Ladies And Gentlemen...The Pentangle

I have always been fascinated by the British folk rock movement. It's quite different then the folk rock of America. They had a few acts that were in friendly competition with each other. Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Steeleye Span were all great at what they did. I even mentioned how great Fairport Convention was back then, but I never mentioned how great Pentangle was. I do like Steeleye Span but not as much as these two powerhouses. Especially since Steeleye Span got together because of these two bands.

What is so fun about Pentangle is the mix of all the genres of music. I also like the fact that most of the people in this band were not unknowns they had some history behind them. John Renbourn and Bert Jansch played together in the mid 1960's. Both Bert and John were considered the some of the best guitar players in England. Danny Thomson was already an important person in the Folk music field. Danny Thompson plays with Richard Thompson to this day. Lastly, we have Jacqui McShee was in the Folk clubs in the mid 60's as well.

From 1968-1973 Pentangle was one of the most important Folk Rock groups to come out of England. While Fairport Convention was playing more electric and covering Bob Dylan Pentangle was playing folk type tunes and was influenced by American Jazz of Charles Mingus. Danny Thompson even played upright bass in homage to Mingus. Pentangle was a band, like Fairport Convention had a female lead singer. She was with the band for all of the years Pentangle was around. There tastes were very eclectic Danny loved American Jazz, Bert loved Blues, Bob Dylan and Jim Hall. John loved early music and Jacqui loved traditional music.

Pentangle took the mix of styles and created something new in a way. The band was categorized as Folk-Jazz. Unlike Fairport Convention with the Rock 4/4 time Pentangle had songs in odd time like "Sweet Child" is 7/4 and 11/4 time and another song on Basket of Light is called "Light Flight" and it's in 5/8, 7/8 and 6/4 times.

So with all that wonderful type of music I picked the album Sweet Child. Sweet Child has all the stuff you figure from Pentangle and more. The album is a double album. One album is a studio album and the other is live. Both albums bring out the best of what Pentangle is as a band. This album came out in late 1968. The mix of Jazz, Folk and Blues and even the obscure tribute to Moondog.

It is a great album and the design as you see above was designed by Peter Blake who designed none other then Sgt. Pepper. If you need a place to start with Pentangle start with this album here. It is a wonderful capsule of what they could do and what made them popular in the late 60's and 70's. Have fun listening to a classic album that sound and feels like one of the smartest albums you put in your collection.