Bert Jansch – At The BBC (4xLP)

"Bert At the BBC" is a comprehensive collection of Jansch's performances at the BBC with over eight hours of rare and unreleased recordings, including live spots, studio sessions and complete concerts direct from the BBC archives, further deepening the canon of this legendary artist.

Bert Jansch was the epitome of folk music, inspiring everyone from Paul Simon and Neil Young to Led Zeppelin and countless folk revivalists. This unique limited edition compendium is available as a 4xLP and 8xCD set and is accompanied by a lavish 40-page book tracing the recordings of Bert Jansch's earliest moments at the BBC. It includes interviews and insights from Lauren Laverne, Jools Holland, Johnny Marr, Jacqui McShee, Bob Harris, Bernard Butler, Mark Radcliffe and many others.

Twenty broadcasters, producers and collaborators contribute extensively to the booklet, with great affection for this gentle, idiosyncratic genius. Bert's BBC legacy remains the most significant and exciting untapped reservoir of his music. The undeniable advantage of recordings made for radio is that they were inherently created for public consumption and - apart from live performances, which could go well or badly but were released either way - were explicitly signed off by the artist as representations of his art that were good enough to be heard.

The set was compiled by Colin Harper, author of Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival (Bloomsbury, 2000), who also contributes extensive liner notes to the package. The release was mastered by IFTA award-winning sound engineer Cormac O'Kane. The vinyl release contains 48 tracks on LP and is accompanied by a download card with over six hours of extras from 1966-2009, including BBC4's St Luke's concert (2003) and a full concert at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (2004) for BBC Radio Scotland. It is also available as a special 8xCD set containing all 147 tracks and packaged in an illustrated book. "Bert At The BBC is an epic and enduring track, 45 years in the making. "He was a rarity, a musician who truly deserves to be regarded as a legend" The Guardian

"As a guitarist, there was no one like him. He was jazz and blues and folk, but there was a whole world that was just his, esoteric." Johnny Marr