Jethro Tull – The Seven Decades

The early Jethro Tull released their first Blues-oriented album, This Was, in the latter part of 1968 before moving on to more home-grown and eclectic efforts in 1969 with Stand Up and a flurry of single releases, including Living In The Past, in the UK market.

Benefit, Aqualung, and Thick As A Brick followed and the band’s success grew internationally. Various band members came and went, but the charismatic front man and composer, flautist and singer Ian Anderson continued to lead the group through its various musical incarnations.

Jethro Tull were, by the mid-seventies, one of the most successful live performing acts on the world stage, rivalling Zeppelin, Elton John and even the Rolling Stones. Surprising, really, for a group whose more sophisticated and evolved stylistic extravagance was far from the Pop and Rock norm of that era.

With now some 30-odd albums to their credit and sales totalling more than 60 million, the apparently uncommercial Tull have continued to travel near and far to fans across the world.

After fifty years at the bottom, at the top and various points in between, the Tull repertoire is still performed typically more than a hundred concerts each year by Ian Anderson on his continuing tours throughout the world. Ian remains at the centre of a group of sometimes changing but highly capable – indeed excellent – musicians.

The line up for 2022 is:
Ian Anderson: Flute, vocals & acoustic guitar
Joe Parrish-James: Guitar & vocals
Scott Hammond: Drums
John O’Hara: Keyboards & vocals
David Goodier: Bass guitar & vocals

The band continue to delight audiences everywhere and present the ongoing legacy of Tull’s music with its rich variety and depth of expression wherever the fans, young and old, want to hear Rock, Folk, Jazz and Classical-inspired music for grown-ups.

Ian Anderson, known throughout the world of rock music as the flute and voice behind the legendary Jethro Tull, celebrates his 53rd year as a recording and performing musician in 2022.

Ian was born in 1947 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. After attending primary school in Edinburgh, his family relocated to Blackpool in the north of England in 1959. Following a traditional Grammar school education, he moved on to Art college to study fine art before deciding on an attempt at a musical career.

Tull formed in 1968 out of the amalgamation of the John Evan Band and McGregor’s Engine, two blues-based local UK groups.
After a lengthy career, Jethro Tull has released 30 studio and live albums, selling more than 60 million copies since the band first performed at London’s famous Marquee Club in February 1968.

After undertaking more than 3000 concerts in 40 countries throughout five decades, Tull has played typically 100-plus concerts each year to longstanding, as well as new fans worldwide. He continues to celebrate the catalogue of Jethro Tull along with the latest 2022 release, The Zealot Gene, with various dates in the USA and elsewhere in the world.

Widely recognized as the man who introduced the flute to rock music, Ian Anderson remains the crowned exponent of the popular and rock genres of flute playing. So far, no pretender to the throne has stepped forward. Ian also plays ethnic flutes and whistles together with acoustic guitar and the mandolin family of instruments, providing the acoustic textures which has been an integral part of most of the Tull repertoire.

Anderson has so far recorded seven diverse solo albums in his career: 1983’s “Walk Into Light”, the flute instrumental “Divinities” album for EMI’s Classical Music Division in 1995 which reached number one in the relevant Billboard chart, the acoustic collections of songs, “The Secret Language of Birds”, and “Rupi’s Dance”. In a more progressive rock context he recorded “Thick As A Brick 2” in 2012 and “Homo Erraticus” in 2014. Released in 2017, the classically inspired album “Jethro Tull – The String Quartets” with the Carducci Quartet reached number one in the Billboard Classical Charts.

Anderson lives on a farm in the southwest of England where he has a recording studio and office. He has been married for 42 years to Shona who is also an active director of their music and other companies. They have two children – James and Gael – and three grandchildren.

His hobbies include the growing of many varieties of hot chile peppers, the study and conservation of the 26 species of small wildcats of the world and the appreciation of mechanical watches, fountain pens and vintage cameras. He reluctantly admits to owning digital cameras and scanners for his work on the photographic promotional images related to Tull as well as his solo career.

In 2006, he was awarded a Doctorate in Literature from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, the Ivor Award for International Achievement in Music and, in the New Years Honours List 2008, an MBE for services to music. In 2011, he received another Doctorate in Literature from Dundee University.

Ian owns no fast car, never having taken a driving test, and has a wardrobe of singularly uninspiring and drab leisurewear. He still keeps a couple of off-road competition motorcycles, a few sporting guns and a saxophone which he promises never to play again.

He declares a lifelong commitment to music as a profession, being far too young to hang up his hat or his flute, although the tights and codpiece have long since been consigned to some forgotten bottom drawer.

Over the years, there have been a fair few writers who have attempted to plumb the unfathomable depths of The Jolly Jethros’ secret lives: not that there is much to plumb. Maybe the odd grubby descent into Jogmania, Pussycatology, or overindulgence at the table of the Great God Hurry Curry.

The first one I remember was an Australian (bloke) who, at the time of “A Passion Play,” wrote some obscure but well-meaning treatise on me as the poet – a thoroughly wasted literary journey since I have a distinct dislike of poetry in general and have never modelled myself on its weird and fanciful practitioners. I believe it was entitled “To Be The Play.” Not many copies have survived, methinks, to grace the book cabinets and libraries of the disciples of Rock. He was a nice man, ‘though and travelled with the band in the great down-under for a few days in 1972, I think I remember.

In 1993, Karl Schramm and Gerrard J. Burns took upon themselves (with a little help from truly-yours) to fashion the then complete lyrics of Tull songs from the album covers’ lyric pages, the deciphered mutterings of the records themselves and the half-remembered words which each night I sing with gay abandon on the concert stage but can never recall the next morning if asked so to do.

Together with some anecdotal support from interviews with me, this book – hardbacked to the core – puts down for once and for all the wordy cravings and meanderings of youth, maturity and middle-to-late age. Must bring it up to date soon.

The first more analytical attempt of note was the more informed and down to earth biographical approach of one David Rees – a modest chap who, through the good offices of the Tull Fanzine “A New Day” had a wealth of gathered facts and interview snippets to draw upon. Combined with the input of his fully feathered friends in the Tull fan community, this material was honed into the book known, revered and worshipped as the first real compilation of facts and a little forgivable fiction, as “Minstrels In The Gallery.” With photographic additions from Martin Webb – himself an author of articles on rare records – Mark Colman and others, this book galvanised others to follow suit.

The Americans were not to be left out with a trilogy of efforts forthcoming in the last two or three years.

Barbara Espinoza wrote to me to ask for interviews and contacts for a proposed book. She managed the unthinkable: an interview with the reclusive hermit, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond! Jeffrey offered up some Driving In Diverse: A Collective Profile thoughts on his life and work, which he wouldn’t ordinarily share with me – and I see him every few months for lunch or dinner. What a treat to see this in print. He probably made most of it up ‘though.

Barbara needs a little help on the proof-reading front – a lot of typos and grammatical no-no’s here, but still a good read. Published in 1999, her book is curiously named “Driving In Diverse.”

Greg Russo’s “ Flying Colours” is a book with a different feel. A large and packed handbook/reference manual theme offers much researched and gathered detail. Without so much direct input from the band members, Greg has brought together astonishing bits and bobs to delight the Tull fan seeking after the tiniest pearl of information, useful only – perhaps – to the son of fruit-fly or the criminally and pathologically nerdomaniacal. Bags to ponder on here. Published in 2000.

Scott Allen Nollen, a writer on the subject of classic film, literature and music, produced the well-researched work “Jethro Tull – A History Of The Band 1968-2001.” With notable contributions from other band members, this book has a foreword by me – which must mean that I endorse the entire content in every last shard of detail. In fact, I cannot quite bring myself to read the whole thing – or any of these other books for that matter – since it is all a bit close to home and my memory occasionally disagrees with the recollections of other witnesses to the tale.

A new entrant to the Tull author hall of infamy is Raymond Benson – the official author of contemporary James Bond books. Raymond has now completed a small but perfectly formed (how would I know, since I haven’t seen it) little book of modest dimension and price to initiate the less demanding potential reader of Tull stuff and nonsense. In this, the “Pocket Essential Jethro Tull,”Raymond has had a little help from me by way of interview and encouragement, mostly on account of his continued sending of the latest Bond publication, completely free of charge. As the once-proud owner of a Walther P88 pistol – specially set aside for me by the makers – with the serial number 007, I have still a soft spot for the Bond saga. Sadly, said gun has been forcibly neutered under the draconian revisions to UK firearms laws and is relegated to the far reaches of my gun safe. It actually had a grungy single action trigger pull and the double action was even more of a pig. God give me back my Browning Hi-Power with the Barstow match barrel and the MMC target sights. Trigger pull a safe pound and three quarters and reliable with all known 9mm ammunition. Sadly neutered also.

The above authors have all reached out to long-standing Tull fans and neophytes alike with a huge investment in time, labour and commitment. Their love of the band comes shining through and I take my hat off to them all. Far too lazy to put pen to paper or digit to QWERTY, I leave this rarified atmosphere to their own circular breathing.

There have, of course been other Tull authors from other countries, published in their native tongues, and forgive me for not mentioning their names and efforts here. I guess you will find them, on the w.w. web, as indeed you will those detailed above.

Am***n.com will oblige and B****s and N**b*l can probably take your money too.

So, give the ears a rest. Pick up a book sometime and let their words do the talking. Here’s to all the Tull authors – bet they never do it again!