Jethro Tull - Aqualung ( YT2 )

 

Jethro Tull - Some Day The Sun Won't Shine For You ( L2 )

In the morning -- gonna get my things together.

Packing up and I'm leaving this place.
I don't believe you'll cry, there'll be a smile upon your face.

I didn't think how much you'd hurt me.
That's something that I laugh about.
Bring in the good times, baby.
And let the bad times out.

That old sun keeps on shining,
But someday it won't shine for you.
In the morning I'll be leaving.
I'll leave your mother too.

Jethro Tull - A Song for Jeffrey ( S1 )

 

"A Song for Jeffrey" is a song recorded by the English progressive rock band Jethro Tull. Despite being released as a single in the U.K., "A Song for Jeffrey" was the B-side to "Love Story" in the U.S. It is written in honour of Ian Anderson's friend and future Jethro Tull bassist Jeffrey Hammond. Another version of the song was recorded for play on BBC radio.

The song starts off with a bass riff by Glenn Cornick before Ian Anderson's flute comes in. It then becomes a psychedelic blues tune, with guitarist Mick Abrahams playing slide guitar. Despite being similar in style to "My Sunday Feeling" and "Beggar's Farm", the instrumental section shows a greater influence of jazz rather than blues.

The song was largely praised by music critics. AllMusic's Bruce Eder called it "a superb example of commercial psychedelic blues" but did not consider it one of the album highlights. George Starostin called it one of the "catchiest ditties the band ever did: the interplay between the bloozy guitar and the poppy harmonica is amazing and promptly digs itself into your memory". Despite the single not reaching the charts, New Musical Express wrote that it was "good enough to have made the Chart".

"A Song for Jeffrey" was ranked the 25th best Jethro Tull song by Rock – Das Gesamtwerk der größten Rock-Acts im Check.

The song was performed on the Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus in December 1968, although only Ian Anderson's vocals and flute were actually amplified from the live performance; the rest of the band mimed their parts, but the sound was pre-recorded.

This was the only Tull performance with guitarist Tony Iommi during his two-week tenure with the band, and it has been suggested that he had not had time to learn his part and thus relied on Abrahams' recording. This version was officially released on the companion album to the film in 1996.

Single by Jethro Tull
from the album This Was
B-side	"One for John Gee"
Released	1968
Recorded	1968
Genre	Blues rock folk rock
Length	3:22
Label	Island, Reprise
Songwriter(s)	Ian Anderson
Producer(s)	Ian Anderson
Jethro Tull singles chronology
"Sunshine Day" (1968) "A Song for Jeffrey" (1968) "Love Story" (1969)

Jethro Tull - This Was ( D1 )

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Jethro Tull ( B28 )

Discography

Studio albums

• This Was (1968)
• Stand Up (1969)
• Benefit (1970)
• Aqualung (1971)
• Living in the Past (1972)
• Thick as a Brick (1972)
• A Passion Play (1973)
• War Child (1974)
• Minstrel in the Gallery (1975)
• Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! (1976)
• Songs from the Wood (1977)
• Heavy Horses (1978)
• Stormwatch (1979)
• A (1980)
• The Broadsword and the Beast (1982)
• Under Wraps (1984)
• Crest of a Knave (1987)
• Rock Island (1989)
• Catfish Rising (1991)
• Roots to Branches (1995)
• J-Tull Dot Com (1999)
• The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2003)

Jethro Tull ( B27 )

• Dave Pegg – bass, mandolin, vocals (1979–1995)
• Mark Craney – drums (1980–1981)
• Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1981–1982; studio – 1987–1988)
• Peter-John Vettese – keyboards, vocoder (1982–1986; studio – 1989)
• Doane Perry – drums, percussion, vocals (1984–2012)
• Maartin Allcock – keyboards, guitar, mandolin (1988–1991)
• Andrew Giddings – keyboards, accordion, bass (1991–2007)
• Jonathan Noyce – bass, percussion (1995–2007)

Guest musicians

• David O'List – guitar (1968)
• Tony Williams– bass (1978)
• Eddie Jobson – keyboards, violin (1980–1981, 1985)
• Phil Collins – drums (1982)
• Paul Burgess – drums (1983)
• Don Airey – keyboards (1987)
• Matt Pegg – bass (1991, 1994)
• Scott Hunter – drums (1991)
• Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards (1992)
• Mark Parnell – drums (1994)
• Steve Bailey – bass (1995)
• Lucia Micarelli – violin (2005–2006)
• Anna Phoebe – violin (2006–2007, 2009)
• Ann Marie Calhoun – violin (2006–2007)
• James Duncan Anderson – drums (2007–2009)
• Mark Mondesir – drums (2009)
• Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir – violin, vocals (2015–2017)

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Jethro Tull ( B26 )

Members

Current line-up

• Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, other instruments (1967–2012, 2017–present)
• David Goodier – bass (2007–2012, 2017–present)
• John O'Hara – keyboards, accordion, vocals (2007–2012, 2017–present)
• Scott Hammond – drums (2017–present)
• Florian Opahle – electric and acoustic guitars (2017–present)

Previous musicians

Mick Abrahams – guitar, vocals (1967–1968) Clive Bunker – drums, percussion (1967–1971) Glenn Cornick – bass guitar (1967–1970) Tony Iommi – guitar (1968) Martin Barre – electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, lute, flute (1968–2012) John Evan – keyboards (1970–1980) Jeffrey Hammond – bass, vocals (1971–1975) Barriemore Barlow – drums, percussion (1971–1980) John Glascock – bass, harmony and backing vocals (1975–1979) Dee Palmer – keyboards (1977–1980; also worked with the band as an arranger between 1967 and 1976)

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Jethro Tull ( B25 )

Gentle Giant's Derek Shulman put Jethro Tull as one of the greatest bands in progressive rock history. After touring with the band in 1972, Shulman praised the band as musicians and friends.

Nick Cave is a fan of Jethro Tull, having named one of his sons Jethro in honour of the group. His group, Grinderman, also covered "Locomotive Breath" during soundchecks. At Cave's own request, Ian Anderson presented him with his Album of the Year trophy at the MOJO Awards in 2008.

Bands who have covered songs from Jethro Tull include Iron Maiden, who recorded their own version of "Cross Eyed Mary" for the B-Side of "The Trooper". German power metal band Helloween covered "Locomotive breath" on their cover album "Metal Jukebox". The Finnish band Turisas recorded "Broadsword". Finnish heavy metal band Northern Kings recorded "Fallen on Hard Times". "Rainbow Blues" was covered by Blackmore's Night, former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's band, on their 2003 album Ghost of a Rose. The Ronnie James Dio band Elf, in 1972 played live versions "Aqualung" and "Cross Eyed Mary". Also in the seventies, the Italian band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) played live a version of "My God" and "Bouree". In the Stoner Metal compilation Sucking the 70s, there are two covers of Jethro Tull songs: "Cross-Eyed Mary" and "Hymn 43", from the bands Clutch and Alabama Thunderpussy, respectively.

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Jethro Tull ( B24 )

Fiftieth anniversary tour (2017–present)

In September 2017, Anderson announced plans for a tour to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of This Was, and a new studio album in 2018. The band line-up includes Anderson, Hammond, Opahle, O'Hara, and Goodier (all musicians of Anderson's solo band since 2012),with Barre absent from the lineup.

On 2 January 2018, Ian Anderson published a New Year post on jethrotull.com, including a picture of Anderson with the caption "IA in the studio working on a new album for release March 2019. Shhhh; keep it a secret..."

On 1 June 2018, Parlophone Records released a new (50-track) career collection celebrating the band's 50th anniversary featuring all 21 Tull albums, named 50 for 50. In the notes of the 50 for 50 booklet it is said that the new album scheduled for 2019 will be a solo record by Ian Anderson and not a new album by Jethro Tull.

Legacy

Jethro Tull's influence on musicians includes Iron Maiden's Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Dream Theater's John Myung, Blind Guardian's Marcus Siepen,Joe Bonamassa, the Decemberists' Jenny Conlee and folk doom metal band Blood Ceremony. 

Rush's Geddy Lee, for example, said about Jethro Tull: "I was a massive Tull fan from very young ... and, I hope, that too reflects in Rush. I was mesmerised by Ian Anderson. His presentation was simply magical and he delivered it with such a sense of humour and great style ... We [of Rush] saw it as a huge challenge to try and create something that can seem so dynamic onstage."

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Jethro Tull ( B23 )

Homo Erraticus will be a prog-rock concept album which, according to Anderson, "chronicles the weird imaginings of one Ernest T. Parritt, as recaptured by the now middle-aged Gerald Bostock after a trip to Mathew Bunter's Old Library Bookshop in Linwell village. Bostock and Bunter came across this dusty, unpublished manuscript, written by local amateur historian Ernest T. Parritt, (1873–1928), and entitled Homo Britanicus Erraticus." Like Thick as a Brick 2, Homo Erraticus is billed as an Ian Anderson solo album.

In an April 2014 interview following the release of Anderson's solo album Homo Erraticus, Anderson announced that from that point on, he would be releasing all his music under his own name. Anderson stated that Tull "kind of came more or less to an end during the last 10 years or so", and stated his preference "in my twilight years, to use my own name for the most part being composer of virtually all Tull songs and music since 1968". In the liner notes Anderson explains that he will continue to operate under his own name.

2015 saw Anderson tour with the Ian Anderson Touring Band and the project Jethro Tull – The Rock Opera; a lyrically modified Tull repertoire and new rock songs about the namesake of the band, Jethro Tull, together with elaborate video productions to the stage. The touring band included a female vocalist for the first time, Icelander Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir who also plays the violin. The 2016 Tour visited Europe, Australia, and the USA.

In 2017, Anderson toured under the title "Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson".

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Jethro Tull ( B22 )

During interviews in November 2011, Martin Barre stated that there were no current plans for future Jethro Tull work. In 2012, Barre assembled and toured with a group, billed as Martin Barre's New Day, which included Jonathan Noyce that played mostly Tull material. In 2015, Barre stated "It's important that people realize there will never be a Jethro Tull again. There will be two solo bands: the Ian Anderson Band and the Martin Barre Band, and long may they exist, and long may they enjoy playing music. I'm not being pedantic. I always hate to hear, '"Oh, you've left Jethro Tull." I haven't really. Ian wanted to finish Jethro Tull, wanted to stop the band completely."

After Jethro Tull (2012–2017)

On 30 January 2012, Anderson announced via the Jethro Tull website that Thick as a Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?, a followup to Thick as a Brick, would be released on 2 April 2012. It was recorded by Anderson and the Ian Anderson Touring Band, who made the following tour together too. There are two former Jethro Tull members bassist David Goodier and keyboardist John O'Hara plus guitarist Florian Opahle, drummer Scott Hammond and as an additional vocalist Ryan O'Donnell. Thick as a Brick 2 had its world premiere on 14 April 2012 at Perth Concert Hall, Scotland, UK, kicking off an expected 18-month tour supporting both the original and new albums.

In November 2013, Anderson announced via the Jethro Tull website that a new album Homo Erraticus ("The Wandering Man") would be released in April 2014. This will be followed by tours in the UK and US, during which the album will be played in its entirety. 

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Jethro Tull ( B21 )

An Ian Anderson live double album and DVD was released in 2005 called Ian Anderson Plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull. In addition, a DVD entitled Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 and a live album Aqualung Live (recorded in 2004) were released in 2005.

2006 saw the release of a dual boxed set DVD Collector's Edition, containing two DVDs—Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 and Living with the Past. Bassist Jon Noyce left the band in March 2006. Keyboardist Andrew Giddings quit the band in July 2006, citing constant touring allowing not enough time for family. They were replaced by David Goodier and John O'Hara respectively. In the following year The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull, a 24-song set of Tull's and Ian Anderson's acoustic performances taken from various albums, was released. Included are a new live acoustic version of "One Brown Mouse" and a live performance of the traditional song (attributed to Henry VIII), "Pastime with Good Company".

In September 2007, Jethro Tull released CD/DVD Live at Montreux 2003. The concert was recorded on 4 July 2003 and featured, among others, "Fat Man", "With You There to Help Me" and "Hunting Girl", with the longest unchanged line-up: Anderson, Barre, Perry, Noyce and Giddings.

In February 2010, the band were commemorated with a Heritage Award by PRS for Music. A plaque was erected on a Catholic church in Blackpool, where the band performed their first ever gig.

Anderson and Barre go solo and the end of Jethro Tull (2011–2012)

2011 marked the 40th Anniversary of Aqualung (1971). A new re-issue was released with new remix of the album (by Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson) and include a DVD and unreleased songs.

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Jethro Tull ( B20 )

Doane Perry (returning as the band's full-time drummer) recruited his friend and widely respected session bass player Steve Bailey to fill the gap: Ian Anderson, in turn, relinquished control of the rhythm section arrangements on that record, leaving them completely to Bailey and Perry. Despite his studio contributions, however, Bailey did not join the band, and Pegg's formal replacement as Jethro Tull bassist was Jonathan Noyce.

Roots to Branches (1995) and 1999's J-Tull Dot Com were less rock-based than Crest of a Knave (1987) or Catfish Rising (1991). Songs on these albums reflect 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 third-world street scenes. These albums 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".

Live albums, world tours and The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2001–2010)

In January 2002, the original lineup of the band (including Anderson, Abrahams, Cornick and Bunker) reunited for a one-off pub performance in England that was filmed for inclusion in the Living with the Past DVD. It was the first and only time the original four members had played together since 1968, as well as the only time a former Tull lineup has ever reunited. 2003 saw the release of The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, a collection of traditional Christmas songs together with old and new Christmas songs written by Jethro Tull. It is the last studio album of this band. It became the band's biggest commercial success since the 1987 Crest of a Knave. 

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Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath ( YT1 )

Jethro Tull ( B19 )

1991's Catfish Rising was a more solid album than Rock Island (1989). Despite being labelled as a "return to playing the blues", the album actually is marked by the generous use of mandolin and acoustic guitar and much less use of keyboards than any Tull album of the Eighties. Notable tracks included "Rocks on the Road", which highlighted gritty acoustic guitar work and hard-bitten lyrics about urban life and "Still Loving You Tonight", a bluesy, low-key ballad.

Roots to Branches and J-Tull.com: the world music influences (1995–2000)

Jethro Tull performing in Jerusalem, 2007

Following a further, semi-acoustic 1992 tour (which included Dave Mattacks but not Andy Giddings, and which was documented with A Little Light Music, the band's second official live album), Anderson relearned how to play the flute (after his daughter, who took up flute classes at school, discovered that her father often used the wrong fingering) and began writing songs that heavily featured world music influences. However, the first Tull releases containing the "relearned" flute were the 1993 25th Anniversary Box Set which, as well as the remixes of classic songs and unreleased live material, included a whole CD of old songs from the band's entire career recorded by the current line-up, and the 1993 Nightcap compilation album containing unreleased studio material (mainly from the scrapped pre-A Passion Play album), with multiple flute parts re-recorded.

Prior to the recording of 1995's Roots to Branches album, longstanding bass player Dave Pegg left the band, wishing to concentrate on Fairport Convention and not being keen on the world-music direction the band chose. 

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Jethro Tull ( B18 )

They toured this album with "The Not Quite the World, More the Here and There Tour". It was also the first time in the band's history that it had two electric guitar players on stage, when Anderson, albeit rarely, played rhythm guitar.

1988 was notable for the release of 20 Years of Jethro Tull, a five-LP themed set (also released as a three-CD set, and as a truncated single CD version on 20 Years of Jethro Tull: Highlights) consisting largely of rarities and outtakes from throughout the band's history, as well as a variety of live and remastered tracks. It also included a booklet outlining the band's history in detail. Now out of print, it has become a collector's item, although many (but not all) of the outtakes have been included as bonus tracks on remastered releases of the band's studio albums.

In 1989, the band released Rock Island, which met with less commercial and critical success than Crest of a Knave (1987). The lead-off track, "Kissing Willie", featured bawdy double-entendre lyrics and over-the-top heavy metal riffing that seemed to take a satiric view of the group's recent Grammy award win. The song's accompanying video found difficulty in receiving airplay because of its sexual imagery. Although Rock Island was something of a miss for the group, a couple of fan favourites did emerge from the album. "Big Riff and Mando" reflects life on the road for the relentlessly touring musicians, giving a wry account of the theft of Barre's prized mandolin by a starstruck fan. "Another Christmas Song", an upbeat number celebrating the humanitarian spirit of the holiday season, stood out against the brooding and sombre mood of many of the songs on the album and was well received at concerts. It was re-recorded for the 2003 The Jethro Tull Christmas Album release.

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Jethro Tull ( B17 )

The band won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, beating the favorite Metallica and their ...And Justice for All album. The award was particularly controversial as many did not consider Jethro Tull hard rock, much less heavy metal. On the advice of their manager, who told them they had no chance of winning, no one from the band attended the award ceremony. In response to the criticism they received over the award, their label, Chrysalis, took out an advertisement in a British music periodical with a picture of a flute lying amid a pile of iron re-bar and the line, "the flute is a heavy metal instrument." In response to an interview question about the controversy, Ian Anderson quipped, "Well, we do sometimes play our mandolins very loudly." In 2007, the win was named one of the ten biggest upsets in Grammy history by Entertainment Weekly. In 1992, when Metallica finally won the Grammy in the category, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich joked, "First thing we're going to do is thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year", a play on a Grammy comment by Paul Simon some years before thanking Stevie Wonder for the same thing.

The style of Crest of a Knave (1987) has been compared to that of Dire Straits, in part because Anderson no longer seemed to have the vocal range he once possessed and preferred to use the lower registers, while Martin Barre's guitar sound apparently drifted towards Mark Knopfler's style. Two songs in particular—"Farm on the Freeway" and "Steel Monkey"—got heavy radio airplay. The album also contained the popular live song "Budapest", which depicts a backstage scene with a shy local female stagehand. Although "Budapest" was the longest song on that album (at just over ten minutes), "Mountain Men" became more famous in Europe, depicting a scene from World War II in Africa. Ian Anderson referred to the battles of El Alamein and the Falkland Islands, drawing historical parallels of the angst that women left behind by their warrior husbands might have felt:

died in the trenches at El Alamein,
died in the Falklands on TV

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Jethro Tull ( B16 )

In 1984, Jethro Tull released Under Wraps, a heavily electronic album with no "live" drummer and instead, as on Walk into Light, a drum-machine was used. Although the band were reportedly proud of the sound, the album was not well received. However, the video for "Lap of Luxury" did manage to earn moderate rotation on the newly influential MTV music video channel. As a result of the throat problems Anderson developed singing the demanding Under Wraps material on tour, Jethro Tull took a three-year break. Vettese quit the band after the tour, angry at critics for the bad reviews of The Broadsword and the Beast (1982), Walk into Light (1983), and Under Wraps(1984). During this hiatus, Anderson continued to oversee the salmon farm he had founded in 1978, although the single "Coronach" was released in the UK in 1986 after it was used as the theme tune for a Channel 4 television program called "Blood of the British".

Anderson, Barre, Pegg and Perry: the "hard rock" Tull (1987–1994)

Jethro Tull returned in 1987 with Crest of a Knave. With Vettese absent (Anderson contributed the synth programming) and the band relying more heavily on Barre's electric guitar than they had since the early 1970s, the album was a critical and commercial success. Shades of their earlier electronic excursions were still present, however, as three of the album's songs again used a drum machine, with Doane Perry and Gerry Conway sharing drum duties on the other tracks. Prior to the Crest of a Knave tour, keyboardist Don Airey (ex-Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Schenker Group) joined the band.

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Jethro Tull ( B15 )

 London's Hammersmith Odeon was used for exterior scenes, but the main concert footage was actually from an American performance in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena (as heard on the Magic Piper ROIO), filmed in November 1980. The video, released in 1981, was directed by David Mallet, who has directed numerous music videos, including the pioneering "Ashes to Ashes" video for David Bowie.

Jobson and Craney returned to their own work following the A tour and Jethro Tull entered a period of revolving drummers: Gerry Conway, who left after deciding he couldn't be the one to replace Barlow, Phil Collins (as a fill-in for the recently departed Gerry Conway, played with the band at the first Prince's Trust concert in 1982), Paul Burgess (for the US leg of the Broadsword and the Beast tour, and who left to settle down with his family) and permanent drummer Doane Perry.

1981 was the first year in their career that the band did not release an album; however, some recording sessions took place (Anderson, Barre, Pegg, and Conway, with Anderson playing the keyboards). Some of these tracks were released on the Nightcap compilation in 1993.

In 1982, Peter-John Vettese joined on keyboards, and the band returned to a somewhat folkier sound—albeit with synthesisers—for 1982's The Broadsword and the Beast. The ensuing concert tour for the album was well attended and the shows featured what was to be one of the group's last indulgences in full-dress theatricality. The stage was built to resemble a Viking longship and the band performed in faux-medieval regalia.

An Anderson solo album, which was in fact a collaborative Anderson-Vettese effort, appeared in 1983, in the form of the heavily electronic Walk into Light. As with later solo efforts by Anderson and Barre, some of the Walk into Light songs—such as "Fly by Night", "Made in England" and "Different Germany"—later made their way into Jethro Tull live sets.

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Jethro Tull (B14 )

The "Big Split" and electronic rock (1980–1984)

Following the end of the Stormwatch tour in early 1980, Jethro Tull would undergo its largest line-up shuffle to date, resulting in Barlow, Evan and Palmer all leaving the band. Different stories have been given over the years for the various reasons behind the band's restructuring, including that Barlow was depressed and withdrawn after Glascock's death and that Evans and Palmer found their futures in the band to be murky with Anderson's announcement that he wanted to work on a solo album. In the 2008 Classic Artists documentary Jethro Tull: Their Fully Authorised Story, Barlow claimed that he left the band on a mutual agreement with Anderson while Evan and Palmer both recalled being dismissed by a letter in the mail, with no prior contact. Following their termination from Jethro Tull, Evan and Palmer briefly collaborated in a classical-based pop/rock band called Tallis. Jethro Tull was left with Anderson (the only original member), Martin Barre and Dave Pegg.

Tull's first album of the 1980s was intended to be Ian Anderson's first solo album. Anderson retained Barre on electric guitar and Pegg on bass, while adding Mark Craney on drums, and special guest keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson (ex–Roxy Music, Frank Zappa, Curved Air and UK, the last of which had opened for several shows on Tull's Stormwatch tour). Highlighted by the prominent use of synthesisers, it contrasted sharply with the established "Tull sound". After pressure from Chrysalis Records, Anderson decided to release it as a Jethro Tull album. Entitled A (taken from the labels on the master tapes for his scrapped solo album, marked simply "A" for "Anderson"), it was released in mid-1980.

In keeping with the mood of innovation surrounding the album, Jethro Tull developed a music video titled Slipstream. Four staged and separately filmed music videos are mixed with concert footage from the A tour. 

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