Pentangle - "Hunting Song" (BBC in Concert, 1971)

This is the hype track they needed to play on every school bus in Southern California headed to Buena Park with a troop of middle school students onboard for their field trip to Medieval Times. From the first spectral peals of glockenspiel, all I want is to go nuts over a jousting tournament while I dig incisors into a slightly overdone turkey leg. Pentangle is one of my favorite ensembles from the transatlantic folk boom of the sixties. Any combo of the time would have been so lucky to have Bert Jansch & John Renbourn picking guitar strings for them, but for me, it’s Jacqui McShee and her otherworldly vocals that often gave the ‘tangle that X-factor. This televised performance of a great track from the quintet’s great Basket of Light album (1969) is one such example.