Text from 1970 programme
Amazing text by John Peel, from "Wildlife Concert" programme
It's a gusty Friday night in early April and the mournful harmonies of a medieval English dirge echo through Carnegie Hall. Five earnest young British musicians hold the Stage, almost immobile -four seated. and the fifth slightly stooped over his double bass. The audience is holding its breath.
The hall is so quiet between waves of "Lyke-Wake Dirge" that you can actually hear these people holding their breath. And this is not an audience accustomed to breath-holding. They wear beIl bottoms, peace buttons, hand-knit sweaters and long, often shaggy hair. Their average age is not over 17. Tonight they are forsaking hard rock and the Fillmore East to abandon themselves to the gentleness of The Pentangle.
"Wow," whispers one young boy wearing an Army jacket, "I could have gone to hear Johnny Winter, but this is so much... so much easier."
"Yeah," answers his friend. "When I walked in and saw those tiny amplifiers on stage, man, I couldn't believe it. It really knocked me Out."
For rock addicts who are used to being blasted Out of their seats by sheer volume and monster amplifiers, to be riveted into them by clear, undistorted music is a rare thrill. "......and Christ receive thy soul."
Jacqui McShee, the only female member of The Pentangle, sits demurely in a long white gown -and sings with a voice of shatterproof crystal. Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, with their legs crossed casually, seem almost to lounge on folding chairs on either side of Jacqui. But their voices and acoustic guitars, along with Danny Thompson's bass playing, are building intricate textures around the melody. Terry Cox, with the steady rhythm of his hand drum, is turning what started as a stationary dirge into a stately processional.
Not all of The Pentangle's Carnegie Hall debut is so solemn.
Draping his rangy body around his bass, Danny substantiates his claim to being the only member of the group who can't sing by attempting to sing a Thelonius Monk composition called "Blue Monk". Appropriately, it's about a monk who feels ostracized because of his bad voice. But unlike the monk, Danny can redeem himself by putting on a display of virtuosity on his bass.
Jacqui, with her long hair framing her face, taps one foot as she scars through a traditional warning to "fair and tender girls", called "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme".
Bert adds the asperity of his Scottish voice to a lilting, traditional ballad called "House Carpenter". And during a lively Appalachian folk song, "Rain and Snow", Jacqui and Terry astound everyone by actually standing up and swaying.
("Look They're almost dancing", someone gasps.)
Through it all, as the group skips from ancient to modern folk music, and from jazz to timeless blues - even when they add the plink and twang of banjo and sitar-the silences between The Pentangle's notes express as much as the notes themselves. Even wellworn traditional music, arranged and adapted by the five musicians, comes Out with the distinctive Pentangle lightness of the group's own compositions.
"Such fantastic control", murmurs one young fan after the standing ovations and encores. "When they get louder they just gradually swell, and then they all get quiet together."
* * * * *
A few nights later, in a suite at a hotel on West 55th Street, Jo Lustig, The Pentangle's Brooklvn born manager, is shaking his head and laughing. "They may be the quietest group onstage", he says, "but I'll bet they're the noisiest off I"
Shrieks come from the kitchen, and what sound like imitation Red Indian whoops from the living room, and Danny is "singing" lustily and leaping around the stereo. Several fire engines and an ambulance wail by, and someone rushes to the window to imitate them. Bert is chuckling with a very amplified chuckle. And there's some suspicion that John Renbourn, who pores over dusty old manuscripts to find some of the group's best material, may be locked in the bathroom. There is, in fact, a loud pounding on a wall from off in that direction. Jacqui smiles serenely from the centre of it all.
Momentarily, it's hard to imagine this madness as the same Pentangle who play in the hush of Coventry Cathedral. at the Edinburgh Festival, the Newport Folk Festival and sell Out the Royal Albert Hall. John has emerged from the bathroom ("No, I wasn't locked in at all", he says innocently), toweldrying his longish brown hair.
With the entire Pentangle gathered together, someone mentions Paul McCartney's split from the Beatles, which was partly because of the restrictions of performing in one group.
"We're not at all like that", says Terry. "Nobody's got the grip on us. We're doing this because we like to do it. Besides, we've always done separate things."
Bert, who is slouching in his chair almost into anonymity, mutters, "Yeah. Like plastering walls and doing the garden" Bert on his own has done a little more than the garden. Born in Glasgow, he has been a hero of Scottish folk and guitar music for years.
He has recorded five solo albums, on which he plays and sings many of his own rough, bluesey compositions. Donovan says he has been influenced by Bert.
John Renbourn, like Bert, was playing guitar in the folk clubs of London in the early '60's. Between snooping through the archives of "this wonderful place called Westminster Library", John has managed to record three solo albums - plus one with Bert, which is called "Bert and John".
Terry and Danny, the two most jazzoriented members of the group, have backed up an impressive list of both jazz and rock musicians, and are often called upon to work as studio musicians in London recording sessions. Jacqui first sang professionally with her sister Pam when she was 17. She met John while singing on the London folk circuit, and John introduced her to the three other musicians, who had gradually become acquainted. The Pentangle first performed together at the Horseshoe Pub in London's Tottenham Court Road, late in 1967.
The male fourfifths of The Pentangle treat Jacqui offstage like a favourite sister. Professionally, they use her cool, pure voice like a musical instrument, and speak of it with awe.
"Jacqui has the ultimate folk voice", says Bert, who often shares songs with her. "Now, I can't explain what a folk voice is, but to me-she has the most wonderful voice I've ever heard."
"It's beautiful", says Danny.
"Routine", says John, with a shrug and a wink in Jacqui's direction.
"What's it like?" repeats Jacqui herself. "I don't know -just a voice."
Understatement is a key to The Pentangle both onstage and off.
Barbara Bell
New York City - April 1970
A day in the life of John Peel.
Born at the age of four in a charcoal burner's cottage on the fringe of the Black Forest, he was christened Helen Llewellyn Product 19, and named car of the year.
Educated at boarding schools for twelve fruitless years, he was the first man to sail over Niagara Falls in an airmail envelope-and that was how Surrey won the County Championship that year.
In 1958 a team of naked medical doctors took his temperature and passed him fit for two years military service. At this time he had two dogs named Tension and a goldfish that sang selections from The Maid of the Iron Curtain " when struck with a mallet.
Understandably upon completion of his military dis-service he went to America. In 1962 he started work for radio station WRR in Dallas, Texas, and during the Beatle onslaught of 1964, he moved to radio station KLIF, where it was his duty to constantly advise the public of the colour of Paul McCartney's eyes. The following year he moved to KLMA in Oklahoma City, which has the biggest night-time audience of any radio station in the country. After a year of this tomfoolery he headed west, as the buffalo
had done before him and Mrs. P. J. of Luton was to do in April of 1967, and worked for a year for KMEN outside Los Angeles. During this time, he met many members of the West Coast groups, most of whom forgot him immediately. In the Spring of 1967, he returned to England, disguised as a four mile section of the East Lancs Road and went to work for Radio London until they left the air.
John has recently fulfilled a life-long ambition by launching his own record label "Dandelion Records Limited," which is the first record label to give total artistic control to the artistes and to divide income equally between the Company and the artistes. John takes no financial benefit from this enterprise.