By 1965 she was running a folk club at the Red Lion in Sutton, Surrey, and established a friendship with Jansch and Renbourn when they played there.

She sang on Renbourn's Another Monday album and performed with him as a duo, debuting at Les Cousins club in August 1966.

[5] McShee began joining them as a vocalist, and by March of that year, Thompson and Cox were being billed as part of the band.

Under his influence, they graduated from performing in clubs to appearing in concert halls, and from then on, as Colin Harper put it, "the ramshackle, happy-go-lucky progress of the Pentangle was going to be a streamlined machine of purpose and efficiency".

This all-acoustic album was produced by Shel Talmy, who claimed to have used an innovative approach to recording acoustic guitars in order to achieve a bright, bell-like sound.

Basket of Light, which followed in mid-1969, was their greatest commercial success, thanks to a surprise hit single, "Light Flight", which became popular when it was used as theme music for a television series, Take Three Girls (the BBC's first drama series to be broadcast in colour, for which the band also provided incidental music).

Its release was accompanied by a UK tour in which Pentangle were supported by Wizz Jones and Clive Palmer's band COB.

[17] A reunion of the band was planned in the early 1980s, by which time, Jansch and Renbourn had re-established their solo careers, McShee had a young family, Thompson was mainly doing session work, and Cox was running a restaurant in Minorca.

The re-formed Pentangle appeared at the 1982 Cambridge Folk Festival, but without a drummer, as Cox had broken his leg in a road accident.

The line-up of Jansch, McShee, Portman Smith, Kirtley and Conway survived almost as long as the original Pentangle and recorded three albums: Think of Tomorrow, One More Road and Live 1994.

They completed a final tour in March–April 1995, after which Jansch left to pursue solo work, including his residency at the 12 Bar Club in London's Denmark Street.

Their first album, About Thyme, featured Ralph McTell, Albert Lee, Mike Mainieri and John Martyn as guests.

About Thyme was released on the band's own label, GJS (Gerry Jacqui Spencer), and reached the top of fRoots magazine's British folk chart.

Saxophonist Jerry Underwood and bassist/guitarist Alan Thomson were added, and the band, with the agreement of the original members, was renamed Jacqui McShee's Pentangle.

[21] The new incarnations and personnel changes took the band in various musical directions, but interest in the original Pentangle line-up continued and at least nineteen compilation albums were released between 1972 and 2016, such as The Time Has Come 1967 – 1973, a 4-CD collection of rarities, outtakes and live performances issued in 2007, with liner notes written by Colin Harper and Pete Paphides.

Jo Lustig's earlier influence had secured numerous radio appearances for the band, including at least eleven broadcasts by the BBC in 1968,[22] and the album was a 2-CD compilation of tracks from these sessions, including a recording of "The Name of the Game", which was used by the BBC as a theme song for some of the Pentangle broadcasts but had never appeared before on record.

[31] By the time they released their fourth album, Cruel Sister, in 1970, Pentangle had reverted to traditional folk music and had begun to use electric guitars.

Folk music in Britain had moved towards a rock sound and the use of electrified instruments, and Cruel Sister invited comparison with such works as Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief and Steeleye Span's Hark!

[32] In their final two albums Pentangle returned to their folk-jazz roots, but by then the genre's musical tastes had moved to British folk rock.

Producer John Leonard said Pentangle had been one of the most influential groups of the late 20th century, and it would be wrong not to acknowledge the contribution they had made to music.