Acid folk series: Pentangle.

Acid folk series: Pentangle.

Pentangle (or The Pentangle)^[1] are a British folk-jazz band with an eclectic mix of folk, jazz, blues and folk rockinfluences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a later version has been active since the early 1980s. The original line-up, which was unchanged throughout the band's first incarnation (1967–1973), was:Jacqui McShee, vocals; John Renbourn, vocals and guitar; Bert Jansch, vocals and guitar; Danny Thompson, double bass; and Terry Cox, drums.

The name Pentangle was chosen to represent the five members of the band, and is also the device on Sir Gawain's shield in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which held a fascination for Renbourn. 

Formation[edit]

The original group formed in 1967. Renbourn and Jansch were already popular musicians on the British folk scene, with several solo albums each and a duet LP, Bert and John. Their use of complex inter-dependent guitar parts, referred to as "folk baroque", had become a distinctive characteristic of their music. They also shared a house in St John's Wood, London.^[3]

Jacqui McShee had begun as an (unpaid) "floor singer" in several of the London folk clubs, and then, by 1965, ran a folk club at the Red Lion in Sutton, Surrey, establishing a friendship with Jansch and Renbourn when they played there. She sang on Renbourn's Another Monday album and performed with him as a duo, debuting at Les Cousins club in August 1966.^[4]

Thompson and Cox were well known as jazz musicians and had played together in Alexis Korner's band. By 1966, they were both part of Duffy Power's Nucleus (a band which also included John McLaughlin on electric guitar). Thompson was well known to Renbourn through appearances at Les Cousins and working with him on a project for television.^[5]

In 1967, the Scottish entrepreneur Bruce Dunnett, who had recently organised a tour for Jansch, set up a Sunday night club for him and Renbourn at the (now defunct) Horseshoe Hotel in Tottenham Court Road.^[6] McShee began to join them as a vocalist and, by March of that year, Thompson and Cox were being billed as part of the band. Renbourn claims to be the "catalyst" that brought the band together but credits Jansch with the idea "to get the band to play in a regular place, to knock it into shape".^[7]

Although nominally a 'folk' group, the members shared catholic tastes and influences. McShee had a grounding in traditional music, Cox and Thompson a love ofjazz, Renbourn a growing interest in early music, and Jansch a taste for blues and contemporaries such as Bob Dylan.

Great nature artists series: Kurt Jackson.

The majority of Jackson's work reflects his commitment to the environment and the natural world within Cornwall, although he also works elsewhere in Britain and mainland Europe; recent projects include bodies of work on the Thames, the Avon, the Forth, Ardnamurchan and the Glastonbury Festival series. His paintings frequently carry small commentaries on the scene depicted and show a fascination particularly with the detail of plants and animals within an overall ecology and evoke a calm, spiritual and warm relationship with the landscape, even of apparently bleak scenes. His work has been described as "uplifting" and "transporting".^[1] To quote Robert Macfarlane "the bristling of landscape is Kurt Jackson's subject as an artist, and his brilliance as an artist lies in the success with which he represents his subject" ^[

Great nature artists series: Kurt Jackson.

R.A.Richardson.

'Guardian Spirit of the East Bank.' A Celebration of the Life of R.A.Richardson by Moss Taylor.

A meeting with R.A.Richardson. Artist and birdwatcher.

        It is difficult to say when I actually first started bird watching but I must have been very young indeed. My earliest memories are stalking around the local woods of Buxton with my elder brother David, clutching my Observers’ Book of Birds (which I still have) and an old pair of opera glasses. As I grew older I soon met like-minded friends and our circle of study grew wider: at first local dales in the Peak, local moors and woodlands and then lakes and reservoirs in neighbouring Staffordshire and Cheshire.

      It was in the early 70’s that I gained my first opportunity to travel to North Norfolk, Cley Marshes in particular. At this point in time Cley-next-the-Sea was the centre of the universe for us bird watchers, and here we were; as we entered the village the sun glinted off the cluster of flint cottages. After a well earned meal in Nancy Gull’s café and a look at the Bird Log to see ‘what’s about’, we made for the marsh, the East Bank to be precise. Just strolling down the East Bank I added bearded tits, marsh harrier and a ‘booming’ bittern to my life list: this was indeed paradise. Reaching the bottom end of the bank we came across a group of birders lounging on the grassy bank over-looking Arnold’s Marsh. In their centre sat a man wearing a denim jacket and sporting a black berry with two Norfolk terriers, one sat either side of him. We all greeted each other, my more experienced and older friends seeming to know the man who appeared to be the centre of attention and joined the throng on the grassy bank.

      I was soon to realise  the man in the black berry was none other than the famous birder and artist R. A. Richardson, the illustrator of the ‘The Pocket Guide to British Birds’, text by R.S.R. Fitter. I was very soon to find out also, how he had earned his reputation as such a great birder. Although R.A.R. owned a pair of binoculars, and I noticed an old brass telescope under his jacket, he needed no such aids: bird calls (no matter how fleeting) and the (jizz) the way the birds flew were enough for his identification skills. Sometimes he never even opened his eyes. Yet there was nothing egotistical about how R.A.R. used his profound knowledge, quite the contrary, he appeared to take great pleasure in helping the lesser experienced birders, putting them at their ease, treating everyone with great respect and equal enthusiasm. Before the afternoon came to a close I had notched up black godwit, avocet, spoonbill, grey plover and spotted sandpiper mainly due to R.A.R’s effortless observations.

      I met R.A.R on one further occasion a few weeks later, this time on a leafy lane between Salthouse Heath and the village of Salthouse. This time we were gathered to watch a stunning red-backed shrike deep in a hedgerow. It wasn’t long before R.A.R was busy sketching in a note book. This was followed by my first nightingale up on Salthouse Heath and to end the day, before heading back to hills of the Peak District, a fine male hobby chasing dragonflies over Salthouse Marsh.

      It was a great honour to meet Richard A. Richardson and I still look at his books with fondness, often sliding them out from the bookshelf to leaf through his wonderful illustrations, many of which can be found in Moss Taylor’s moving biography of R. A. Richardson, ‘Guardian Spirit of the East Bank.’

Prayer Flags.

Ghost Path.

I hear the landscape whispering

Telling tales of ancient footfall,

Of paths like veins being woven

Into its being, into its primordial fabric.

And the landscape breathes in

The new mapping because

It is part of its myth.

It embraces the new ways

Through its bones

And holds its secrets

Like eggs in a nest.

Yet over time

Many are destined

To become rumour

Distant memory

To be seen only

By moon and star.

White pebbles are lost in moss,

Cairns elusive in lichen,

Pray flags ragged and torn

In a haunting wind.

The paths of human toil

Become lost to the landscape;

History is fragmented,

Devoured by forgetfulness,

An ancient mist obscures the way

And soon old ways are destined

To become lost, to become ghost roads.

Sea Roads.

I wish to follow

The glittering water

Of the whale road,

The swan path above,

The breaking watery runes

Of the hump-backed waves

Around the cockleshell bows.

The million voices

Of the shadow road birds:

Gannets, puffins and razorbills

Singing of past voyages

And voyages yet to be.

I wish to follow

The uncharted sun road,

Plunge westward

Into the myriad

Stains of evening:

Tell the tale

To the blue men of Minch

Around an oak spitting fire

In the secret shadows

Of a sacred island bothy.