Raised in a musical household, singer-guitarist Nick Harper – son of Roy –soaked up the music and influence of Pentangle from an early age. He tells Prog about the experience.
“I devised a show years ago to celebrate the incredible fortune of being a toddler in the room with acoustic folk legends who’d come round to our flat in northwest London to jam with my dad, Roy.
These incredibly gifted young people were part of a magnificent little pivotal moment in music history in London. I couldn’t help but be influenced by them and play their songs. I named the show 58 Fordwych Rd, and in 2025 I put the recordings I had in the can with new recordings and cashed in with an album.
Bert Jansch and John Renbourn lived a couple of streets away from us, so were around a lot. While they played, I’d look up at this mysterious fog in the ceiling; it looked like God was up there in Heaven. The ‘fog’ was tobacco smoke.
In the 90s I became friends with Bert and supported him at his residency at the [then] 12 Bar Club in Soho. I got to find out what a beautiful, humble man he was and how his focus was music.
He was totally unconcerned with any trappings either side of playing that guitar and doing the gig, portraying those songs the best he could. He had to speak his truth and have his vision confirmed. That was a great inspiration to me; I could never be someone I’m not.
I met Danny Thompson even later through being friends with Jakko Jakszyk, who was Danny’s great friend. We played a couple of shows together – one time I broke a string and went offstage temporarily. Danny stepped up with some genius improvisation, and I wished I could have watched him all night and not had to go back on.
When Pentangle formed, they were a new thing. There was no one else like them and they were all brilliant – the vocals, the interplay.
Politics was in there, such as the feminist angle in Willy O’Winsbury or Let No Man Steal Your Thyme. But the musicianship was so special – truly artful in that totally improvised section on the Jack Orion epic. That’s artists being free, letting themselves go and seeing what comes out, just like Hendrix.
