Interview with Jacqui McShee

Jacqui McShee needs no introduction: certainly, without her, British folk would not have been the same. Her unmistakable voice—still today after more than sixty years—laid the foundations for the entire musical genre and for subsequent generations. From the legendary Pentangle to later projects such as the John Renbourn Group or her Jacqui McShee Pentangle, today she has found her dimension with guitar veteran Kevin Dempsey. Although she has always lived in folk, she considers herself a "jazz girl" and has been a fan of Miles Davis since time immemorial. An unstoppable eighty-two-year-old, she has no problem staying up talking until three in the morning and then waking up at six in the morning for her indispensable yoga session. She loves only her family and her vegetable garden as much as music, speaking of the latter with such enthusiasm that she seems prouder of her vegetables than her music! A woman who, in her personality, knows how to combine a strong sense of social and political justice with a tender sympathy and a very subtle but never offensive humor. We had the immense fortune of spending a three-day long weekend with her and Kevin, and then opening their only Italian date at the Eden cinema in Puianello (RE), organized by the very dear and capable Enrico Gobbi, whom we can never thank enough. A perhaps unrepeatable occasion, it was certainly one of the strongest and most unforgettable experiences we have ever had. Among the long chats we shared with these teenage idols of ours, below you will find the "official" interview we did with her.

How did you meet Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, and what were your first impressions of them?

In the mid-60s, I was working in a folk club in south-west London, and there I also sang a few songs every week with a guitarist named Chris Ayliffe. Chris worked in a music shop called Watkins Electric Music, where John and Bert used to go to buy their strings. Our club also often called them to play (not yet together, each on his own) and we paid them the maximum: eight pounds! No one got more than that. Chris, since he knew them, often took me around to hear them play. Being there, they would let us make small appearances: Chris and I would go on stage and play one or two pieces. Chris kept pushing me more and more toward them, so much so that one day he told me I absolutely had to meet Bert: "You're going to love him!", he kept repeating. So we went to a record shop called Collets that Bert frequented because a little romance was blossoming between him and one of the shop assistants (with whom he later had his first son). Bert and I started talking, and I remember he immediately asked me, "Shall we go get a cup of tea together, my dear?". I accepted, so we sat in a cafe and talked a bit, even though he was of a very silent nature (John, on the other hand, was much more vocal, more talkative). Regarding John, I remember telling my parents about him, saying they should come one evening to hear this very talented guitarist: they came, and my mother felt a lot of compassion for him because she noticed he had a hole in the sole of his shoe. But in truth he wasn't that broke, he simply didn't care much about clothes. On the other hand, I didn't care at all either: lots of people had holes in their shoes at the time. Meanwhile, Chris decided to leave for Paris and the French Riviera to be a busker, and I was left alone. At that point, John asked me if I wanted to do some backing vocals on his second album Another Monday (he even asked permission from Chris, who replied "Alright, you can take her") and so we started working together. I often went to the apartment that Bert and John shared, right next to the London Zoo in Regent’s Park: sometimes you could hear the lions roaring from the house. There we started rehearsing something together, without pretensions. About a year later, Bert was touring alone in Scotland and John told me, "Let's go too and start playing!". So we forcefully joined his tour. It was on that occasion that they decided we should be a band. It was John who told me directly: "We're going to form a band and you'll be the singer". Without asking me, he just told me! I simply replied ok. And so Pentangle was born. Let's say we lived everything in a very calm and relaxed way, plus I really enjoyed singing and especially working with two musicians like them, as talented as they were kind. To tell the truth, I had no intention of becoming an established singer and making it my profession; the thing that enticed me the most was the idea of being able to travel. And in the end I did travel a lot, so I considered myself lucky; I had achieved my ambition.

Inside the Sweet Child LP, under your photo it says: "I used to sing with my sister, then we split up and I replaced her with four men", what did that mean?

There is no truth to it and I didn't even write that sentence. It was entirely a gimmick by the record executives and to be honest I never liked it.

Speaking of Sweet Child, how did you find yourselves playing at the Royal Festival Hall and how did you feel about it?

Oh, at first I couldn't believe it! The story went that after about a year of Pentangle, an American manager took over our management, I think from Brooklyn. He had a lot of contacts and acquaintances. He told us: "From now on you must not play anywhere else, the folk clubs must not see you anymore. You have to be a big secret and your first live show will be at the Royal Festival Hall." For the first time we were all terribly anxious. I remember John and Bert were very agitated and I was no less so. Before then we had never had any problem in this regard, just a healthy and normal performance anxiety. That time, however, my legs were shaking so violently that I decided to sing sitting down; from then on I continued to sit throughout the entire Pentangle period.

It is often said that Pentangle broke up primarily because of how stressful it had become to tour so intensively and relentlessly. Was this the main reason?

Yes, we didn't even have time to rehearse properly and even less to work on new material. Besides that, both Bert and John continued to pursue their solo projects and play other gigs. The continuous traveling made us, if not exactly intolerant, at least more inclined to find fault with things we would have overlooked before. Until one day Bert called me and said, "My dear, I can't do this anymore, I really can't. I'd like to just focus on my music, it's too much for me." He was an extremely introverted person and hated interviews.

I remember an interview with Bert from the 60s where he was asked what he thought about drugs, and he replied in a rather detached way, just making it clear that he wasn't interested. It was obvious how quiet and introverted he was.

Yes, he wasn't one to let much slip. When someone asked him the meaning behind one of his songs, he would simply reply, "Whatever you want to give it." He told me he didn't want to open up so much and that, on the other hand, he believed every person should interpret things in the way they find most appropriate. All of this was part of his magic.

In your sixty-year career you too have written songs and have been highly appreciated. Tell us a bit about that.

Even during Pentangle, Bert would sometimes ask me, "Can you continue the lyrics? I can't think of anything from here on." So from the very beginning I helped compose the lyrics, for example in Hunting Song or Light Flight. Light Flight in particular was born as a soundtrack for a BBC TV series called Take Three Girls (which was incidentally the very first color TV series on the BBC). We met the three actresses who played the three girls and it was very nice. They told me I could write the lyrics and that it obviously had to be tied to the series. But when we went into the studio to record it for Basket of Light, I changed all the words and the manager lost his mind. He told me, "You can't do that! This could be a hit, your hit!" but we weren't interested in hits, we just wanted to do what came naturally to us, follow our instinct. So in the end we kept it with the changed words, and Bert encouraged me a lot. Writing songs, in the end, is just reworking what we experience, what we see, what goes through our minds.

Tell us about Leaving, one of your more recent tracks that deals with Brexit, a topic dear to you.

I was terribly angry about the UK leaving the European Union. I remember that the day after the referendum result, both my nephews called me and asked: "But if Grandpa was Scottish, can we have a separate passport?" to which I replied, with some bitterness, "No dears, unfortunately the Scots don't have a separate passport." I wrote Leaving to express my anger: it was completely senseless. They did it to my land. I know a couple a little younger than me. She is very kind, while he clearly has something wrong with him: he is very overweight and always sits in his armchair, from which he tells her what to do. She obviously ignores him. I remember he asked me what nice things I was doing that weekend, and I told him I was planning to go to a demonstration against Brexit. At which he frowned and told me: "I voted for Brexit." I replied that I only knew three people who had voted for it, and he retorted saying, "Well, I guess you don't know many people." "I don't want to talk to you anymore," I concluded. In these situations I think there is nothing to argue about, just to walk away.

Do you have any plans for the future?

Next year will be the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Pentangle. We're trying to plan something but we don't know what yet. We'll see!

Pentangle is widely considered a unique group for several reasons. Do you think that's really the case?

We knew we were different from everyone else first of all because we were the first to have a lineup of male musicians and a female vocal, which would soon become canonical for folk groups: I'm thinking of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span... I know Sandy Denny would have liked to be in my place in Pentangle. But the boys didn't want her: I was quite quiet and composed, whereas Sandy had a rather big ego. I mean, she was an incredible, magnificent singer and an equally exquisite person with whom I always got along very well; but on the other hand, she had a pretty strong character that would certainly have clashed with the boys. I let them be, I found no reason to impose myself, that's how I am. Obviously I have an ego too, but I don't consider it such an important aspect. I like to be satisfied with things as they are and as they come, I liked our music mainly because we made it to our own taste (as much as the manager tried in every way just to make us produce hits). We had good success especially in the United States, I think precisely because our music was different. Perhaps it was the jazz element that distinguished us, the rhythmic part and the double bass. I knew we were different, but I never imagined we would work and resonate for so long.

Is there an idea you would like people to get from your music?

I would like the main message of my music to be to do things as you want, to do them in the way you feel is most right for you, without trying to be someone else. Music is instinct: none of us was told "play like this, sing like that." We did what came to us and we accepted it, we all had respect for each other's work, proposals, and music. Without telling each other, it simply happened. Maybe Bert would bring a new song of his, and Danny and Terry would instinctively start playing along to it; I might add a harmony and John would join in, fiddling and trying things out on his guitar as usual. And since Bert and John shared an apartment before anyone else, they were used for years to playing, composing, and experimenting together, freely. I think in the end that was the whole point: we experimented a lot, we tried many different things. I don't think we were particularly ambitious; our goal was just to be able to earn the bare minimum to live on. And I must say, we were lucky; but on the other hand, I think this luck largely comes from the fact that we were different. Everyone says we were a folk-rock band, but I never thought there was much rock in us.

Maybe folk-jazz comes closer?

I think so.

What advice would you give to young musicians wanting to enter the folk world today?

To do it, just do it. These days it's so difficult for young people to start... For us it was quite simple, to tell the truth: it was jam-packed with folk clubs in London and across the nation. It was normal for a medium-sized town to even have two or three folk clubs; obviously, they didn't offer nights at the same time, usually one would do Fridays, one Saturdays, and one Sundays. So it was very easy to find places to play. Obviously today folk is no longer as much in vogue and those venues don't exist anymore. I think it's truly a great pity that many musicians no longer have the opportunity to play live. Now everything goes through social media, people film themselves playing in their bedrooms and post it. And that's fine, but the problem is that there is no direct interaction with the audience: it's an important thing to talk to and relate to those who are listening to you, giving them the respect you would like to receive back from them. Communication is fundamental; it's not enough to be behind a screen. In a couple of weeks, I will be playing at a festival called Excalibur, and the organizer Alan asked me if I could record a short video to explain this event and sing some small previews. So my son-in-law, who is a drum and bass DJ and has his own studio, helped me film it. I thought: "I hate doing this stuff." But I was asked to do it and above all it was to the benefit of both me and the festival. Of course, years ago we didn't compromise: if we were told to do something, we definitely wouldn't have done it (I mean if we didn't feel like it, obviously). Once again, then, do not compromise, do things your own way. In any case, I wish you and everyone lots of luck. I hope there are more and more young musicians, we have a huge need for them, it's really important. Music overcomes barriers, it crosses borders. Like yesterday when we were also talking with Kevin about Andy Irvine and his EastWind project in which he collaborated with Bulgarian and Macedonian musicians: this is crossing borders, uniting different nationalities in the name of music. That's why I am happy to be participating in the Excalibur project I mentioned earlier. You find a lot of people from so many nations: America, Hungary, Romania, France, and everyone gets along. I must admit that the only language I can converse in, besides English, is French, but it doesn't matter: we all always manage to chat, for example during bus rides. People get along, and it's all solely thanks to music. This is the power of music: when you play, you don't fight.

We've always thought that politicians should listen to more music.

Absolutely.

Francesco Moncalvo and Chiara Pezzella “The Trains Fair”