Album Review: Joint Control by John Renbourn & Wizz Jones

This charming, effortlessly classy album is the final recording by John Renbourn. One of the guitar heroes of the 60s folk-baroque scene, he was a co-founder of Pentangle, along with Bert Jansch, and in recent years had been touring with another fine British guitarist and laidback singer, Wizz Jones. They first met more than 50 years ago, and there’s more than a dash of nostalgia in a folk-blues set that starts with a swinging revival of Big Bill Broonzy’s Hey Hey and includes the hitchhiking anthem National Seven, which appeared on Renbourn’s 1965 solo debut, along with songs by Jackson C Frank, and (of course) Jansch.

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Guitarist Wizz Jones is, without question, one of the most influential figures of acoustic folk guitar in Britain. Influencing everyone from Bert Jansch and Richard Thompson to John Martyn and John Renbourn, Jones’s decidedly American approach to folk and blues guitar helped break the music on the British folk scene, bringing to light some prominent early blues figures (Son House, Blind Blake, Big Bill Broonzy, etc.) He remains largely overshadowed by those he inspired, at least in America. Joint Control won’t do anything to change this status.

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