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Jethro Tull (band)

Jethro Tull's fourth album, Aqualung

Jethro Tull is a progressive rock band that was formed in Blackpool, England in the 1960s. Their music is marked by the quirky vocal style and unique lead flute work of frontman Ian Anderson, and by unusual and often complex song construction. Their music has incorporated elements of classical and celtic folk music, as well as the art rock and alternative rock phases of rock music. Despite this, it is difficult to point to specific artists who have directly influenced or been influenced by Jethro Tull. More than most other rock bands, their music stands apart from the rest of rock music. In interviews, Ian Anderson has attributed this "differentness" to the fact that Tull never used drugs. In addition, while other music groups did influence them, they stuck with their own style of progressive rock tinged with classic forms of music.

Table of contents

History

The early days

Jethro Tull "paid their dues" in clubs in the mid-to-late 1960s with a revolving line-up which eventually crystallized into Ian Anderson (vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, and later many other instruments), Mick Abrahams (electric guitar), Glenn Cornick (bass guitar) and Clive Bunker (drums). The story goes that the band went through a variety of name changes to get repeat bookings, and that Jethro Tull was the name they happened to sport when they scored a record deal (the name comes from agriculturist Jethro Tull, who invented the seed drill). Their management were even suggesting that Abrahams do all the singing and the flute be eliminated, relegating Anderson to rhythm piano. After a couple of minor singles (including their first—an Abrahams-penned pop tune called "Sunshine Day"—on which the band's name was misspelled "Jethro Toe", making it now a collector's item), they released the bluesy album This Was in 1968. The music was written by Anderson and Abrahams.

Following this album, Abrahams left (forming his own band, Blodwyn Pig), due to what was mainly a musical difference (Abrahams preferred to stick with the blues, which Anderson came to regard as a stylistically narrow and restrictive vocabulary for white "middle class" Englishmen). After a series of auditions (contrary to a rock rumour, not including Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi, who actually agreed to appear on the Rolling Stones' Rock 'n' Roll Circus, to perform A Song For Jeffrey), former Motivation, Penny Peeps and Gethsemane member Martin Barre was hired as the new guitarist. Barre would become the second longest-standing member of the band after Anderson.

Progressive rock

This new line-up released Stand Up in 1969. Written entirely by Anderson—with the exception of the jazzy rearrangement of J. S. Bach's Bourrée—it largely abandoned the blues in favour of the up-and-coming style of progressive rock being developed at the time by groups such as King Crimson, The Nice and Yes. Stand Up feels not entirely unlike a jazz-tinged early Led Zeppelin album, with a heavy and slightly dark sound. In 1970 they added keyboardist John Evan (although technically he was only a guest musician at this stage) and released the album Benefit.

Bassist Cornick left following Benefit, replaced by Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, who was a childhood friend of Ian, and whose name appeared in the songs "A Song for Jeffrey," "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square," and "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me."

This line-up released Tull's best-known work, Aqualung in 1971. The album is a combination of heavy rock music focusing on themes such as social outcasts and organized religion, and some lighter acoustic fare about the mundanity of everyday life. Aqualung is adored and reviled in equal amounts, although the title track and "Locomotive Breath" feature on most classic rock stations.

Anderson's writing was anything but subtle: The title character of "Aqualung" is a homeless alcoholic pedophile, and the focus of the song "Cross-eyed Mary" is an underage prostitute. "My God" is a full-frontal assault on eccelsiastic excesses: People what have you done / locked Him in His golden cage. / Made Him bend to your religion / Him resurrected from the grave. / He is the god of nothing / if that's all that you can see. Even the gentle acoustic Wond'ring Aloud is a sexual double-entendre.

Drummer Bunker was replaced by Barriemore Barlow for 1972's Thick as a Brick. This was a concept album consisting of a single very long track split over the two sides of the LP, with a number of movements melded together and some repeating themes. The first movement with its distinctive acoustic guitar riff got some airplay on rock stations at the time, and occasionally turns up in modern classic-rock programming as a "deep" or "rare" cut. This album's quintet—Anderson, Barre, Evan, Hammond-Hammond and Barlow—was one of Tull's longest-standing line-ups, enduring until 1975.

1972 also saw the release of Living in the Past, a double-album compilation of singles, B-sides and outtakes, with a single side recorded live in 1970. The live tracks excepted, it is regarded by many Tull fans as their best overall release. The title track (in 5/4 time) is one of their more enduring singles, though reportedly Anderson wrote it with the specific intent of preventing its ascent to the pop charts.

In 1973, the band attempted to record a double album in tax exile at Chateau d'Herouville (something the Rolling Stones and Elton John among others were doing at the time), but supposedly they were unhappy with the quality of the recording studio and abandoned the effort. Instead they quickly recorded and released A Passion Play, another single-track concept album with very allegorical lyrics. After several years of increasing popularity, A Passion Play sold relatively well but received generally poor reviews. Up until this point, Ian Anderson had a friendly relationship with the rock press, but this album marked a turning point for the band. They had passed the peak of their popularity with the critics, and a decline in popularity with the public followed. However, 1974's War Child, an album originally intended to be a companion piece for a film, received some critical acclaim, and produced the radio mainstay "Bungle in the Jungle". It also included a song, "Only Solitaire", allegedly aimed at a music writer who was one of Anderson's harsher critics.

In 1975 the band released Minstrel in the Gallery, an album which resembled Aqualung in that it contrasted softer, acoustic guitar-based pieces with lengthier, more bombastic works headlined by Barre's electric guitar. Critics gave it mixed reviews. Following this album, bassist Hammond-Hammond left the band, replaced by John Glascock.

1976's Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! was another concept album, this time about the life of an aging rocker. Anderson, stung by critical reviews (particularly of A Passion Play), responded with more sharply-barbed lyrics. The press seemed oblivious to the ploy, and instead asked if the title track was autobiographical—a charge Anderson hotly denied.

Folk rock

The band closed the decade with a trio of folk rock albums, Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses and Stormwatch. Songs from the Wood was the first Tull album to receive unambiguously positive reviews since the time of Benefit and Living in the Past.

The band had long had ties to the folk-rockers Steeleye Span. Although not formally considered a part of the folk-rock movement (which had actually begun nearly a decade earlier with the advent of Fairport Convention), there was clearly a lot of exchanging of musical ideas between Tull and the folk-rockers. Also, at this time Anderson had moved to a farm in the countryside, and his new bucolic lifestlye is clearly reflected in these albums. In particular, the title track of Heavy Horses is a pean to the great draft horses of the Shire, Percheron, and Clydesdale breeds.

The band continued to tour, and released a live double album in 1978. Entitled Bursting Out it featured dynamic live performances of the lineup that many Tull fans consider the golden era of the band. It also features Anderson's often-ribald stage banter with the audience and band members. ("David's gone for a pee. Ah, he's back. Did you give it a good shake?") The vinyl LP contains two instrumental tracks not found on the CD version, Martin Barre's guitar solo "Conundrum" and the band's rendition of the "Dam Buster's March."

During this time, David Palmer, who had orchestrated some strings for earlier Tull albums, formally joined the band, mainly on keyboards. Bassist Glascock died in 1979 following heart surgery, and Stormwatch was completed without him (Anderson contributed bass on a few tracks). Anderson decided to record his first solo album.

Electronic rock

For whatever reason, though, Anderson released his solo album as a Tull album in 1980. Entitled A, it featured Barre on electric guitar, Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention on bass, and Mark Craney on drums. But the album had a heavy electronic feel, contributed by guest keyboardist Eddie Jobson. It had a sound and feel completely unlike anything Tull had exhibited before.

Craney departed following the A tour and Tull entered a period of revolving drummers (primarily Gerry Conway and Doane Perry). Peter-John Vettese replaced Jobson on keyboards, and the band returned to a folkier sound—albeit with synthesizers—for 1982's The Broadsword and the Beast. 1981 marked the first year in their album career that the band did not release an album.

In 1984 Tull released Under Wraps, a heavily electronic album. Although the band was reportedly proud of the sound the album was not well-received, and as a result of either that or the throat problems Anderson developed singing the demanding Under Wraps material on tour (or both), Tull went on a three-year hiatus during which Anderson began a highly successful salmon-farming business.

The modern era

Tull returned stronger than anyone might have expected with 1987's Crest of a Knave. Vettese absent (Anderson contributed the synth programming) and relying more heavily on Barre's electric guitar than the band had since the early 1970s, the album was a critical and commercial success. They went on to win a 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, beating odds-on favorites Metallica. The award was particularly controversial as many did not consider Jethro Tull hard rock, much less heavy metal. The fact that it was the first time a Grammy geared towards metal was presented it was seen as a particularly hard blow and insult for heavy metal fans (after this, and perhaps because of this, separate Grammys were awarded for hard rock and heavy metal the following years). In response to the criticism they received over the award, the band then reportedly took out an advert in a British music periodical with the line, "The flute is a heavy metal instrument!".

The style of Crest has been compared to that of Dire Straits, in part because Anderson seemed to no longer have the vocal range he once possessed. Tull's frank treatment of sexuality was unabated, however. The staging on the 1989 tour (supporting Rock Island) featured projected silhouettes of lithe dancers during the song "Kissing Willie", ending with an image that bordered on pornographic.

1988 was notable for the release of 20 Years of Jethro Tull, a 5-LP themed set (also released as an unthemed 3-CD set and as a truncated single CD version) consisting largely of outtakes from throughout the band's history as well as a variety of live and digitally remastered tracks. It also included a booklet outlining the band's history in detail.

Of particular note is 1992's A Little Light Music, a mostly-acoustic live album which was well received by fans due to its different takes on many past compositions.

Since then the band has released a variety of albums in a style similar to Crest but also incorporating more folk and world-music influences, reflecting the musical influences of decades of performing all around the globe. In songs such as "Out of the Noise" and "Hot Mango Flush", Anderson paints vivid pictures of 3rd-world street scenes. Other songs from this period reflect life on the road for the relentlessly touring musicians; for example "Big Riff and Mando", which gives a wry account of the theft of Barre's prized mandolin by a stage-struck fan. "Budapest" depicts a backstage scene with a shy but talented local stagehand.

Recent albums have reflected Anderson's coming to grips with being an old rocker, with songs such as the pensive "Another Harry's Bar", "Wicked Windows" (a meditation on reading glasses), and the gruff "Wounded, Old, and Treacherous".

Anderson has released several solo albums since the early 1980s, and in the 1990s Barre also began releasing solo work. Anderson and Barre have remained the core of the band (Pegg finally leaving in 1995, being replaced by Jonathan Noyce). In 1996, an assemblage of progressive rock artists released a tribute to Tull, To Cry You a Song, which included contributions from several former Tull members, as well as artists including Keith Emerson, Tempest, and Wolfstone.

The band has endured into the 21st century and continue to release new albums every few years. In the early 2000s, Anderson's voice seems to be regaining some of its previous range.

Discography

External links







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