Ian Anderson interviews

[bunkerfan]

[maddogfagin]

INTERVIEW: Ian Anderson On That Strange Elvis:Jethro Tull Story
783 views•Nov 16, 2019
Rock History Music

[bunkerfan]

Nov 17, 2019 7:38:11 GMT maddogfagin said:

INTERVIEW: Ian Anderson On That Strange Elvis:Jethro Tull Story
783 views•Nov 16, 2019
Rock History Music

Very interesting to hear Ian talking about not wanting to meet Elvis back in 1969

[maddogfagin]

Interview- Ian Anderson: When Jethro Tull Beat Metallica at the Grammys
638 views•Nov 22, 2019

Rock History Music

[JTull 007]

Nov 23, 2019 14:14:28 GMT maddogfagin said:

Interview- Ian Anderson: When Jethro Tull Beat Metallica at the Grammys
638 views•Nov 22, 2019 Rock History Music

                                                 No matter what Ian says...
When they played 'Thick As A Brick' during the Rock Island Tour this was on the screen
        

[maddogfagin]

Nov 23, 2019 15:41:42 GMT JTull 007 said:

Nov 23, 2019 14:14:28 GMT maddogfagin said:

Interview- Ian Anderson: When Jethro Tull Beat Metallica at the Grammys
638 views•Nov 22, 2019 Rock History Music

                                                 No matter what Ian says...
When they played 'Thick As A Brick' during the Rock Island Tour this was on the screen
        

The actual one is illustrated in "The Ballad"

[maddogfagin]

Interview Ian Anderson - The Story Behind Jethro Tull's One Legged Flute Player
644 views•Nov 30, 2019
Rock History Music

[nonrabbit]

Interesting

www.unmask.us/songwriters-f-j/jethro-tull/

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson's Trouble with "Bungle In The Jungle" & "Living in the Past"
150 views•Dec 7, 2019
Rock History Music

[ash]

Dec 7, 2019 14:48:36 GMT maddogfagin said:

Ian Anderson's Trouble with "Bungle In The Jungle" & "Living in the Past"
150 views•Dec 7, 2019
Rock History Music

I must admit Bungle In The Jungle is one where I hit the skip button every time

[rredmond]

Dec 7, 2019 17:18:48 GMT ash said:

I must admit Bungle In The Jungle is one where I hit the skip button every time

I like it, but I'm pretty sure because it was (is) one of the 4 or 5 Tull songs that get play on "regular peoples" radios, jukeboxes, classic/prog rock playlists and the like. It pretty much perks me up when I hear a random Jethro Tull song from out of nowhere. While all my friends are Tull fans, I'm the biggest fan. That song (along with the other 4 or so notable Tull songs) coming on, pretty much anywhere in the vicinity of any of my friends' ears, gets me a text/call/shout.

[maddogfagin]

meaww.com/ian-anderson-jethro-tull-frontman-calls-donald-tump-bolsonaro-scott-morrison-criminals

EXCLUSIVE | 'Jethro Tull' frontman Ian Anderson slams Trump, Bolsonaro over climate change: 'These people are criminals'
'They should be tried for crimes against humanity for their ignorance and their appalling dismissal of the facts regarding climate change,' the rock legend told MEAWW
By Remus Noronha
Updated On : 21:18 PST, Dec 12, 2019



'Jethro Tull' singer and flutist Ian Anderson has built quite a career for himself in the music industry. He may be a rock legend but what truly concerns him nowadays isn't what's on the charts or what's playing on the radio; not in the dark and troubling times that we live in.

In an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide, Anderson spoke about his concerns with regard to climate change, something that has been on his mind since 1973.

"There are a lot of people who think of climate change as only something they've learned about in the last few months," Anderson said. "And of course a lot of people who haven't learned about it at all, like President Trump or Bolsonaro in Brazil or the loathsome Scott Morrison in Australia. I mean, these people are criminals. They should be tried for crimes against humanity for their ignorance and their appalling dismissal of the facts regarding climate change and what is now being quite correctly described as the climate emergency."

"But these buffoons are either men of little intellect or men of unbelievable arrogance and desperation to secure their own positions of power through denial of very real issues in order to win votes from the fossil fuel industry, coal miners, and so on in the heartlands of America; or loggers and farmers in Brazil, or indeed, the fossil fuel industry in Australia," he explained. "I mean, Australia is a great example of getting its comeuppance right now, when you look at the smog over Australia from burning of fires in the bush and Scott Morrison's attitude towards climate change, you will see that this is havoc being wrought upon an insidious prime minister who refuses to face facts."

"In Australia, in the USA, even in my own country, you can pretty much divide 50-50 those who are arrogant, selfish, concerned only with today and those that care about the future of their children and their grandchildren," Anderson continued. "We are living increasingly in dramatically divided societies. And back in the times of 'Aqualung', when I wrote 'Locomotive Breath', it was a song based on globalization, population growth, the issues of being on a runaway train out of control. It was a metaphor for humanity being on this crazy out-of-control engine that has no way to slow down. And that's the world we live in today. And it's not particularly prophetic, I wasn't the only person saying these things, but people didn't listen. And people don't listen today. I would imagine that 99% of the people who've ever listened to the song 'Locomotive Breath' don't actually stop and think, 'What's this about? What's he getting at here?' And unfortunately, that's the message. It's very, very difficult as a songwriter to get these messages across and all you can do is try and hope that a few people will understand what you're singing about and perhaps make their own dedicated effort to try and understand these issues and come to their own conclusions."

Anderson will be performing a Christmas show at Wells Cathedral in the UK on December 13. He will be back on the road in 2020 for two major tours, 'Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull' and 'Jethro Tull: The Prog Years', as well as a number of other shows.

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson on Getting Old, His Aging Voice & The Great Lou Gramm
143 views•Dec 21, 2019
Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

www.hollywoodsoapbox.com/interview-relive-the-memories-of-jethro-tull-in-book-form/

INTERVIEW: Relive the memories of Jethro Tull, in book form
December 24, 2019 John Soltes 

The legendary rock ‘n’ roll band Jethro Tull have been redefining music for the past 50 years, and in celebration of their coveted anniversary — an anniversary rarely arrived at by rock bands — Ian Anderson and Rocket 88 Books have recently released The Ballad of Jethro Tull. The coffee-table tome, which is meant to be read and experienced rather than gawked at, tells the unique story of the rock band in more than 200 pages.

Included in the classic edition of the book, according to its official website, are illustrations, more than 200 photographs and an MP4 download of Anderson’s poetic recitation of “The Ballad of Jethro Tull” and “Marmion,” the latter by Sir Walter Scott. Those who purchase the signature edition of the book, which is limited to 500 copies, will also have an original art print by Peter Klucik, a 7-inch vinyl record of the two poem recitations by Anderson, a hand-made clamshell box and an autograph by Anderson. As of press time, the signature edition was sold out.

Recently Hollywood Soapbox profiled Anderson on the occasion of a 50th anniversary tour celebrating Jethro Tull’s contributions to music. Readers can check out that interview here.

Anderson jumped on the phone again to talk about the new book project and whether he’s nostalgic for the early years of his career — when picking up the flute was a revolutionary music act for a rock musician. Here’s what he had to say …

On the impetus for creating The Ballad of Jethro Tull book …

“It was the commercial inspiration of the publishers who had recently done a book about Foreigner and a few other ones before that, and they thought, well, Jethro Tull, 50th anniversary, we’ll capitalize on that. So from my perspective somebody else was going to do the bulk of the work. All I had to do was provide my portion of all the interviewing and the final editing and proof-reading.

“So it took many hours of my time, but it wasn’t as if I had to do it all by myself from start to finish. Indeed the services of Mark Blake were sought and contracted to do the actual interviews with me and the other band members and associates who provided their take on the early years of Jethro Tull. So Mark Blake is the writer, not me. He has a long track record as being a U.K. music business journalist writing for many different well-known periodicals and music papers. He comes with quite a good track record of paying attention to detail and making sure he researches all the facts, so at the end of it all, it’s all pretty accurate. But there’s no scandal, no drugs and a sprinkling of rock ‘n’ roll because we’re not that kind of a band.”

On whether the band was influenced by drugs in the early years …

“I don’t think you can put down the longevity of Jethro Tull to having skewed the use of drugs or embraced them. It’s just a work ethic and common-sense attitude to being on the road, to getting an early bed, to rising with the sun and jumping on an airplane or into a bus and heading off to the next place. It’s all pragmatic. It’s just about common sense, rules of survival, and it doesn’t help if you get locked into that rather self-destructive lifestyle, from which a lot of people temporarily recover in older age, but still seem to die or suffer from ill health pretty early on in their lives, and that’s rather sad to see. Whereas such old people like me and Martin Barre, our guitar player for most of the time of Jethro Tull, we’re still active today because I guess we were naturally cautious about lifestyle and things that could perhaps come to haunt us in later life. Into our 70s we’re still pretty active without too much medical care and attention. Paramedics are not on the technical rider.”

On the selection of ‘Marmion’ by Sir Walter Scott …

“The piece by Sir Walter Scott, ‘Marmion,’ is a piece that I’ve been reading at Christmas concerts for a number of years. It’s of that era I suppose when British, or Scottish in this case, literature was evolving into something that was embracing a lot of elements of traditional culture, but presenting them again for a new generation, as indeed Sir Walter Scott did in the years that he was alive. I think in a way I try to echo the sentiments of his very epic poem, ‘Marmion,’ from which it is just a tiny extract that I recorded with a piece that I wrote especially for the book called ‘The Ballad of Jethro Tull,’ which attempts to put together with a musical backdrop of the relevant pieces of music over our careers. It attempts to put it all together with a slightly Sir Walter Scott-esque rendition and cramming 50 years into three minutes or less.”

On whether he’s nostalgic for Jethro Tull’s past …

“I’ve always had a sympathy for those people who do have nostalgia. It’s nice to have in small measure, but if it rules your life, if you keep looking back into times gone by resolutely and you don’t want to embrace change, I think that ultimately is a pretty negative state to be in, which I wrote about back in 1976 on the song ‘Too Old to Rock ‘N’ Roll, Too Young to Die.’ That’s what predicated that song lyric.

“It was about someone who refuses to embrace change and is locked into a comfortable safety blanket of his own past and doesn’t really want to embrace the modern world. Back then, of course, I was talking more about fashion and culture. Today I’d be talking about the kind of person who doesn’t do email or doesn’t know how to check online if they’re booking a flight, so times change. But the same need that some people have to refuse change and to keep stuck in the past, that’s not a good thing.

“I have a healthy respect for nostalgia. ‘Remember the time when,’ which often is the subject of some post-concert trip back to a hotel in a van when the band and crew talk after a beer, tend to talk about, oh, remember we did this or we saw that. It’s nice to have, but it just occupies a teeny little part of my life. And I’m not really naturally a nostalgic person, but I think I enjoy nostalgia when it’s on a personal level and I’m in that kind of a mood, a reflective mood. But it doesn’t happen everyday, and if it does occur on a day, it’s usually a few minutes of nostalgia. And then I move on because I remember I have another U.S. phoner in the next 20 minutes, and that shakes me out of my reverie.”

On his decision to incorporate flute playing into his rock music …

“It was just something different. It was something that wasn’t being replicated elsewhere. There were other flute players at the time, but in the world of jazz and classical music, but certainly not in blues and certainly not in rock music. It felt, whilst not being revolutionary, at least it was different. And I wanted to put my stamp on the musical world in 1968 in London by not doing what everybody else did, and there were a lot of great guitar players back then. Of course, there were wonderful guitar players like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and, of course, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, who was very much a contemporary of ours, but to be another small fish in a big pool didn’t really appeal to me.”

On how he started the songwriting process for each song …

“I like to start from a different point every time. I think the worst thing is if you have a process; it becomes a bit like a factory production line. Then it will become repetitive, so I’ve always rather liked the idea that you go to work from a different direction every morning, a bit like a dilettante office worker. You spend the night somewhere else, and you arrive having taken a different route. That’s something that’s still with me today.

“I try not to have a modus operandi in terms of writing music. It’s good if you start the process by doing something different. Straightaway you can divide it down the middle. Do you start with the music, or do you start with the words? Or do you and try to conjure them both up more or less simultaneously, and if you’re going to play the music, do you use a guitar or a monophonic instrument like a flute. Or, do you try and hack something out on a keyboard as a starting point? It’s good to not do it the same way every time.”

[maddogfagin]

How Much Of Thick as a Brick Is About Ian Anderson + He Talks Zombies
1,372 views•Dec 28, 2019
Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

meaww.com/ian-anderson-jethro-tull-frontman-meaww-exclusive-interview-musical-purist-radio-noise-pollution

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson is a musical purist who hasn't listened to music on the radio since 1973
The Jethro Tull frontman told MEAWW that he has some very exacting specifications when it comes to listening to music
By Brian Polson
Published on : 04:10 PST, Jan 3, 2020

Legendary Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson waxed eloquent on his tastes in music, how he listens to music nowadays, and the exacting standards he adheres to when he does listen to music in an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW).

It's no wonder the man is such a celebrated musical icon — he is a true purist in every sense of the word! Part two of the Ian Anderson interview series continues below:

"I don't really listen to music on the radio. I listen to politics, current affairs, things to do with the world we live in, but I don't listen to music," said Anderson, when asked for his opinion on the current music climate.

"I haven't been listening much to music since 1973, when I kind of stopped listening to pop music and rock music on the radio. I heard enough. And I didn't really want to be influenced by other artists that were around at that time. I just thought, 'Nah, I think I'm going to live in a different world.'”

The Jethro Tull frontman elaborated, "So, if I listen to music, I usually listen to some classical music or occasionally some folk music, but it's music that I listen to in private. I don't listen to the radio, never listened to music on the radio."

He then clarified that he did still listen to some contemporary artists, however, "the music that I do hear is usually when somebody asks me to perform on one of their songs on a record or in concert. So that’s when I’ll have to really listen. Not just as a listener, but listen as someone who is going to contribute some music."

The singer went on to talk about how his creative process usually worked. "I have to try and get inside the skin, get inside the head of the person who's recorded that music in order to understand – 'What is the best contribution I can make?' It must be a positive addition to their music and not something that is not in keeping with the spirit of what their music is about. So then, I really have to listen, and that's different. It's not like listening recreationally, just hearing music playing in the background somewhere," he explained.

He also revealed that he was still, unsurprisingly, a bit of an old-school musical purist. "I mean, if I'm sitting in a car, I really don't want to have music on in the background. It's polluted by the ambient noise of car tires, wind, engine sounds, and so on. It's no longer music then, it’s music with a lot of audio interference, and I think a lot of people do hear music that way, but they're not really listening to the music, they're just hearing it along with a whole bunch of other conflicting sounds that are in the ambient orbit of the medium they’re listening to," said Anderson, who clearly has earned the right to have strong feelings on the subject.

He also expressed his disdain for today's modern earphone technology. "I've listened to music on one of those earphone devices and if you’re in a car or at a train station or in an airplane... I mean, you're hearing this rumbling and other noises around you. The music is polluted. It is not pure music. So, when I listen to music, I want to listen to it undisturbed by any other audio influence. So I either wear specially designed tight-fit earphone monitors, or I listen in a room that is acoustically dampened with no other conflicting sounds to interfere with my experience," concluded the musical legend.

He also explained to MEAWW that he has rather exacting musical boundaries and limitations nowadays. "Almost every day, I'm spending about three hours of my life working in music. You know, rehearsing, doing soundchecks, performing in concerts. I think three hours of music is as much as a human being can take, pretty much. Any more than that would just be an overload," he admitted.

Anderson did, however, have a soft spot for some still-tolerable noises. "For the rest of the day, the only sounds I want to hear are the sounds of the birds singing, or the rain against the window, or my wife screaming at me from the kitchen to come and have my dinner. That's about it for me!" the frontman signed off with a jovial chuckle.

Ian Anderson will be back on the road in 2020 for two major tours, Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull and Jethro Tull: The Prog Years, and has more live shows in the pipeline.

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson On Jethro Tull's The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles
23 views•Jan 4, 2020

Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/news/music-legend-tells-harrogate-fans-how-jethro-tull-influenced-sex-pistols-1361277

Music legend tells Harrogate fans how Jethro Tull influenced Sex Pistols
Interview - If anyone but Ian Anderson had claimed Jethro Tull had influenced the Sex Pistols the reaction would be sceptical to say the least.
By The Newsroom, Friday, 10th January 2020, 11:27 am


Veteran flute-playing Jethro Tull prog-folk legend Ian Anderson pictured at the Royal Hall in Harrogate in 2012.

But the veteran flute-playing prog-folk legend, who counts The Stranglers lead singer Hugh Cornwall among his close friends, comes across as intelligent and knowledgable as he is provocative, even at the age of 71.

Talking on the phone, he said: “The punks pretended they hated Tull and the prog rock bands in 1977 but that was part of the marketing for the new bands.

“Johnny Rotten was a big fan of our 1971 album Aqualung. If you look at the cover with the tramp leaning to one side and scowling there is a definite resemblance with his own stage persona in the Sex Pistols.

“Rotten told me years later he loved Aqualung.”

For five decades his famous band has survived every trend going on a journey which has taken Anderson from appearing on the Rolling Stones Rock in Roll Circus in 1968 aged 21 to a Christmas show at Ripon Cathedral last month which could have sold out many times over.

His forthcoming talk/video clips/live music tour will see the irascible, sharp as a pin Anderson survey the ever-changing Jethro Tull’s achievements from Thick As A Brick to, yes, that Stones TV show with its fire eaters, famous bands and hippie trappings.

Anderson said: “I think we were somewhat in awe of the Stones on that occasion.

“None of us got to talk on set to Mick Jagger; Bill and Charlie were the ones who talked to us.

“It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience. The good and the great were there like The Who but it was slightly weird.”

Despite long-time musical colleague Martin Barre finally leaving the band in 2011 to do his own solo tours with Tull songs, something Anderson says he had been encouraging for years, the enduring popularity of the band he founded in 1967 shows no signs of ebbing.

Such is the band’s appeal, in fact, Anderson is actually doing two tours this year – The Prog Years Tour 2020 which features a full band and his ‘solo’ Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull with guitarist Joe Parrish which comes to Leeds City Varieties on May 4.

Scottish-born Anderson, renowned in the tabloids at one point for his salmon farms and country living, is at home, it seems, in classy venues.

He remembers his Harrogate show at the Royal Hall in 2012 well, though he soon switches the conversation to current world politics and climate change, subjects his lyrics have tackled from the early 1970s to recent solo albums.

Anderson said: “Musician can fall out of love with their early selves but I don’t mind playing ‘crowd pleasers’.

“I’m quite proud of having those songs in my repertoire.

“I take on a thespian role when I’m on stage performing.

“I’m totally engaged each time like an actor doing Hamlet. It’s never boring.”

What happened when Ian Anderson came to Ripon

Ian Anderson showed his community spirit when he visited the Harrogate district before Christmas.

Ripon Cathedral hosted a sell-out fundraising concert last year on Saturday, December 7.

An audience of 800 enjoyed the music of Jethro Tull with Ian Anderson leading the show – and welcoming special guest - Loyd Grossman. This was all against the stunning backdrop of Ripon cathedral - dramatically lit up for the concert.

Members of the audience travelled from all over the world - including the USA, Spain and Germany - to enjoy an evening at the cathedral. Ian Anderson very generously donated 100% of the ticket sales to the cathedral and as a result the concert raised a staggering £25,000 – the most amount ever raised from a concert! Molly Lawson, Fundraising Events Officer said: “The concert sold out back in February in just two weeks and I have been overwhelmed by some amazing feedback from our audience on Saturday. People thoroughly enjoyed the evening and we would like to thank Ian Anderson for his generosity and for making it all possible!”

[maddogfagin]

Interview: Ian Anderson Talks Tull's "And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps"
200 views•Jan 11, 2020
Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson Talks Recording Aqualung Under Rotten Acoustics & Zeppelin Next Door
4 views

Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

www.dailystar.co.uk/music/mike-ward-interview-jethro-tulls-21315122

The Mike Ward Interview: Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson on saving the planet
Ian Anderson reflects on his decisions to swap his guitar for a flute and shares his thoughts on how best to preserve our planet for a bountiful future
By Mike Ward TV critic
22:00, 19 JAN 2020


Ian’s playing style may not have been calculated, his original decision to swap his guitar for such an unlikely instrument undoubtedly was (Image: NC)

Continuation of article here

[maddogfagin]

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson Says Not all Band-Mates Need To Be Close
324 views•Jan 25, 2020

Rock History Music

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson on reuniting Jethro Tull:
"it's a tricky one"
By Fraser Lewry an hour ago

Ian Anderson says he's always felt awkward at the prospect of a Jethro Tull reunion


(Image credit: Will Ireland)

Ian Anderson has poured water on the idea of a Jethro Tull reunion.

In an interview in the new issue of Classic Rock, Anderson says, "It would be an awfully crowded stage. And in many cases those old band members no longer play and haven’t for many years. It’s a tricky one.

"I’ve always felt awkward about the idea of getting the old band back together, because which edition of the band are we talking about? Picking some people and not others would be favouritism. And I don’t have favourites."

Anderson, who will embark on the Ian Anderson On Jethro Tull 2020 Tour – an evening of intimate chat and music – in May, and undertake an 11-date band tour entitled Jethro Tull: The Prog Years later in the year, also says that the make-up the band is less important than the music being performed.

"If the show is all Jethro Tull repertoire, I feel that’s Jethro Tull," he says. "If you looked at Wikipedia two or three years ago, it said ‘Jethro Tull was…’ Now, that past tense has disappeared, due to some grudging acknowledgment that Jethro Tull goes on."

He adds: "I’ve always argued that Jethro Tull is not at an end any more than The Beatles are. The Beatles still sell millions of records and downloads. The glorious thing about the world of entertainment is that your work lives on after you."

Elsewhere in the interview, Anderson talks in depth about Jethro Tull's past, including their classic albums, and the night they beat Metallica to a Grammy.

link

Classic Rock 272 is in UK newsagents now and available to buy online.

[maddogfagin]

northernlifemagazine.co.uk/



Fans of prog rock icons Jethro Tull have a treat in store with two live tours in 2020. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson will be visiting a number of small venues, in April and May, for Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull, an intimate evening of chat and archive video footage about his career and the history of one of the world’s most successful progressive rock bands. Ian returns, in September and October, with the band for The Prog Years Tour, 11 dates across the UK drawing heavily on material from Jethro Tull’s more ‘prog’ albums, much of it focussing on the early classic albums including Stand Up, Benefit, Aqualung, Thick As A Brick, and Passion Play.

Jethro Tull are one of the most original and enduring bands, having been with us, now, for over 50 years. I vividly recall an early appearance of Jethro Tull on Top Of The Pops, circa 1970, performing The Witches Promise. This was one of a string of early, historically-flavoured hits for Jethro Tull that brought them to a wide audience. I remember being captivated by the image of Ian Anderson, the tousle-haired, flute-playing minstrel, perched on one leg and looking like a man possessed. This was not your run-of-the-mill pop star. This was a man with an extraordinary self-belief and confidence needed to conjure such an outrageous figure and succeed in the fickle world of pop music.

I put it to Ian that he must look back on Tull’s history with a great sense of pride.

“It’s with a great sense of luck, really!” he replies. “When you set off as a young person into the music industry, with hopes and anticipation, only a very few people get lucky. Those that do really are incredibly blessed in the sense of it happens at the right time. I always think of all the people that didn’t make it to being professional musicians or even successful professional musicians. So the first thought is, how lucky I am.

“Having worked with 36 other band members over the years, they have all been, in different ways, talented musicians who have contributed to the sound and the on-going vitality of the group. So I’m happy to be accorded such polite and pleasant sentiments, as you just offered, but we have to remember, I’m just the flute player!” he laughs.

Just the flute player? Come on now, Ian, you’re being a little modest. Ian was the guiding inspiration for Jethro Tull having almost exclusively composed the band’s entire output following their 1968 debut album This Was. As the vocalist, and visual focal point of the band, Ian was indeed, to many, Jethro Tull. When he set out on this musical journey, did Ian ever imagine that he would still be touring and performing all these years later?


Photo: Geoff Ford

“When I was a teenager I always had the idea that music that I liked to listen to was music played by old people. I grew up listening to black American blues and folk music, church and classical music. The people who had written or performed that music were either very old, not feeling terribly well, or dead, and that was a thought that I always had. It didn’t seem odd, if you set out to be a musician as a life career-choice, then you kind of hope that you’ll be doing it when you’re an old person too. That’s how it’s turned out to be!

“I suppose for the first two years, when you can’t really be sure how things are going to work out… But I always had in my head that if I could get a couple of years under my belt, and do OK, then hopefully, without any rash action or choices or ill health, I should continue to have my job long after the regular retirement age for a Boeing 757 pilot, or whatever.

“There may be another five years or so for some of us to carry on doing what we do in the public domain if we’re lucky. (Pink Floyd founder) Syd Barrett was an early casualty of mental ill health and drugs but a lot of folks who were part of the world of progressive rock, over the years, have gone. Two thirds of Emerson, Lake & Palmer are no longer with us and it’s not going to be too long before the vast majority of those who began in the early days of rock will have passed on as well. Enjoy them while you can.”

On leaving school, the young Ian Anderson studied at art college in Blackpool. One of the common denominators among many of those associated with rock in it’s various forms, Syd Barrett included, was the influence of their time spent at art college. Why was this such a productive breeding ground for musical talent?

“Art school was a very important parallel side of creativity that inspired many of us to move into music and I’m no exception. It was a very fundamental part of the mix of influences and ideas and creative urges. I think that’s why the British Arts School system produced so many musicians in the sixties and seventies and, even to this day, encourages you to think about line, form, tone and colour, words which apply in the visual arts and, of course, in the musical arts.

“We found it an easy shift, I guess, from learning the skills of drawing and painting and the history of art. Looking and being inspired by the work of visual artists, it was easy to take a right fork in the road and move to relatively untutored skills in the world of music which, of course, is what so many of us did.

“Hardly anyone ever made it in the world of rock and pop music having begun at music college. Elton John, reportedly, went briefly to the Royal College Of Music and decided to leave to try and concentrate on writing songs but didn’t finish his studies. There are a few that will have had music lessons or singing lessons but the majority of people were just self-taught by imitation or being within a peer group where ideas were shared and learned to play their music in a very natural and intuitive way.”

Perhaps, then, it was creative thinking outside the box (a phrase unheard of in 1968, so Ian was already ahead of his time!) that drew him to the band’s unique selling point, the flute.

“I guess while the flute was never heard in blues, as we knew it, it did feature in the world of jazz, quite a lot in folk music and a great deal in classical music. So it was an instrument that I thought might find it’s place within a blues band as more than a novelty instrument, as an equal to the electric guitar.

“That’s what set the early Jethro Tull apart from Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac and all the other blues bands at the Marquee Club, they didn’t have a flute player. That made us stand out a little from the crowd and didn’t do us any harm when it came to establishing a visual image. It was accredited to me rather more than I deserve because I wasn’t the only flute player in town. There was Ray Thomas (Moody Blues) and Chris Wood, the saxophonist with Traffic, played a bit of flute. I wasn’t the only flute player in town but I think it’s true to say I was the loudest!”

The years have been kind to Ian Anderson and today he is one of rock’s more distinguished elder statesmen, still a showman, although the demonic wild eyes and tortured facial gymnastics are now confined to the history books. He speaks in an eloquent, a mellow tone, his thoughts considered and benefiting from the wisdom of ages. He sees parallels between the music of 50 years ago and today although he offers a word of caution about the responsibility that comes with having a public voice.

“It was a very exciting time and I think that people would say that now is a very exciting time for music, except that when I hear anything that is, supposedly, contemporary and the latest thing, I can’t help but be reminded of the origins of rap music which goes back, really, to the end of the seventies. It’s an entirely old music phenomenon which happens to be dressed up with a few more hand signals and, generally, rather inflammatory and, quite often, extremely nasty lyrics. It is, essentially, like Twitter to a drum beat.

“So I don’t find anything musically or culturally interesting about it because it seems always tinged with a lot of unpleasantness. I know it’s not always the case but I don’t find any enjoyment in hip-hop, or whatever term is currently applicable, because it’s so repetitive in terms of what it’s saying. At best it’s very naive, inflammatory politics, at it’s worst it’s just people bad-mouthing and using extremely bad expressions with regard to other human beings, which I find regrettable. It usually demonstrates it’s a good idea to sit and think it through if you’re going to release a piece of music, let alone say anything on Twitter.

“I’m a self-editor when it comes to song-writing, I’m really careful about what I say. None-the-less, times do change and what might have been acceptable fifty years ago could be quite politically incorrect today and I have to accept that there are some things I’ve said in song lyrics that I wouldn’t choose to express in that way today. Times change and so do our perceptions of what is acceptable.

“But there are certain absolutes in that and when you set out to be deliberately cruel and hurtful, to be abusive and to stereotype and vilify on the basis of gender, race or political affiliations, I think that’s a step to far. It always was, it always is and it always will be something that is best left out. If you’re going to express political or cultural views in song-writing you have to have a very light touch and let the people do the heavy lifting when they investigate. Let them think it through. It may inform their opinions or it may just fly over their heads but I think you should have a light touch and trust people to look at your words and look behind your words to get the sense of what you’re conveying. That way it has some artistic merit and isn’t just a diatribe that could be equally expressed as prose in a Twitter.

“At the end of it all we are what we are, it’s just that some of us perhaps choose to be a little more careful. In my lifetime, can think of at least three or four times where I have shot my mouth off, only to regret it later. It all too easily happens but a lot less now than in my early days when I was less guarded and more likely to say things that made me sound clever or purposeful or powerful. We all make those mistakes and I have to remember to extend the hand of friendship to those who err on the side of vilification, because they may change their minds as they get older. Or, on the other hand like Donald Trump, they may not!” he laughs.



“Let’s just thank the Lord that Donald Trump is not a rap vocalist in a successful band and that he’s only a US president where, arguably, he can do less harm!”

And so, before Mr Trump presses the wrong button and the world comes to an end, we have two Jethro Tull-related tours to look forward to in 2020, the UK legs of what promises to be another busy year for Ian.

“I’ve got about 80 concerts coming up in not quite as many countries but in the UK I have nine shows in April and May, talk shows chatting about the origins of Jethro Tull and the beginnings of that era of music, anecdotal illustrations and little musical moments that I shall conjure up. Then, of course, we have a Jethro Tull tour in October and that is focussing on the examples of progressive rock from Jethro Tull’s vast repertoire. The title The Prog Years is a little disingenuous but I did this intentionally to point out to people that the prog years, in the case of Jethro Tull, began towards the end of 1968 with the writing of the first couple of songs that were precursors of, what became known as, progressive rock in 1969.

“And they continue into 2020 because there is one piece of music we play which is, as yet, an unreleased piece of music in the progressive rock vein. For Jethro Tull progressive rock is not just some narrow window of time, The Prog Years is meant to show that progressive rock is alive and well and has been for 50 years now.”

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[bunkerfan]

Ian Anderson - Talks about His Codpiece, Jethro Tull, Prog Tour & more - Radio Broadcast 01/03/2020

[JTull 007]

              Ian Anderson / Field Report  LINK 
                                                               EPISODE SUMMARY
              Hi!  This month, hear my chat with befluted (not a word) frontman
                 of Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson, as he embarks on 2 tours in 2020

Also, enjoy a fantastic conversation with one of the greatest 21st century songwriters,
                                                                                     Chris Porterfield of Field Report.
   As a special treat, you can also hear an acoustic version of “Blind Spot”.  This is
  currently the only place you can hear this recording (unless you have the tour only,
          erm,   cassette,   or you’ve hacked Chris’ computer,   or he sent it to you,
         or some other way that hasn’t occurred to me yet; anyway, it’s pretty rare).

                                                                Enjoy! 

[maddogfagin]

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jethro-tull-tour-rescheduled-976708/

Social Distancing With Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson: Face Masks, Farming and Friendship
“My fans are too intelligent to want to receive a video of me sitting in a bathtub telling them how I’m feeling great and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” says Anderson

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By BRENNA EHRLICH

As the world fights a pandemic, we reached out to some of our favorite artists with three questions about these unprecedented times. Here’s what Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who is currently in the midst of rescheduling tour dates, had to say.

What are you doing with your unexpected time at home?
I’m actually really busy because we are in the process of rescheduling all of our shows. In terms of manpower and hours, it’s probably taking twice as long as it took to set up the shows in the first place.

I’m fortunate, you know — I can understand this would probably annoy a lot of people, understandably, who are locked down in the apartment or the city-dwelling with nowhere to go. I’m in touch with a lot of them friends and acquaintances and other musicians who simply can’t leave their homes. I’m fortunate to live in the countryside; we live on a working farm. So, we have a few hundred acres of fields of woodlands and no shortage of space to enjoy the hopefully imminent spring. So, that breaks up the day — taking the dogs for a walk or taking the cat for a walk and generally enjoying where I live.

I suppose it’s given me the opportunity to think about how lucky I am and not to take for granted that I live in a nice house in this part of the world. I’m learning to appreciate it perhaps in a way that I don’t usually do when I’m constantly jumping to drive to the airport and jet off to somewhere else to do my work. So, this is a good time to be a little more reflective.

It’s the opportunity to really renew close bonds with family and friends. Just before I sat down to call you, my wife called me over because she’d had an email from an American actor called Norman Reedus who sent a video of his little baby saying how they were all well and hoping we were well, too. A lot of people you don’t normally hear from are suddenly on the phone or sending an email checking on how you are. I’ve done the same thing.

It’s a mixture of saying, well, yeah, you know, the world is a better place if you look at certain aspects of society. We are generally speaking more supportive of each other. We’re certainly reducing our global carbon footprint by a big, big margin. So, there’s a lot of positive things out there. We are learning to do without public transport. We learning, I think, in a very positive way that we can carry on without necessarily taking for granted the unfortunate effects of too many people on a smaller planet with finite resources. That’s the bottom line.

I don’t want to play the blame game, but you know, we should be also learning about the perils of eating stuff that had a face on it. The ridiculous reliance on flesh-eating, which is so prevalent. I am not a strict vegetarian or a vegan, but most of what I eat probably comes under the vegan classification, just because I like that stuff.

You know, it’s not my business to tell you what to eat, not my business to tell you how many babies to have. But I would like people to try to work it out for themselves, come to their own conclusions and think responsibly about themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their neighbors. And those of us who share this finite and fragile resource, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. People have to come to responsible conclusions themselves.

What music do you turn to in times of crisis for solace and comfort, and why?
I’m not really a music listener; it’s what I do. I think if I was a 747 pilot, I would probably not fly 747s on the weekends. I tend to listen to music sometimes on an airplane because I’m a nervous flyer… so I wouldn’t make a very good captain of a 747. But it’s kind of, you know, musical aspirin to keep my mind off what’s going on around me.

I stopped listening to music in my early twenties, just because I thought I’ve heard enough. I think you get the point, you know, when you’re traveling around — especially as I did around the USA so often and for so long — hearing incessant music in hotel lobbies, in elevators and cars and buses, the constant sound of popular and rock music. When you do it yourself for about four hours a night — intense musical experience, that — [that’s] your sensible ration of musical noise in any one day. If I do listen to music, it tends to be mostly classical music. Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, interspersed occasionally with ZZ Top.

What about books or films?
Well, I read a lot, you see, and I read a lot of topical stuff in terms of politics and current affairs. Occasionally, I read a novel, you know, for entertainment, something that is fiction. But the reality is at the moment the days fly by because I’m really very busy trying to sort out our 2012 tour.

I was talking to my American agent last night and he said, “I’ve got 750 shows I’m trying to rebook for the artist I represent. I’ve got artists who are telling me, ‘Oh, can we reschedule to October?'”

And he said, “If that’s what they desperately want to do, that’s what I will try to do. But I really want to tell them to reschedule to March or April in 2021 because you’ll only have to reschedule tour yet again.”

My own gut feeling is that you’d be very, very optimistic to reschedule anything in the later months of this year. If you’re going to do it, you don’t want to keep doing it, because that will piss people off.

Anything else you want to say to your fans right now?
Well, there’s a lot of people in the world of entertainment, pain-in-the-ass people, who come out with really tacky videos saying all the obvious things. I personally think my fans are too intelligent to want to receive a video of me sitting in a bathtub telling them how I’m feeling great and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, I am. No one will imagine for a minute that I’m not well protected, well looked after. I bought my face mask four years ago; I have an underlying respiratory disease. I always have to face masks in my hand luggage; this is nothing new for me. Face masks are common sense.

We tend to be a little hostile about people wearing face masks. And I can understand why. But hopefully, once frontline medical workers and hospital staff and care home staff are suitably equipped with adequate face masks, they will become much more available to the general public.

But that’s not the advice that you were getting in your country until yesterday. You were being told that face masks are a waste of time. Don’t bother having them. The reason in part, I think, is both your government and our government realized there were not enough face mounts to go around to the people who really need them. I think we should be always told the truth. It may cause momentary panic, but I think most of us are much more resilient than that. Give us the truth.

I’m a cautious supporter of the Gaia theory. The idea that the planet behaves almost as if it was a living organism. And I rather like that, that uniformity of everything. Everything that lives in a precarious world, we’re all interconnected. We’re all part of a global life form that goes beyond how many eyes you’ve got or how many legs you’ve got. We’re all part of that great living mess that is planet Earth. I’m quite attracted to the idea that the planet is almost self-regulating.

This is the time for reflection. I think people should invest in understanding and learning to handle the truth. And the truth is not pretty, but in a way, you know, I’m an eternal optimist. I think we will get through this, but I hope we’ve learned some positive lessons along the way and that a year or two years from now that we look back on this and say, “Hey, you know, let’s continue to curb our relentless consumption of resources.”

[nonrabbit]

"Working farm"... I didn't know that
"Nervous flyer".... Still!!
"Carbon footprint".... hmmm

Agree with him on using face masks even when this has passed. I was thinking of wearing them on public transport in a busy city.

Also agree with him on the earth healing itself while we've been sent to our rooms.

[maddogfagin]

www.loudersound.com/

Ian Anderson interview: the beginning, middle and end of Jethro Tull
By Paul Elliott (Classic Rock) 26 minutes ago

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson might have become an average blues guitarist. Instead he became the best one-legged flute player in the world, and for more than 50 years led his band to critical acclaim and huge commercial success

There’s an awkward moment when Ian Anderson arrives in Bath for the Classic Rock Interview. As he emerges from the train station on a rainy winter morning, dressed for the weather in an anorak and woolly hat, he recoils sharply when I offer a handshake.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he says. “But I’ve got a bad wrist.” With a thin smile, he adds: “I’m probably a close second to Pope Francis for getting upset with people grabbing my hand without asking first.”

He has a bad leg, too. And as bad luck would have it, it’s his right leg, the one on which he has always stood, with his left peg dangling, while playing flute as frontman for Jethro Tull, the band he has led since 1967.

“Quite painful,” he says of the torn meniscus in the knee joint.

Full article here

[maddogfagin]

Not sure how much of a cut 'n' paste this online article is but I'll post the link to the whole article after the first few paragraphs.


www.ultimate-guitar.com/

Jethro Tull Leader Recalls Selling Fender Strat He Got From Lemmy & Buying Flute, Says Prog 'Went Up Its Own Arse'
"I was never a fan of Genesis, but their musicianship was incredible," Ian Anderson says.

Posted 36 minutes ago [5/4/2020]



During a conversation with Classic Rock Magazine, Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson looked back on the band's early days, recalling how he ended up playing the flute, which became one of the group's trademarks.

It all happened in the summer of 1967, the same year the band was launched and about a year before the release of Tull's 1968 debut album "This Was." Ian said:

"I'd been playing guitar and harmonica, but as a guitarist, I was never going to be as good as Eric Clapton, simple as that.

"So I parted company with my Fender Strat, whose previous owner was Lemmy Kilmister, who was then the rhythm guitar player for the Rockin' Vickers, and I bought a flute, for no good reason. It just looked nice and shiny."

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