John Renbourn

The London fingerstyle guitarist who helped invent folk baroque with Bert Jansch, co-founded Pentangle, and spent fifty years bringing medieval and Renaissance music into folk and blues.

Origin: Marylebone, London, England
Years active: 1961-2015
Genres: folk, folk baroque, folk rock, early music
Labels: Transatlantic, Reprise, Kicking Mule, Flying Fish, Shanachie, Making Waves, Drag City

Early years

John Renbourn was born in Marylebone, London, on 8 August 1944. His father was killed in action in the Second World War, and when his mother, a pianist, remarried in 1952, he took his stepfather's surname. The family moved to Surrey, where he had piano lessons, and at school in Guildford he studied harmony and counterpoint and met early music and the English literature of Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

In 1960 he hitchhiked through Britain, France and Spain, heard about the guitarists Wizz Jones and Davey Graham, and met Mac MacLeod, with whom he toured the South West. By 1964 he was at Kingston Art School, living on a boat on the River Wey, playing Soho clubs such as Les Cousins and the Troubadour, and accompanying the singer Dorris Henderson.

Soho and folk baroque

In Soho he met Bert Jansch. The two shared flats, played Les Cousins together, and worked out an interlocking two-guitar style that became known as folk baroque. 1966 brought four records on Transatlantic: There You Go! with Henderson, his debut John Renbourn, the duet album Bert and John, and Another Monday, made by Bill Leader in his kitchen. That album held the first recordings with the singer Jacqui McShee and a short guitar piece, Ladye Nothinge's Toye Puffe, whose mock-Tudor feel he said became a direction.

He followed it in a real studio. Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & ye Grene Knyghte (1968), inspired by Arthurian legend, was Melody Maker's folk LP of the month, and his label boss Nat Joseph said Renbourn now sold better than Jansch. Wikipedia calls it his most influential album.

Pentangle

In 1967 Renbourn and Jansch formed Pentangle with McShee, the double bassist Danny Thompson and the drummer Terry Cox; the name, Renbourn said, was a nod to Sir Gawain. Their first official concert was at the Royal Festival Hall in May 1967, and Basket of Light (1969) reached number five in Britain. In 1969 they played Carnegie Hall, the Newport Folk Festival, the Fillmore West with the Grateful Dead, and the Isle of Wight.

Alongside the band he made The Lady and the Unicorn (1970), which set medieval and Renaissance dances beside folk songs, and Faro Annie (1971), a bluesy farewell to his Transatlantic contract. Jansch left on 1 January 1973 and Pentangle split.

The Group, Dartington and teaching

Renbourn moved to South Devon in 1974 and led the John Renbourn Group, with McShee, Tony Roberts on flute and recorders, Keshav Sathe on tabla and Sue Draheim on fiddle. A Maid in Bedlam (1977) and The Enchanted Garden (1980) followed, along with The Black Balloon (1979) and a long run of duets with Stefan Grossman. He toured Italy often, playing week-long stands at Rome's Folkstudio, and the Group's Live in America was nominated for a Grammy.

After a brief return to Pentangle he left in 1982 to study composition, orchestration, early music, sitar and shakuhachi at Dartington College, and in 1988 joined its staff to run the first degree course in England for steel-string guitar. The Nine Maidens (1985) was recorded in far-west Cornwall. John Paul Jones produced The Three Kingdoms (1986) with Grossman, Ship of Fools followed in 1988, and Wheel of Fortune (1993) with Robin Williamson earned a second Grammy nomination.

Later years

In 1995 he settled in the Scottish Borders. He premiered a commissioned Lochbhraoin Suite at Ullapool in 2000, and in 2007 the original Pentangle received a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, reuniting for a 2008 tour and Glastonbury in 2011. Palermo Snow, with the clarinettist Dick Lee, came out in 2011, and from 2012 he toured with Wizz Jones. He died of a heart attack at his home near Hawick in 2015, aged 70, after missing a show with Jones in Glasgow. Their album Joint Control appeared in 2016.

In 2017 his family gave his archive of scores, notes and recordings to Newcastle University. Premier Guitar wrote that Jimmy Page was deeply indebted to him and Jansch, and that the psych-folk scene of the 2000s made him a folk godfather; Newcastle adds Eric Clapton to those he influenced. Reissues such as Live in Kyoto 1978 (2018) and the box Unpentangled (2019) keep the early records in print.

Records

Another Monday 1966 · Transatlantic
His second solo album, cut in Bill Leader's kitchen: blues, Jacqui McShee's first recordings with him, and the first mock-Tudor guitar piece.
Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & ye Grene Knyghte 1968 · Transatlantic
The Arthurian album, with William Byrd and Booker T. Jones side by side, recorded in a real studio for the first time.
The Lady and the Unicorn 1970 · Transatlantic
Medieval dances and English folk songs played as one music, beginning with a forty-second Trotto.

Songs

Ladye Nothinge's Toye Puffe Another Monday · 1966
A short solo guitar piece in mock-Tudor style, and the first sign of his lifelong turn to early music.
Trotto / The English Dance 1977
A fourteenth-century Italian dance run into an old English one, filmed live in Italy in 1977.

Bert Jansch, Pentangle, Davey Graham, Stefan Grossman, Wizz Jones

Where to go next

Official

John Renbourn His own site, with notes on each album in his own words.
Biography timeline A year-by-year account of his life, guitars, studios and collaborators.
Renbourn on The Lady and the Unicorn How he used early-music manuscripts as frameworks for improvising.

Reference

John Renbourn A standard overview.
MusicBrainz Releases and recording-level credits.
The John Renbourn Archive Newcastle University on the scores, notes and recordings in its care.

Discography and data

Mainly Norfolk Full credits, studios and sleeve notes for ten records.
John Renbourn discography The fullest single list, including guest work and videos.

Writing and criticism

Record Collector: John Renbourn Colin Harper's long career piece, with session and release details.
Toppermost: John Renbourn A ten-track guided tour by Andrew Shields.
fRoots: Unpentangled Ian Anderson's album-by-album verdicts on the 1960s records.
Rob Adams obituary An obituary by a Scottish music journalist who knew him late in his career.
Premier Guitar obituary A guitarist's view of his style and influence.

Interviews

Jas Obrecht: the 1978 Guitar Player interview Full audio of an interview recorded in Berkeley in June 1978.

Live performance archives

setlist.fm 111 logged shows, 1965 to 2014.

Film and video

Rare Performances 1965-1995 The filmed collection, with its contents listed by country and year.

Sources

John Renbourn, Wikipedia
Biography, johnrenbourn.co.uk
John Renbourn, Record Collector (2019)
Pentangle (band), Wikipedia
John Renbourn 1944-2015, Premier Guitar (2015-03-27)
John Renbourn, Rob Adams
John Renbourn Archive, Newcastle University (2017-10)