Maybe that's why I never got my CD box set? It wasn't that clear, it was averisised as early bird purchase but it sort of suggested the other additional volume was download only?
Looking at the additional stuff on the Living in the Shadows box one maybe they didn't feel the tracks were strong enough for a stand alone album. I do feel robbed to say the least buying the other three albums again for the sake of the fourth volume? I would have like to have waited for a career retrospective of alternative tracks and rediscovered gems, (I'm sure there must be some) It all feels a bit cheap, both packaging and concept. Okay I know I don't have to buy it, but it's Bert! I remember reading after Bert's death Loren Jansch said she was going to be carefully supervising posthumous releases and looking after the intrests of his estate. Such a shame she never had the chance!
Unreleased versions of the early years would be great, but I imagine it's all lost or the tapes not salvageable.
Maybe, maybe not. Bill leader went bankrupt. Either he or his widow sold his music rights and recordings to some dodgy buisnessman who's just sat on his archive for years. I can't remember the exact ins and outs, but if you Google Mike and Lal Waterson Bright Phebus it will give you some arguments and anger the guy has brewed up. Who knows, there maybe something lurking here. I don't want to worry you Harvest Your Thoughts, but if you ordered the aforementioned boxset on CD, like me you should have received them by now. You might want to check your confirmation e mail and send off a query, and no I still haven't got a response from Bandcamp either.
Nearly all singer-songwriters made private demo tapes or had live tapes of performances. Usually quite a few tapes. For people like Dylan, they leaked out. For most others, they are waiting around.
Given the sloppy way Bert's family have dealt with these rereleases, I'm guessing it's unlikely that they can be bothered sifting through tapes which may not exist
I love that packaging records that would likely not sell on their own as sets is now being defined as "sloppy." While thsee sets may not be to everyone's liking in terms of packaging and design, the sad fact is the six albums collected in these two sets were not strong sellers upon initial release. There's an even more limited market for them now, so the fact we're getting them at all is something of a minor miracle. I don't see any major Davy Graham or John Renbourn initiatives afoot.
I have a close friend, one of the true greats of the singer-songwriter Dylan era generation (I'll leave unnamed). I was allowed to sift through the personal archive of demo's and live tapes. Many hundreds of hours. I spent a week there. It's all still there, one copy in a California cabin.
Minor Miracle? No last time I checked all of Berts 90's material was readily available far less than this repackaged stuff, so anyone not bothered to collect then or now is going not going to fork out for a premium priced product. Earth Recordings sadly doesn't know what it's market is?
On vinyl? Absolutely not. Black Swan alone is a $50 record. There's one copy of Ornament Tree on Discogs right now - it's $105.
Personally, I'm not bothered, as I buy manly digital, and vinyl if not available digitally. But most Bert fans want new or rare recordings . So picture discs, coloured vinyl, art prints and buying the stuff over again are just not welcome, for me anyway.
Yeah, I've become well accustomed to members of this forum thinking only of themselves. The thing is, all of this stuff is being made available in multiple formats. If you want it on vinyl, these sets are a good option -- I'm personally less interested in the unreleased material than I am in just having the albums. If you don't have the albums on CD, the four-CD set is what? $45? Given that the CDs are generally available under $10, yeah, that's a little steep, but I guess the trade-off is you get the unreleased material. The digital format for these sets is the worst deal available, but I think that's less to do with the Jansch estate or Earth specifically and more with how inconsistently a lot of digital music is priced.
That's right, self self self, that's me all over, hahaha. No I'm thinking of the music and the man Bert Jansch. That's surely what it's all about, his songs and live performances which have quite impact on me over the years, and provided the soundtrack to my life as I followed his ups and downs as I grew along side my listening. His music should be made available to as many as possible. If I wanted vinyl I would and do collect original recordings. Value is a difficult thing to assess though, for you you wanted to hear them on vinyl as cheaply as possible, so it was worth it for you, that's great, I did think about it at the time but decided not. I'm not knocking the fact it's released on another format each to their own but for a few people in this thread, the format is merely a vehicle for the art.
Circus was recorded on a 24 track Neve desk on to analogue 2" tape but mixed via Sadie, so it was digital editing of an analogue source, but it was never put out on vinyl, the vinyl version is from the digital CD NOT from the analogue master tapes. I did have some alternate versions at one point, as parts of it were 'assembled' - Walk Quietly By was recorded at two different studios, The strings for Morning Brings Peace of Mind were done elsewhere, three of the solo tracks were remnants from a 'buy out' from a bad record deal he had prior to signing to Cooking Vinyl. I had several live tapes from the 12 Bar but the 'live' album was assembled from 6 different gigs, unfortunately for some the remnants were put in the bin (they really were NOT worth pouring over and some of the 'guest' performances were quite frankly embarrassing. Odd or strange that in 1995 I remasterd Moonshine to CD from Virgin Vinyl and in 2017 they have re-mastered Circus to Vinyl from CD On another note - good to see a Picture of Hully on there ! He told me that he wrote both Lady Eleanor and Winter Song (or at least the 'basic riffs) on one of Bert's guitars, the strings were about 1" off the neck so he had to put a capo on the 7th fret in order to make it playable (it makes perfect sense if you grab a guitar and put a capo on the 7th fret) and you may have noticed the bass player on Circus and Squire (as well as the briliant Pipedream)
Another enlightened post from you Alan, crammed full of insight and first-hand information. I would have liked to hear some of those alternative takes, even so. Maybe you could write the alternative sleeve notes? What were those three tracks from the previous to deal by the way? It's a shame this recent edition hasn't gone back to the original analogue tapes, yet again remastering, should be read with a 'pinch of salt' Your reference to Alan Hull writing both Lady Eleanor and Winter Song on one of Bert's old guitars was fascinating. How did he come by it? Incidentally both two of my favourite songs from the man and from someone I felt at the time was under appreciated, and now feel completely ingnored. He was and still is for me one of the great singer songwriters. The two mentioned tracks, I must have heard him sing 20 times or more never failed to bring a tear to my eye.
I picked up a cd from Earth recently From The Outside of solo Bert with 15 tracks. I would prefer vinyl but decided to get this since I didn't know f a vinyl yl version was available.
Alan Hull was running a folk club in Newcastle back in the 60's and he put Bert on one night, that's where the 2 songs (or riffs) were written backstage From the Outside was originally a Danish release on vinyl - limited to just 500 copies, I had Bert's own original copy at one point but gave it away - the artwork was horrendous - for some bizarre reason there was once a Bert Jansch tribute act in Denmark ! (it is a hard 'J' by the way) - it was later added to and put out on CD by Hypertension The three tracks from Circus that were recorded somewhere else were - No One Around, Born With the Blues from a previous deal and Lady Doctor which was recorded at Bert's home but edited in the studio - Open Road was going to have a cello on it but it isn't in concert pitch and re-tuning the cello made it sound awful Hypertension also put out a solo CD album by Pete Kirtley which is well worth getting, it also features Bert on 2 or 3 tracks, Colin Gibson on bass and the late Kenny Craddock on keyboards
Thanks for the further information regarding the Bert Chronology. References to AH songs just mention they were written during his nightshifts as a psychiatric nurse, even if was just the riffs, it's revealing. I will search out that Pete Kirtley release without doubt.
I did a radio interview about those days only a few weeks ago - here's a link The Lantern Society Radio Hour Hastings Episode 2 2/2/17 starts about 26' 40" in that is me paying in the background (the 3rd and last tune is a bit of one tune i wrote with Bert) Pete's album is on Spotify Spotify
Got a shipping notice this morning. I for one am very happy that these collections are available. Nice to have a good vinyl set, thoughtfully packaged, of the more obscure later output. Yes digital is available easy and inexpensive, but I really hate listening to Bert on cd.
Also got the shipping notice yesterday. As with the first set it appears it's going out several months before the announced release date (May 26) . Glad I pre-ordered these to get special pricing. Very excited to have this material on vinyl. I preordered them back in July 2016.
