Rare Return For Folk Guitarist

One of the most influential acoustic guitarists the UK has ever produced makes a rare return next week.

Londoner John Renbourn – although currently a resident of the Scottish borders – was a fixture on the folk-scene in the capital during the 1960s and rose to prominence with like-minded players such as Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and Wizz Jones.

Although the “folk” tag has stayed with him throughout his illustrious career, Renbourn has a much more eclectic view than that label conveys.

He was a fan of bluesmen like Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, Reverend Gary Davis and Lead Belly, an affinity he shared with his friend (and first touring partner) Mac MacLeod.

However, he was equally receptive to jazz, early classical music and world music, although the latter term was not, at the time, in common usage.

He attended Kingston College of Art – as did Sandy Denny, Eric Clapton and Keith Relf (of the Yardbirds) – but left to play gigs with Dorris Henderson and the pair recorded a couple of well-regarded albums. He then worked with Bert Jansch and later with Jacqui McShee before all three were joined by bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox (both from Alexis Korner’s Blues Band) to form Pentangle.

The band was huge for several years – a reputation that has scarcely diminished – releasing a series of defining albums and in the process played New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Newport Folk Festival and toured with the Grateful Dead in the USA.

When the split inevitably came, the individual members were adaptable enough to forge post-Pentangle careers.

In Renbourn’s case, he was able to develop his interests in early classical music and he was also able to return to college to finish a degree in composition. That did not prevent him from forming his own John Renbourn Group and then a variant, Ship of Fools, or working with other guitarists like Stefan Grossman and later with Alex De Grassi, Woody Mann and Clive Carroll.

John’s solo work runs to around 20 albums, but that total can easily be doubled when his band work, collaborative efforts and compilations are considered.

John Renbourn plays at Ashington Folk Club’s new venue at the Portland Rooms (Station Road, NE63 8HG for sat-nav) on Thursday night at 8pm.

From the same neck of the woods, another guitarist, John Whitehill, is an award-winning Ashington lad who now leads the blues outfit Groove-a-Matics. They have a gig at the Cluny next Sunday afternoon (September 1) at 2pm in the company of fellow blues acts the Hookahs and How Askew.

Whitehill, the former Blues Burglar/Kingsnakes lead-guitarist is a four-times winner of the British Blues Awards in the ‘90s.

Tickets are only £3 and the first one hundred entrants receive a free Groove-a-Matics live album.