1976 Ian Anderson Jethro Tull - 4-Page Vintage Article Interview

Description

1976 Ian Anderson Jethro Tull - 4-Page Vintage Article Interview
Original, Vintage Magazine Article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Throughout the theatrical proceedings of
the Jethro Tull show in New Orleans’ cavern-
ous Municipal Auditorium, Ian Anderson
frenziedly leaps and hurls himself across the
stage as he sings. Dressed in multi-colored
tights equipped with codpiece, Anderson’s
appearance and stage demeanor arc some-
thing of a cross between a Renaissance jester
and a lunatic.
Even for a rock concert it’s a bizarre affair.
Scantily-clad girls, smiling like TV game
show models, trot back and forth across the
stage to hand Anderson the flute or guitar re-
quired for his performance. During the mid-
dle of My God, Anderson’s musical opus of
agnosticism, a janitor sweeps around the feet
of lead guitarist Martin Barre. In the opening
refrain of another song, a telephone rings.
But despite the barrage of Dada-inspired
gimmicks in the show, the audience’s atten-
tion stays focused on Anderson. For all in-
tents and purposes, Anderson is Jethro Tull
—having led the group from the start, he’s
the only member to have remained in the
band from its first recording onward. John
Evans on keyboards, Jeffrey Hammond-Ham-
mond on bass guitar and string bass, Barrie-
more Barlow on drums, and an all-girl cho-
rus of strings round out the current touring
ensemble; but there’s no doubt about who’s
the star.
Under Anderson’s direction as songwriter,
vocalist, and more recently as producer, Jeth-
ro Tull’s popularity has steadily accelerated
since the release of their first album in 1968.
The initial This Was, with its airy English
folk ballads and jazzy flute sound, won the
band a cult ^Howing: d?and Benefit albums built upon --even as the
group edged increasingly closer io the rock
mainstream.
Jethro Tull’s first concept album,
Aqualung, was an early entry into the soon-
to-be-crowded rock opera race. Anderson’s
LP side of related songs about the title
character—a wheezing down-and-outcr in
London—catapulted the troupe to superstar
status. The release of Thick As A Brick, an al-
bum-long ballad, solidified the group’s repu-
tation and allowed Anderson room to display
his lyrical talents by sketching childhood im-
pressions of comic heroes and vaguely
ominous father-son confrontations, re-
counted in mock-epic style. Later the same
year, Living In the Past, a two record collec-
tion of live performances and early songs un-
released in America, brought the group to
Top 10 radio status via its title single.
Tull's most ambitious project to date has
been Passion Play, an extended composition
which Ian integrated into live performances
with a film that he wrote and directed. But
despite healthy sales and sold-out concerts,
both the tour and the album were panned by
a majority of critics as being contrived and
confusing. Rumor spread that the sensitive
Anderson was disbanding the group and had
cancelled the remainder of their tour.
Two more gold records since that debacle
have proven the durability of Jethro Tull’s
appeal. On War Child, Anderson returned to
conventional song lengths; another single,
the bouncy Bungle In The Jungle, soared to
the top of the charts last year. Minstrel In The
Gallery appeared next, seemingly something
of a compromise between the commercial
and more experimental sides to Anderson’s
ambitions Along with shorter, catchy songs
like Cold Winds To Valhalla, the album in-
cludes Baker Street Muse, a typically cryptic
but somewhat bitter saga of sexual and mu-
sical tribulation
few hours before discarding black T-
shirt and jeans for his more flamboyant stage
garb, Anderson discoursed reflectively in his
suite at the Fairmont Hotel—where
Louisiana’s Kingfish, Huey Long, used to
hold court during his reign at the top. The in-
terview began with the subject of Jethro
Tull’s treatment by the press, a topic to which
Anderson often returned during the course of
the conversation.
Anderson: It took the music press in Eng-
land some little while to wake up to the fact
that we were actually around. We played for
six or eight months all over the clubs in Eng-
land and were one of the major-drawing un-
derground groups of the lime—by under-
ground, I mean we received no national or
music paper publicity at all.
Then we played at a summer festival in
England to about 80,000 people—the Salis-
bury Jazz Festival in 1968. Having played to
lots of little audiences in small clubs, it all
anted up at the festival. All those people had
seen us play at one time or another, and we...
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