The guitar accompaniment is quite complex being a sort of country blues vamp and on occasion the vocal seems to buckle under the strain of coordination. When it first started, my redneck radar kicked in but I think it was a false alarm. His voice is slightly southern but not to the point of irritation. It's calm. The guitar too is more sophisticated than the picking patterns I've heard before in this style.
Smokey River, the second track is instrumental and shows off his guitar technique but it's a very short piece and that speaks volumes about how this guy is serving the music rather his need to show off. This is followed by a song much more toward the folk end of the spectrum. Again, his voice is just present and comfortable. There are no vocal gymnastics here and no over-stylised quirks and licks. It's simple, which compliments his quite busy guitar accompaniment.
He has command of more than a few patterns tho so each song sounds a little different from the last even though they are in closely related if not the same keys.
I've never heard of Jansch before so I had no expectations but I have to say I'm very pleasantly surprised by this most mellow of recordings. The first time I heard Mellow Morning by Spirit or Going To California by Led Zeppelin or Solid Air by John Martyn, I had this wave of happy calm come over me. My first joint was still years away but I already knew what it was to be nicely crusted.
Yeah. We like this one.
I was just about to leave it there and then the last track started. It's called Angie and it's a minor descending progression with a hook made out of a turn. I've heard I don't know how many acoustic guitarists play this at various nights and never knew it was Burt Jansch. I love it when that happens.
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