can feel the electricity crackling
in the air as the band feel their way into this improvisation where everything
could so easily go wrong. Of course nothing does, which is a marvel really considering
how complex and tricky this instrumental is. One of the best examples of
Pentangle's jazzier side, it's a shame that they'll never attempt anything
quite like this again (from now on Pentangle instrumentals will tend to be
earnest versions of old folk songs, while only the twenty minute 'Jack Orion'
from 1970 will dare to match this song's feeling of going wrong at any moment).
A glorious finale that finally unleashes the wild beast that's been playing
with us across the rest of the record.
The result is an album that's impressively daring
and original for a debut, with several great moments on it. Fans of the
jazzier, improvisatory side of Pentangle's output are in for a treat, with
'Waltz' and 'Pentangling' the best longer examples of this in Pentangle's canon
and 'Way Behind The Sun' the best example of the shorter songs. 'Thyme' too is,
well, 'Thymeless', as good a folk cover as any Pentangle will deliver in their
five years and six albums together. What this record isn't is a fully rounded
and accessible album the way that 'Basket Of Light' and a lot of the others
are. Many fans more used to the later folkier recordings actually hate this
album, with its lengthy instrumentals and curiously short running time,
complaining that nothing ever happens except for interminable bass solos
(though fans who love it rather than loathe it probably win by around 2:1 I'd
say). Typically, I'm right in the middle: I love parts of this album and admire
almost all of it, with Pentangle still enjoying the excitement of having
discovered a new sound that's quite unlike anything else out there and
determined to throw everything at it. This is not, however, a record made for
repeated listening. Even the deliberately opaque and challenging 'Cruel Sister'
has been in my CD player more times than this record, which still has an
impenetrable layer I can't quite break through, leaving this as an album to be
impressed by and occasionally knocked out by rather than one to fall in love
with. It may in fact be the weakest of the original six, if only for the short
playing time and the relative drop in quality in the middle of the record (the
reunion records are, sadly, another matter though not as bad as many people
think). Bear in mind, however, that that's a 'wow that only goes to show how
great all the others are!' comment rather than a 'gee this is awful' one. In
fact I'm rather glad that there is an album like this in Pentangle's canon,
just to show how well they could play as an ensemble and with the jazz
overtones up higher than all their other styles, even if the folkier recordings
of later years suits them slightly better. If you like the other Pentangle
albums then you still need this album - but if you're new to Pentangle then
your best bet is to wait until you've bought everything else and then you can
listen to this at a whole new level, out of interest as to how their usual
style has been altered and adapted to fit a band still exploring what their
combined sound is like after years of playing solo or in pairs rather than as a
towering achievement in its own right. This remains, however, a very
influential and explosive debut which got everybody talking (if not actually
buying - not yet at least). Now, people wanted to know, would Pentangle branch out from this style?
And how many styles could they possibly combine on their second LP, released a
mere six months later? Oh, at least twenty as it happens...
A Now Complete List Of Pentangle
Related Articles At Alan’s Album Archives:
'The Pentangle' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-pentangle-1968.html
'Sweet Child' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/pentangle-sweet-child-1968.html
'Basket Of Light' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-31-pentangle-basket-of-light.html
'Cruel Sister' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/pentangle-cruel-sister-1970.html
'Reflection' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/peantangle-reflection-1971-album-review.html
‘Solomon’s Seal’ (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/pentangle-solomons-seal-1972.html?utm_source=BP_recent
Bert Jansch Obituary and Tribute (2011): http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/bert-jansch-obituary-news-views-and.html
John Renbourn Obituary and
Tribute (2015): http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/john-renbourn-tribute-special.html
Surviving TV Appearances
1968-2000 and The Best Unreleased Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/pentangle-double-bill-surviving-tv.html
Non-Album Songs 1968-2000 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/pentangle-non-album-songs-1968-2000.html
Live/Solo/Compilation
Albums Part One: 1962-1972 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/pentangle-sololivecompilation-albums.html
Live/Solo/Compilation
Albums Part Two: 1973-1987 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/pentangle-sololivecompilationreunion.html
Live/Solo/Compilation
Albums Part Three: 1988-2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/pentangle-sololivecompilationreunion.html
Landmark Concerts and Key Cover Versions http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/pentangle-five-landmark-concerts-and.html
Essay: The Time Has Come (Or Has It Been?!?) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/04/pentangle-essay-time-has-come-or-has-it.html
