In his lifetime, modern-day players Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and Devendra Banhart, rock figureheads Neil Young and Jimmy Page and folk stars Donovan, Roy Harper, Nick Drake and Gordon Giltrap were among those to put their admiration for his innovative style on the record.
They could hear in Glasgow-born Jansch's music the identifiable influences of folk, blues, jazz and early music, and also the flavour of other traditional forms he had soaked up while busking his way across Europe as a young man.
What surprised them was how these influences manifested as unusually decorated chords, bent notes and percussive twangs, mesmerising when combined in his rolling instrumental pieces and adding emotional depth to his songs.
Before establishing British folk-rock band Pentangle in 1967, Jansch recorded four albums for Transatlantic Records, the last of which was a collaborative effort with friend and fellow guitarist John Renbourn and the first of which was a crudely recorded self-titled gem that stands among his finest work.
The debut LP, captured on reel-to-reel in engineer Bill Leader's house, presents Jansch as a brooding, tousle-haired young troubadour yet to find full expression as a lyricist but already capable of turning out timeless pieces.
Needle of Death, written on the drug-related death of folk-singer friend Buck Polly, pre-dates Young's The Needle And The Damage Done by five years and by comparison is the more powerful, thanks in the main to Jansch's plaintive and intimate vocal performance.
Protest song Do You Hear Me Now is another to draw strength from Jansch's reedy imperfect singing. The performance is as you might have heard it at one of the London clubs he frequented while building his reputation among friends, followers and peers.
But it is Jansch's acoustic picking that set him apart from his contemporaries, and here we have the earliest record of his burgeoning talent.
