The Cavern
Rock & Words
JETHRO TULL
“Nothing is easy.
Though time gets you worrying
my friend, it's o.k.
Just take your life easy
and stop all that hurrying,
be happy my way.”
"C"
Main Decade: 70's
Main Eras:
Progressive (1968-???)
Key Members:
Ian Anderson: Voice, Flute
Martin Barre: Guitar
Key Songs:
Beggar’s Farm, A Song For Jeffrey, Serenate To a Cuckoo, A New Day Yesterday, Nothing Is Easy, Bouree, Look Into The Sun, Fat Man, We Use To Know, Teacher, To Cry You A Song, Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary, My God, Locomotive Breath, Thick As A Brick, A Passion Play, Bungle In The Jungle, Too Old to Rock'n'Roll: Too Young to Die, Songs From The Wood, The Whistler, Heavy Horses, Elegy, Broadsword, Fallen on Hard Times, Critique Oblique
Jethro Tull? Isn't that the band of that raggedy guy who played the flute on one leg? The ones who did Aqualung and Thick As A Brick, right?
Yes, that's them.
It's possible that Jethro Tull is the least known of all the world-famous bands on the planet. If every classic rock fan were asked to make a list of the 100 most important bands of all time, almost all of them would include Jethro Tull somewhere in the top ten. And yet, the vast majority would struggle to even come up with a simple top ten. Aqualung (of course), Thick As A Brick (the 5-minute version, naturally), Locomotive Breath, oh yeah! My God, and…what was that one called again? –You probably mean Bourée or A New Day Yesterday–. And that's about as far as most people know (or have heard of) J-Tull.
With this introduction I begin a series of reviews with the personal objective of both correcting one of the most notable absences -in my more than debatable opinion- in the Caverna and discovering (re-discovering) to people a complex band that is totally different from all the others but much more accessible than is often believed.
After several musical projects under names like The Blades or The John Evan Band with little to no success, J-Tull emerged as such amidst the height of LSD's popularity, with the mainstream proudly waving the flag of the hippie movement, dictating free love, mutant colors, and sonic decomposition. Heavyweights (like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cream, The Who, Jefferson Airplane…), to a greater or lesser extent and with varying degrees of success, were swept along by the psychedelic current of the moment. The great newcomers (Pink Floyd, Hendrix, The Doors, Janis Joplin…) took the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon at the right moment. J-Tull's approach was the opposite: eclectic baroque style based on an almost Dickensian stage presence and a thoughtful—and, at times, overproduced—fusion of jazz, blues, folk, Victorian music, and everything else that crossed the mind of a media-savvy animal named Ian Anderson.
And so we come to This Was, a solid debut album marred only by the occasional tedious moment of solo showmanship, and where, despite the album's impressive fusion of styles, the blues is the dominant sound; something guitarist Mick Abrahams played a significant role in. But Ian Anderson, a despot and hot-tempered man like few others, wasn't about to yield an inch in the creative process, and after an argument, Abrahams left the band, being replaced by Martin Barre (a personal friend of Anderson's and the only one of the countless members of Jethro Tull who have withstood his difficult temperament). Wait, it wasn't exactly like that: Between Abrahams and Barre, for 10 days (TEN DAYS!), the guitarist position was held by Tony Iommi (yes, THAT Tony Iommi). In that brief period, Iommi even managed to appear in Jethro Tull's first television appearance, on the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus. Then Iommi said he didn't feel comfortable in the band and returned to Earth (who would later become known as Black Sabbath), and that's when Anderson called his friend Barre.
And if their debut album was good, the follow-up was glorious with the legendary Stand Up, Aqualung, and Thick As A Brick, released almost back-to-back (in between, they also released Benefit, which, while not a complete failure, did represent a dip in the level that Tull had been showing). With this apotheosis of a series, Jethro Tull conquered the American market and earned their place in the pantheon of progressive rock gods. At that point, an Ian Anderson, puffed up with so much praise and convinced he possessed the philosopher's stone with his exceptional creativity, tried to repeat the formula of Thick As A Brick's success, taking it to excess with A Passion Play. The result? Another commercial success in the USA and scathing reviews from all over the world. Anderson, as peculiar as he is and as unaccustomed as he was to reading unfavorable opinions, was furious with the world and disappeared from the scene for a while. His manager even went so far as to say that J-Tull would never play again (pure marketing). But the following year they released War Child, initially intended as the soundtrack for a failed film project, which served to regain critical favor (who dared call Anderson "BAD" twice in a row?) and add another commercial success to their collection in the USA.
From then until the end of the decade, Jethro Tull maintained a high level of performance, with many memorable moments and the occasional misstep due to the inherent risks of Anderson's unhealthy obsession with constant innovation. In '79, Jethro experienced the bitter loss of one of its members, John Glascock, who had been playing bass for four years. Heart problems, a life of excess, and ignoring warnings made the end seem almost inevitable.
The '80s were very tough for Jethro Tull. Well, for Jethro Tull and for the vast majority of the old guard of rock, who in few cases managed to adapt and find their place in the most cheesy and tasteless decade in history (apologies for my gratuitous personal jab). The fact is that during this period, the mistakes (and the horrors) far outweighed the successes (although there were a few of those too), and the dreaded words "Apathy" and "Irrelevance" became part of the Tull universe.
Currently, Jethro Tull is one of the longest-running rock bands on the planet. They occasionally release an album (they've already reached twenty) and embark on a nostalgic world tour, reminiscing about the old days… the good old days.
By Marlaior
Mar/10/2014
