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For Jethro Tull, ‘Life is a Long Song’
By LEE CLARK ZUMPE
Article published on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/120407_leconcert-04.jpg) |
| Jethro Tull |
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CLEARWATER – The title track from the Jethro Tull’s five-song 1971 EP “Life Is a Long Song” might as well have been “Life Is a Long Tour.” The perennially popular band remains one of the hardest working outfits in rock n’ roll history, typically giving 100 performances a year on what seems to be a never-ending concert circuit.
Jethro Tull will grace the stage on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m., at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
The driving force behind the band is Ian Anderson, vocalist and flautist. Jethro Tull formed in February 1968 from the ashes of two unsuccessful blues-rock bands of the era. Anderson brought his unique and innovative style of flute playing to a public raised on the guitar-based British bands.
After releasing their debut – the bluesy “This Was” – the group moved through successive records towards a more progressive sound, and in 1971 they achieved their first real international success with the release of the landmark “Aqualung” LP.
Since then, the band has undergone many personnel changes but continues to produce new music and draw loyal fans.
Anderson, whose schedule keeps him from conducting many interviews, has set up an “all too frequently asked questions” list on the band’s Web site, J-Tull.com. At the top of the list is how the band came to be named Jethro Tull.
According to the Web site, back in 1968, the band’s name changed on a weekly basis “ ... since we were so bad that we had to pretend to be some new band in order to get re-booked in the clubs where we aspired to find fame and fortune,” Anderson explains. Their agent, who had studied history at college, came up with the name Jethro Tull, an 18th century English agricultural pioneer who invented the seed drill. As luck would have it, they were using that name when London’s famous Marquee Club offered them the Thursday night residency.
In a recent e-mail, Anderson said that settling on the name of a historical figure had some unanticipated repercussions.
“Back in 1969 or ’70, a descendant of Tull wanted to sue us for using the name and was very angry,” Anderson said. “But he calmed down after we played the Albert Hall and other prestigious venues and said nice things about his forebear and we have not heard from him since. Maybe he is dead, too.”
Anderson and guitar player Martin Barre provide the musical and historical backbone of the group. They are joined by Doane Perry on drums, Andrew Giddings on keyboards, and Jonathan Noyce on bass.
Perry, born in New York, signed on with the band back in 1984 and played his first concert with them in Dundee, Scotland. More than a thousand shows later, the drummer said in a recent phone interview that it’s always a challenge to keep things fresh on tour.
“It requires mental preparation,” Perry said. “I listen to performances from previous nights so that I can examine areas that need work ... and to find things that might have been ‘happy accidents.’” Perry said that the band tries to play each piece as if it was the first time they had performed it. “We infuse it with a degree of spontaneity. There’s a lot of room to improvise, and we try to leave that open to the moment.”
Over the years, Jethro Tull’s sound has gone through a number of stylistic periods, from blues- and progressive-rock, to folk-, electronic- and hard-rock.
“We try to play all the styles individually so we can play them convincingly,” Perry said. He said few musicians have the opportunity to play so many different styles of music – all in one night. “It’s a challenge every night, running the gamut from folk to orchestral.”
Jethro Tull’s vast catalogue of material not only allows for a variety of styles within each performance – it also lets the band to shuffle the play list from time to time.
“To represent every era of the band is impossible in a two-hour concert,” Perry said. He explained that the band keeps track of the set lists for all of their previous performances. Before a concert, they compare the current song list with their last gig in the area. “If there are too many things that might be repeated, we adjust that accordingly.” Furthermore, if the band happens to be playing multiple gigs in an area, they will vary the set list. “People who might come to multiple gigs will hear different songs.”
Recently, the band has experimented with incorporating some non-Tull songs into the mix, including some material from Anderson’s solo albums such as “Rupi’s Dance.”
“On our last tour, we played a version of (Led Zeppelin’s) ‘Kashmir’,” Perry said. “It was a very different version and it was fun to play that.” This time around, the band has been performing Leonard Bernstein’s “America,” which includes elements from Keith Emerson’s take on it, recorded in 1967 with The Nice. “We infuse it with things of our own,” Perry said. “I like playing that piece of music.”
According to Perry, the band’s 40th anniversary tour will begin in Europe and will reach America in the late summer. The band will only have a few months of rest between the two tours.
“We haven’t taken any extended periods off,” Perry said. “We tend to work fairly consistently and that’s been one of the characteristics of the band.” He said that they have never been the type to tour for a year and take a few years off. “Even if we’re not playing in your backyard, we’re probably out playing somewhere.”
Tickets range from $45 to $75.
Ruth Eckerd Hall is at 1111 McMullen Booth Road. Call 791-7400.
The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull
One suspects that Ian Anderson shudders whenever he hears Jethro Tull described as a classic rock group. The depiction conjures up gray-haired rock ’n’ roll dinosaurs playing 30-year-old anthems that once brought arena audiences to their feet.
And in fairness, that is one side of Jethro Tull … the band perhaps best known for the thunderous “Locomotive Breath” and equally intense title track from 1971’s “Aqualung.”
But Jethro Tull is a complex band with a vast catalogue of songs scattered over more than 20 studio albums, several collections, box sets and live recordings. The most recent addition to the Tull canon, The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull, gathers together the band’s best unplugged classics, emphasizing a side of the band that classic rock stations frequently disregard.
Beginning with “Fat Man,” a song which appeared originally on the 1969 release “Stand Up,” the collection offers up 24 acoustic gems hand-picked by Anderson, the band’s lead singer and flautist. In the liner notes, Anderson writes that in compiling the album, he “tried to pick some of the obvious and more audience-friendly songs” as well as some of his personal favorites which may be a little more obscure.
The familiar selections include “Life is a Long Song” from the EP of the same name, the intro to “Thick as a Brick,” “Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day” from “War Child” and “Velvet Green” from “Songs from the Wood.”
Less recognizable – but equally enjoyable – are pieces such as “Cheap Day Return” from “Aqualung,” “Jack In the Green” from “Songs from the Wood” and “Dun Ringill” from “Stormwatch.”
One relatively obscure track that happily made the collection is “Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.” It was recorded during the “Broadsword and the Beast” sessions, and was released as the B-side of the UK “Coronach” single. It also was included in the 20th anniversary box set and on 2003’s “The Jethro Tull Christmas Album.”
Some may criticize the inclusion of a handful of tracks. The cuts from both “Thick as a Brick” and “Cold Wind to Valhalla” suffer from sudden fades – in both cases, because the acoustic segment quickly gives way to electric guitars. “Jack-A-Lynn” isn’t strictly acoustic, but it still fits the album’s format.
If anything, the only disappointment to be leveled at “The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull” is the absence of some songs … and each listener could come up with one or two favorites that ultimately didn’t make the cut. Anderson admittedly sacrificed a few of these to add tracks from his solo efforts “The Secret Language of Birds” and “Rupi’s Dance.”
But these, too, fit nicely.
Jethro Tull drummer Doane Perry said in a recent interview that it is impossible to play every song every concert-goer hopes to hear in one evening. Likewise, in compiling an anthology of this type, there’s sure to be hits and misses. Anderson writes in the liner notes that he “started off with a pretty large list and then whittled, chiseled and hacked away with regret.”
Most listeners will surely be thankful for the effort, choosing to enjoy the finished product … and not quibble over obligatory omissions.
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Article published on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007
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