Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, England, in 1967. The band is led by vocalist/flautist/guitarist Ian Anderson, and has featured a revolving door of lineups through the years which include significant members such as longtime guitarist Martin Barre. At first, the new band had trouble getting repeat bookings and they took to changing their name frequently to continue playing the London club circuit, names which included “Navy Blue”, “Ian Henderson’s Bag o’ Nails”, and “Candy Coloured Rain”. Anderson recalled looking at a poster at a club and concluding that the band name he didn’t recognise was his. Band names were often supplied by their booking agents’ staff, one of whom, a history enthusiast, eventually christened them “Jethro Tull” after the 18th Century agriculturist. The name stuck because they happened to be using it the first time a club manager liked their show enough to invite them to return.
The group recorded their first album, This Was, between June and August 1968, and it was released in October, reaching number 10 in the charts. In addition to original material, the album included the traditional “Cat’s Squirrel”, which highlighted Abrahams’ blues-rock style, while the jazz piece “Serenade to a Cuckoo” gave Anderson a showcase for his growing talents on the flute. The overall sound of the group at this time was described in the Record Mirror by Anderson in 1968 as “a sort of progressive blues with a bit of jazz”.
The group did a few shows supporting Jimi Hendrix in Scandinavia, then set out on an extensive tour of the US, supporting Led Zeppelin and Vanilla Fudge. Having attracted a substantial live following, Ellis and Wright asked Anderson, who had become the dominant songwriter, to write a hit single. The result was “Living in the Past”, which reached No. 3 in May on the UK singles chart and No. 11 in the US, and resulted in an appearance on Top of the Pops. Although other so-called “serious” groups actively resisted issuing stand-alone singles at the time, Jethro Tull felt a hit single was a positive move for the group, if not their priority.
The next album was Stand Up, recorded during April–May and August 1969. It was released in September, and quickly reached No. 1 in the UK charts, the only album by the group to do so. Anderson had now established himself as the group’s leader and songwriter, and wrote all of the material, aside from his jazzy rearrangement of Bach’s “Bourree in E Minor BWV 996 (fifth movement)”. The album cover unfolded to a photo insert of the band attached to the covers like a pop up book.
In January 1970 the band appeared on BBC’s Top of the Pops again, performing “Witch’s Promise”. The album, Benefit (1970), followed. The album reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 11 in the US, and allowed the group to sell out 20,000-seat arenas, establishing themselves as a premier live act. In August, the band played to one of their largest audiences at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival.
The next album Aqualung was recorded in late 1970, releasing it in 1971. The album was split into two sides, subtitled ‘Aqualung’ and ‘My God’, and featured Anderson’s opinions about organised religion. Recording the album was problematic because of technical issues in the studio and Hammond’s rusty musical skills. On “Locomotive Breath”, Anderson recorded the backing track on his own, singing along to a hi-hat accompaniment, which the rest of the band recorded on top of later. Despite Anderson’s concerns that it may have been “too radical” compared with the band’s previous albums, Aqualung was the first Jethro Tull album to reach the top ten in the US, peaking at No. 7. It sold over one million copies, earning it a gold disc.
In response to the many critics who called Aqualung a concept album, Anderson decided to “come up with something that really is the mother of all concept albums. “The album, released in 1972, became Thick as a Brick, which was co-credited to a fictional schoolboy, Gerald Bostock. It consisted of a single track running over 43 minutes, split over two sides, which was uncommon for rock albums. Although the finished album was a continuous piece of music, it was written and recorded in stages, with the whole band helping with the arrangements.Thick as a Brick was the first Tull album to reach number one on the (US) Billboard Pop Albums chart with the following year’s A Passion Play being the only other to do so.
In 1975, the band released Minstrel in the Gallery, an album which resembled Aqualung (1971) in that it contrasted softer, acoustic-guitar-based pieces with lengthier, more bombastic works headlined by Barre’s electric guitar. Written and recorded during Anderson’s divorce from his first wife Jennie Franks, the album is characterised by a markedly more introspective tone than their previous album, and critics gave it mixed reviews. In the late 1970s, Jethro Tull released a trio of folk rock albums, Songs from the Wood (1977), Heavy Horses (1978), and Sormwatch (1979). Songs from the Wood (1977) was the first Tull album to receive generally positive reviews since the release of Living in the Past (1972).
There is more to tell of Tull but that can wait for another day.
