Blog Posts by Colin Harper (2000)

The guitarist Bert Jansch, who has died at the age of 67, was not just a giant in the field of folk music: he was a profound influence on everyone from Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page to the Smiths' Johnny Marr. Colin Harper, author of the Jansch biography Dazzling Stranger, summarized his importance in 2000, the year of the book's publication--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

Currently hot on the heels of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash as an individualist icon of 20th Century music - name-dropped as an influence by an increasing array of division one guitar heroes in folk, blues and rock - Bert Jansch is just about as unassuming and low-key as one could possibly be, in any walk of life.

The very fact that he can remain something of a mystery man over forty years in the music industry of all places, where look-at-me controversialists and phoney enigmas are the mainstays of marketing success, is a point worthy of interest in itself; allied to an incredible