Obituary: Guitarist Bert Jansch dies at 67; influenced Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin songs

Photo credit: Chris Barber

Folk musician Bert Jansch, one of the most revered figures in British folk music, has died. Reports say his death today followed a bout with cancer that saw Jansch being forced to cancel some live performances recently.

Of particular note to Led Zeppelin fans is Jansch's 1966 album Jack Orion, which contains some instrumental work that influenced Led Zeppelin's own Jimmy Page.



The disc begins with an instrumental track on acoustic guitar and banjo called "The Waggoner's Lad." On Led Zeppelin III released in 1970, certain passages of Page's guitar playing between the verses of "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" echo some of Jansch's licks on this track.



More significantly, the flip side of Jack Orion includes a song called "Blackwater Side." On this track, Jansch sings a vocal melody over the reprise of a guitar arrangement heard on the earlier album cuts "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "The Gardener." On the debut Led Zeppelin album released in 1969, Page's guitar instrumental "Black Mountain Side" is essentially an instrumental rewrite of "Blackwater Side" complete with Page playing both the melody Jansch sings on "Blackwater Side" and much of the same guitar arrangement.

In interviews, Page mentions the popular British folk group Pentangle was an influence on him. In that group, Jansch played alongside fellow guitarist John Renbourn and vocalist Jacqui McShee.

In a May 1970 interview with that group conducted by Lemon Squeezings friend Rick McGrath for Vancouver's underground newspaper Georgia Strait, Jansch and McShee expressed their frustration with Page's sole writing credit on Led Zeppelin's "Black Mountain Side."

McShee said, "Actually, I think it's a very rude thing to do. Pinch somebody else's thing and credit it to yourself. It annoys me. ... In all the English papers at home he's always talking about Bert. Says he's influenced. I mean, why say that and then put something on an LP and say Jimmy Page?"

Putting it more simply, Jansch, laughing, said of the Led Zeppelin track, "That's my song."