L.A. Turnaround by Bert Jansch

I'm a sucker for this kind of back cover. Part insight into the recording process and part peek into the atmosphere around it. The photos are a mix of the recording sessions in a Sussex manor house (captured via mobile recording studio in an Airstream caravan), plus shots of Jansch out and about when the sessions moved to Sound City in California, looking every inch the Scotsman.

The album was for a long while out of print and so became something of a 'lost classic'. Three tracks surfaced on the 2000 compilation Dazzling Stranger, but the album didn't see a proper reissue until 2009, when it was put out on Drag City Records. Perhaps most famously, Jansch himself didn't even have a copy of the album until Johnny Marr of The Smiths gave him a rare copy (Source: BBC). Although another story has Jansch himself having to bid on eBay for a copy.

The album was produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith and, originally released on the Famous Charisma label following the demise of Jansch's previous band Pentangle, it was a comeback album of sorts. An Uncut review called it the 'best ever Sunday morning LP'. It went on to add, "When Charisma owner Tony Stratton-Smith hired former Monkee Michael Nesmith to produce Jansch’s 1974 debut for the label, the idea seems to have been to make a record that could bring the folk icon to a wider audience. As it happened, the stunning LA Turnaround became one of Bert Jansch’s least-heard albums. Otherwise, though, mission accomplished: Nesmith brought Red Rhodes, pedal steel genius of his own First National Band, and the greater part of the record is simply Rhodes’ sublimely intuitive playing intertwining with Jansch’s. Throughout, Bert’s deep-rooted British balladry meets Nesmith’s experiments in avant-country, and on songs like the sparkling, hypnotic “Fresh As A Sweet Sunday Morning”, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could fail to love it."

In a recent interview, again for Uncut, on whether Jansch was easy to work with, Nesmith recalled, "Yeah, he was for me, I liked him. I didn't know anything about him before that record. Bert was a discovery for me, a wonderful discovery. It was particularly interesting when he got to LA, because he brought all his background with him, but got immersed into the country music bar scene, which is its own particular animal here. That was fun to watch happen. He and Red played really well together."

Some of that bar scene is clearly captured on the back cover.