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To an awkward, blues-fixated teenager growing up on Tyneside, Bert and his music were a link to the far-off world of the itinerant bluesmen and the no less remote café society of beats and bohemians I felt sure must exist in London and Paris...Rod Clements, 2000 |
For a proper understanding of the phenomenon that is Rod Clements, it is vitally important not to underestimate the extent of the influence which Bert Jansch has exerted throughout Rod's career.
In 1965, Rod first heard - and bought - Bert's debut album in a Newcastle record shop.
Bert can even be credited with - indirectly - introducing Rod to Alan Hull. First time Rod met Alan was onstage at the latter's folk club, as Alan presented him with the prize which Rod had just won in the raffle - Bert's Birthday Blues album. Rod was later to recall that it was the only time in his life that he had ever won a raffle - the hand of fate indeed.
1974 In The Bleak Midwinter - single
Rod takes up the story:
For anyone who wishes to hear/possess a copy of this historic recording, it appears as track 22
on CD2 of The Best Christmas Album in the World... Ever! (New Edition, VTDCD 347). It is not presently known to exist in any other commercially available format.
To recapitulate, Rod's personal involvement with Bert Jansch dates to 1974,
when at the instigation of Ralph
McTell, Rod played bass on Bert's single In The Bleak Midwinter.
Rod first met Bert in 1974, at a Jack The
Lad gig at The Howff in Hampstead. Rod had by now left the band, and
Ralph, an old friend who was about to go out on tour with JTL as
support act, also showed up in the audience. Bert was with him, and as they say,
one thing pretty much led to another.
'Jack The Lad's pre-tour promo gig at The Howff, Hampstead, 1974, was the
first time I'd met Bert. He'd come with Ralph, but wasn't present when Ralph
outlined the project to me - I actually first met Bert in the gents a few
minutes later, & we introduced ourselves. Which is quite funny, as neither of
us is the most outgoing of people in those situations.'
1976 A Rare Conundrum
| By 1976, Bert was living at Rod's house in north London, and Rod recalls that they were playing gigs and going to the pub a lot. Rod was asked to produce Bert's album A Rare Conundrum. This album represented a calculated return to Bert's acoustic roots, and reflected his growing interest in Irish literature, Flann O'Brien (the album title was a phrase lifted directly from O'Brien's work) in particular. |
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Collaborations with Bert Jansch would prove to be a permanent feature of Rod's career, in various shapes and forms. Both contributed to the 1987 tribute to Woody Guthrie, Woody Lives! , and this in turn paved the way for the 1988 album Leather Launderette, by Bert Jansch & Rod Clements. The following year, Rod played alongside Bert in Pentangle.
2000 People on the Highway - A Bert Jansch Encomium
2000 saw the release of People on the Highway - A Bert Jansch Encomium, a tribute to Bert's music by a formidable array of associates and admirers, among them Donovan, Johnny Marr, Roy Harper, Wizz Jones, Ralph McTell and Rab Noakes. The twenty-six track double CD was masterminded by biographer Colin Harper and Peter Muir of Market Square Records.
Rod contributed Rambling's Going To Be The Death of Me, taken from Bert's 1965 debut album, the eponymous Bert Jansch. This song remains a staple of Rod's live performances.
I asked Rod how the song was recorded, and whether there were any other musicians involved. There is very little 'white space' in there, and it sounds like a lot more than just one man and his Dobro. Rod replied:
'Yes, it's just me & dobro. When I recorded that version, I laid down the dobro first (in one pass) and then overdubbed the vocal. As for covering a lot of ground, that's where Bert was at, & where I try to be.'
I'd also like to quote Rod's written contribution to the sleeve notes of this album, both for the factual insights which they offer, and for their sheer literary worth:
'This song exemplifies much of what Bert and his music meant to me and many others at the time in both its accomplishment and its subject matter. It's a stark piece of writing for one so young, exuding familiarity and empathy with the doomed and driven wanderer, adrift between poles of domesticity and an unmarked grave. The fact that his origins were tantalisingly vague, and the perception that his songs and guitar technique had developed through his wanderings around Europe and beyond, all contributed to the mystique that surrounded Bert when he appeared in the mid-sixties. No-one really knew where he had come from, how long he would be staying or where he would be going next, and this song seems to me an accurate reflection of how the world saw Bert at that time, and possibly how he saw himself. To an awkward, blues-fixated teenager growing up on Tyneside, Bert and his music were a link to the far-off world of the itinerant bluesmen and the no less remote café society of beats and bohemians I felt sure must exist in London and Paris (though sadly not in Newcastle). Much later I had the immense good fortune to become Bert's performing partner and to record two albums with him. For me this song evokes a time of discoveries and beginnings, and remains, in every respect, quintessential Bert.'
For all those of you who like to read up on the music and musicians you listen to, this is from Rod as well:
'On all Bert-related matters, everyone should refer to Colin Harper's excellent (and I mean excellent) biography, Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk & Blues Revival (Bloomsbury 2000) which covers my involvement with Bert and Pentangle.'
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