The River Sessions

"The River Sessions" is a live album by Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, released in 2004. The CD contains a track-by-track commentary. It's a recording of a solo Bert Jansch concert, from City Hall in Glasgow, on November 18th, 1974. In 1973, Bert Jansch left Pentangle and the band split. He returned to a solo career and released in a group setting L.A. Turnaround in September 1974. Eight of the fourteen tracks on this live album come from that LP. This is the unique recording available on CD of a live solo rendition of the tracks. The track Stone Monkey is an allusion to the sixteenth-century Chinese book Journey To The West, published anonymously. Bert Jansch read an abridged translation made by Arthur Waley and simply called Monkey. The novel is a fictionalised account of the legends around the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng's pilgrimage to India during the Táng dynasty in order to obtain Buddhist religious texts called sutras. On this live recording, Bert Jansch gives explanations before the tracks.