Jethro Tull - The Aragon Ballroom 1970-08-16 (Bootleg)

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The Aragon Ballroom was built in 1926 was originally a famous dance ballroom that used to broadcast the orchestra music on radio. Many of the top big bands played at the Aragon. In the early 60’s ice skating and boxing matches were held at the Aragon. In 1966 the Aragon became the Cheetah Club and began holding pop concerts as a disco. In June of 1968 the club returned to its original name of the Aragon and held rock, pop and Latin concerts until October 1970. Concerts were stopped at the Aragon due to security and drug problems. Rock and pop concerts began again in 1972. 

BIOGRAPHY:
Jethro Tull was a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock; folk melodies; blues licks; surreal, impossibly dense lyrics; and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn't dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. At the same time, critics rarely took them seriously, and they were off the cutting edge of popular music since the end of the 1970s. But no record store in the country would want to be without multiple copies of each of their most popular albums (Benefit, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past), or their various best-of compilations, and few would knowingly ignore their newest releases. Of their contemporaries, only Yes could claim a similar degree of success, and Yes endured several major shifts in sound and membership in reaching the 1990s, while Tull remained remarkably stable over the same period. As co-founded and led by wildman-flautist-guitarist-singer-songwriter Ian Anderson, the group carved a place all its own in popular music. 

Tull had its roots in the British blues boom of the late '60s. Anderson (b. Aug. 10, 1947, Edinburgh, Scotland) had moved to Blackpool when he was 12. His first band was called the Blades, named after James Bond's club, with Michael Stephens on guitar, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (b. July 30, 1946) on bass and John Evans (b. Mar. 28, 1948) on drums, playing a mix of jazzy blues and soulful dance music on the northern club circuit. In 1965, they changed their name to the John Evan Band (Evan having dropped the "s" in his name at Hammond's suggestion) and later the John Evan Smash. By the end of 1967, Glenn Cornick (b. Apr. 24, 1947, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England) had replaced Hammond-Hammond on bass. The group moved to Luton in order to be closer to London, the center of the British blues boom, and the band began to fall apart, when Anderson and Cornick met guitarist/singer Mick Abrahams (b. Apr. 7, 1943, Luton, Bedfordshire, England) and drummer Clive Bunker (b. Dec. 12, 1946), who had previously played together in the Toggery Five and were now members of a local blues band called McGregor's Engine. 

In December of 1967, the four of them agreed to form a new group. They began playing two shows a week, trying out different names, including Navy Blue and Bag of Blues. One of the names that they used, Jethro Tull, borrowed from an 18th-century farmer/inventor, proved popular and memorable, and it stuck. In January of 1968, they cut a rather derivative pop-folk single called "Sunshine Day," released by MGM Records (under the misprinted name Jethro Toe) the following month. The single went nowhere, but the group managed to land a residency at the Marquee Club in London, where they became very popular.

Early on, they had to face a problem of image and configuration, however. In the late spring of 1968, managers Terry Ellis and Chris Wright (who later founded Chrysalis Records) first broached the idea that Anderson give up playing the flute, and to allow Mick Abrahams to take center stage. At the time, a lot of blues enthusiasts didn't accept wind instruments at all, especially the flute, as seminal to the sound they were looking for, and as a group struggling for success and recognition, Jethro Tull was just a little too strange in that regard. Abrahams was a hardcore blues enthusiast who idolized British blues godfather Alexis Korner, and he was pushing for a more traditional band configuration, which would've put him and his guitar out front. As it turned out, they were both right. Abrahams' blues sensibilities were impeccable, but the audience for British blues by itself couldn't elevate Jethro Tull any higher than being a top club act. Anderson's antics on-stage, jumping around in a ragged overcoat and standing on one leg while playing the flute, and his use of folk sources as well as blues and jazz, gave the band the potential to grab a bigger audience and some much-needed press attention.

They opened for Pink Floyd on June 29, 1968, at the first free rock festival in London's Hyde Park, and in August they were the hit of the Sunbury Jazz & Blues Festival in Sunbury-on-Thames. By the end of the summer, they had a recording contract with Island Records. The resulting album, This Was, was issued in November. By this time, Anderson was the dominant member of the group on-stage, and at the end of the month Abrahams exited the band. The group went through two hastily recruited and rejected replacements, future Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi (who was in Tull for a week, just long enough to show up in their appearance on the Rolling Stones' Rock 'N Roll Circus extravaganza), and Davy O'List, the former guitarist with the Nice. Finally, Martin Barre (b. Nov. 17, 1946), a former architecture student, was the choice for a permanent replacement.

1969

It wasn't until April of 1969 that This Was got a U.S. release. Ironically, the first small wave of American Jethro Tull fans were admiring a group whose sound had already changed radically; in May of 1969, Barre's first recording with the group, "Living in the Past," reached the British number three spot and the group made its debut on Top of the Pops performing the song. The group played a number of festivals that summer, including the Newport Jazz Festival. Their next album, Stand Up, with all of its material (except "Bouree," which was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach) written by Ian Anderson, reached the number one spot in England the next month. Stand Up also contained the first orchestrated track by Tull, "Reasons for Waiting," which featured strings arranged by David Palmer, a Royal Academy of Music graduate and theatrical conductor who had arranged horns on one track from This Was. Palmer would play an increasingly large role in subsequent albums, and finally join the group officially in 1977. 

Meanwhile, "Sweet Dream," issued in November, rose to number seven in England, and was the group's first release on Wright and Ellis' newly formed Chrysalis label. Their next single, "The Witch's Promise," got to number four in England in January of 1970. The group's next album, Benefit, marked their last look back at the blues, and also the presence of Anderson's longtime friend and former bandmate John Evan -- who had long since given up the drums in favor of keyboards -- on piano and organ. Benefit reached the number three spot in England, but, much more important, it ascended to number 11 in America, and its songs, including "Teacher" and "Sossity, You're A Woman," formed a key part of Tull's stage repertory. In early July of 1970, the group shared a bill with Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Johnny Winter at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, GA, before 200,000 people.

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By the following December, after another U.S. tour, Cornick had decided to leave the group, and was replaced on bass by Anderson's childhood friend Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond. Early the following year, they began working on what would prove to be, for many fans, the group's magnum opus, Aqualung. Anderson's writing had been moving in a more serious direction since the group's second album, but it was with Aqualung that he found the lyrical voice he'd been seeking. Suddenly, he was singing about the relationship between man and God, and the manner in which -- in his view -- organized religion separated them. The blues influences were muted almost to non-existence, but the hard rock passages were searing and the folk influences provided a refreshing contrast. That the album was a unified whole impressed the more serious critics, while the kids were content to play air guitar to Martin Barre's high-speed breaks. And everybody, college prog rock mavens and high-school time-servers alike, seemed to identify with the theme of alienation that lay behind the music.

Aqualung reached number seven in America and number four in England, and was accompanied by a hugely successful American tour. Bunker quit the band to get married, and was replaced by Anderson's old John Evan Smash bandmate Barriemore Barlow (b. Sept. 10, 1949). Late in 1971, they began work on their next album, Thick as a Brick. Structurally more ambitious than Aqualung, and supported by an elaborately designed jacket in the form of a newspaper, this record was essentially one long song steeped in surreal imagery, social commentary, and Anderson's newly solidified image as a wildman-sage. Released in England during April of 1972, Thick as a Brick got as high as the number five spot, but when it came out in America a month later, it hit the number one spot, making it the first Jethro Tull album to achieve greater popularity in American than in England. In June of 1972, in response to steadily rising demand for the group's work, Chrysalis Records released Living in the Past, a collection of tracks from their various singles and British EPs, early albums, and a Carnegie Hall show, packaged like an old-style 78 rpm album in a book that opened up.

1970

At this point, it seemed as though Jethro Tull could do no wrong, and for the fans that was true. For the critics, however, the group's string ran out in July of 1973 with the release of A Passion Play. The piece was another extended song, running the length of the album, this time steeped in fantasy and religious imagery far denser than Aqualung; it was divided at the end of one side of the album and the beginning of the other by an A.A. Milne-style story called "The Hare That Lost His Spectacles." This time, the critics were hostile toward Anderson and the group, attacking the album for its obscure lyrical references and excessive length. Despite these criticisms, the album reached number one in America (yielding a number eight single edited from the extended piece) and number 13 in England. The real venom, however, didn't start to flow until the group went on tour that summer. By this time, their sets ran to two-and-a-half hours, and included not only the new album done in its entirety ("The Hare That Lost His Spectacles" being a film presentation in the middle of the show), but Thick as a Brick and the most popular of the group's songs off of Aqualung and their earlier albums. Anderson was apparently unprepared for the searing reviews that started appearing, and also took the American rock press too seriously. In the midst of a sell-out U.S. tour, he threatened to cancel all upcoming concerts and return to England. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, especially once he recognized that the shows were completely sold out and audiences were ecstatic, and the tour continued without interruption. 

Concert Poster 1970

It was 16 months until the group's next album, War Child -- conceived as part of a film project that never materialized -- was released, in November of 1974. The expectations surrounding the album gave it pre-order sales sufficient to get it certified gold upon release, and it was also Tull's last platinum album, reaching number two in America and number 14 in England. The dominant theme of War Child seemed to be violence, though the music's trappings heavily featured Palmer's orchestrations, rivaling Barre's electric guitar breaks for attention. In any case, the public seemed to respond well to the group's return to conventional length songs, with "Bungle in the Jungle" reaching number 11 in America. Tull's successful concert tour behind this album had them augmented by a string quartet. 

During this period, Anderson became involved with producing an album by Steeleye Span, a folk-rock group that was also signed to Chrysalis, and who had opened for Tull on one of their American tours. Their music slowly begun influencing Anderson's songwriting over the next several years, as the folk influence grew in prominence, a process that was redoubled when he took up a rural residence during the mid-'70s. The next Tull album, Minstrel in the Gallery, showed up ten months later, in September of 1975, reaching number seven in the United States. This time, the dominant theme was Elizabethan minstrelsy, within an electric rock and English folk context. The tracks included a 17-minute suite that recalled the group's earlier album-length epic songs, but the album's success was rather more limited. 

The Jethro Tull lineup had been remarkably stable ever since Clive Bunker's exit after Aqualung, remaining constant across four albums in as many years. In January of 1976, however, Hammond-Hammond left the band to pursue a career in art. His replacement, John Glascock (b. 1953), joined in time for the recording of Too Old to Rock 'n Roll, Too Young to Die, an album made up partly of songs from an un-produced play proposed by Anderson and Palmer, released in May of 1976. The group later did an ITV special built around the album's songs. The title track, however (on which Steeleye Span's Maddy Prior appeared as a guest backing vocalist), became a subject of controversy in England, as critics took it to be a personal statement on Anderson's part.

Jethro Tull - This Was Album 1968

In late 1976, a Christmas EP entitled Ring Out Solstice Bells got to number 28. This song later turned up on their next album, Songs From the Wood, the group's most artistically unified and successful album in some time (and the first not derived from an unfinished film or play since A Passion Play). This was Tull's folk album, reflecting Anderson's passion for English folk songs. Its release also accompanied the band's first British tour in nearly three years. In May of 1977, David Palmer joined Tull as an official member, playing keyboards on-stage to augment the richness of the group's concert sound.

Having lasted into the late '70s, Jethro Tull now found itself competing in a new musical environment, as journalists and, to an increasing degree, fans became fixated on the growing punk rock phenomenon. In October 1977, Repeat (The Best of Jethro Tull, Vol. 2), intended to fill an anticipated 11 month gap between Tull albums, was released on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, it contained only a single new track and never made the British charts, while barely scraping into the American Top 100 albums. The group's next new album, Heavy Horses, issued in April of 1978, was Anderson's most personal work in several years, the title track expressing his regret over the disappearance of England's huge shire horses as casualties of modernization. In the fall of 1978, the group's first full-length concert album, the double-LP Live-Bursting Out, was released to modest success, accompanied by a tour of the United States and an international television broadcast from Madison Square Garden. 

Aragon Ballroom

1979 was a pivotal and tragic year for the group. John Glascock died from complications of heart surgery on November 17, five weeks after the release of Stormwatch. Tull was lucky enough to acquire the services of Dave Pegg, the longtime bassist for Fairport Convention, which had announced its formal (though, as it turned out, temporary) breakup. The Stormwatch tour with the new lineup was a success, although the album was the first original release by Jethro Tull since This Was not to reach the U.S. Top 20. Partly thanks to Pegg's involvement with the Tull lineup, future tours by Jethro Tull, especially in America, would provide a basis for performances by re-formed incarnations of Fairport Convention.

The lineup change caused by Glascock's death led to Anderson's decision to record a solo album during the summer of 1980, backed by Barre, Pegg, and Mark Craney on drums, with ex-Roxy Music/King Crimson multi-instrumentalist Eddie Jobson on violin. The record, A, was eventually released as a Jethro Tull album in September of 1980, but even the Tull name didn't do much for its success. Barlow, Evan, and Palmer, however, were dropped from the group's lineup with the recording of A, and the new version of Jethro Tull toured in support of the album. Jobson left once the tour was over, and it was with yet another new lineup -- including Barre, Pegg, and Fairport Convention alumnus Gerry Conway (drums) and Peter-John Vettesse (keyboards) -- that The Broadsword and the Beast was recorded in 1982. Although this album had many songs based on folk melodies, its harder rocking passages also had a heavier, more thumping beat than earlier versions of the band had produced, and the use of the synthesizer was more pronounced than on previous Tull albums.

In 1983, Anderson confined his activities to his first official solo album, Walk Into Light, which had a very different, synthesizer-dominated sound. Following its lackluster performance, Anderson revived Jethro Tull for the album Under Wraps, released in September of 1984. At number 76 in the U.S., it became the group's poorest selling album, partly a consequence of Anderson's developing a throat infection that forced the postponement of much of their planned tour. No further Tull albums were to be released until Crest of a Knave in 1987, as a result of Anderson's intermittent throat problems. In the meantime, the group appeared on a German television special in March of 1985, and participated in a presentation of the group's work by the London Symphony Orchestra. To make up for the shortfall of new releases, Chrysalis released another compilation, Original Masters, a collection of highlights of the group's work, in October of 1985. In 1986, A Classic Case: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays the Music of Jethro Tull was released on record; and Crest of a Knave performed surprisingly well when it was issued in September of 1987, reaching number 19 in England and number 32 in America with the support of a world tour.

Jethro Tull - Stand Up Album 1969

Crest of a Knave was something of a watershed in Tull's later history, though nobody would have guessed it at the time of its release. Although some of its songs displayed the group's usual folk/hard rock mix, the group was playing louder than usual, and tracks like "Steel Monkey," had a harder sound than any previous record by the group. In 1988, Tull toured the United States as part of the celebration of the band's 20th anniversary. In July, Chrysalis issued 20 Years of Jethro Tull, a 65-song boxed-set collection covering the group's history up to that time, containing most of their major songs and augmented with outtakes and radio performances. In February of 1989, the band won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance for Crest of a Knave. Suddenly, they were stars again, and being declared as relevant by one of the top music awards in the industry; a fact that kept critics buzzing for months over whether the group deserved it before finally attacking the voting for the Grammy Awards and the membership of its parent organization, the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Rock Island, another hard rocking album, reached a very healthy number 18 in England during September of the same year, while peaking only at 56 in America, despite a six-week U.S. tour to support the album. In 1990, the album Catfish Rising did less well, reaching only 27 in England and 88 in America after its release in September. And A Little Light Music, their own "unplugged" release, taped on their summer 1992 European tour, only got to number 34 in England and 150 in the United States.

Despite declining numbers, the group continued performing to good-sized houses when they toured, and the group's catalog performed extremely well. In April of 1993, Chrysalis released a four-CD 25th Anniversary Box Set -- evidently hoping that most fans had forgotten the 20th anniversary set issued five years earlier -- consisting of remixed versions of their hits, live shows from across their history, and a handful of new tracks. Meanwhile, Anderson continued to write and record music separate from the group on occasion, most notably Divinities: Twelve Dances with God, a classically-oriented solo album (and a distinctly non-Tull one) on EMI's classical Angel Records. J-Tull.Com followed in 1999.

Jethro Tull
August 16, 1970
The Aragon Ballroom
Chicago, IL

This show was broadcast on WLIR-FM in 1974. 

01. My Sunday Feeling 06:29
02. My God 11:30
03. To Cry You A Song  06:13
04. With You There To Help Me (w/piano solo) 13:05
05. Sossity-Reasons For Waiting 
06. Nothing Is Easy 06:46
07. Dharma For One 10:32
08. We Used To Know 12:47

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Jethro Tull - Stand Up (Great 2nd Album UK 1969)

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Stand Up is the second album by Jethro Tull. Prior to this album, the band's original guitarist Mick Abrahams had left the band due to musical differences with Ian Anderson. Abrahams wanted to stay with the blues-rock sound of This Was, while Anderson wished to branch out into other musical forms.

Stand Up represents the first album project on which Anderson was in full control of the music and lyrics. The album also marks the first appearance of guitarist Martin Lancelot Barre who appeared on every Jethro Tull album from this point on. The album goes in a different direction from his earlier work, revealing influences from Celtic music, folk and classical music. The instrumental "Bourée" (one of Jethro Tull's better-known songs) is a re-working of "Bourrée in E minor" by J.S.Bach.

The album reached #1 on the British charts. The gatefold album cover, in a woodcut style designed by artist James Grashow, originally opened up similar to a child's pop-up book, so that a cut-out of the band's personnel stood up — linking into the album's title. Stand Up won New Musical Express's award for best album artwork in 1969.

The group's second album, with Ian Anderson (vocals, flute, acoustic guitars, keyboards, balalaika), Martin Barre (electric guitar, flute), Clive Bunker (drums), and Glen Cornick (bass), solidified their sound. There are still elements of blues present in their music, but except for the opening track, "A New Day Yesterday," it is far more muted than on their first album — new lead guitarist Martin Barre had few of the blues stylings that characterized Mick Abrahams' playing. Rather, the influence of English folk music manifests itself on several cuts, including "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square" and "Look Into the Sun." 

Belgium Single 1969

The instrumental "Bouree," which could've passed for an early Blood, Sweat & Tears track, became a favorite concert number, with an excellent solo bit featuring Cornick's bass, although at this point Anderson's flute playing on-stage needed a lot of work. As a story-song with opaque lyrics, jarring tempo changes, and loud electric passages juxtaposed with soft acoustic-textured sections, "Back to the Family" is an early forerunner to Thick As a Brick. Similarly, "Reasons for Waiting," with its mix of closely miked acoustic guitar and string orchestra, all hung around a hauntingly beautiful folk-based melody, pointed in the direction of that conceptual piece and its follow-up, A Passion Play. The only major flaw in this album is the mix, which divides the electric and acoustic instruments and fails to find a solid center, but even that has been fixed on recent CD editions. 

The original LP had a gatefold jacket that included a pop-up representation of the band that has been lost on all subsequent CD versions, except for the Mobile Fidelity audiophile release. In late 2001, Stand Up was re-released in a remastered edition with bonus tracks that boasted seriously improved sound. Anderson's singing comes off richer throughout, and the electric guitars on "Look Into the Sun" are very well-delineated in the mix, without any loss in the lyricism of the acoustic backing; the rhythm section on "Nothing Is Easy" has more presence, Bunker's drums and high-hat playing sounding much closer and sharper; the mandolin on "Fat Man" is practically in your lap; you can hear the action on the acoustic guitar on "Reasons for Waiting," even in the orchestrated passages; and the band sounds like it's in the room with you pounding away on "For a Thousand Mothers." Among the bonus tracks, recorded at around the same time, "Living in the Past," "Driving Song," and "Sweet Dreams" all have a richness and resonance that was implied but never heard before.

Jethro (Toe) - UK Promo Single 1968

Biography:
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in Luton, Bedfordshire, in December 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969, after he replaced original guitarist Mick Abrahams.

Initially playing experimental blues rock, they later incorporated elements of classical music, folk music, jazz, hard rock and art rock into their music. During a career that has spanned more than forty years, Jethro Tull have sold more than 60 million albums worldwide.

1962–68: origins:
Ian Anderson started his first band, the Blades, in Blackpool, England in 1962. The group featured Anderson on vocals and harmonica, Jeffrey Hammond on bass, John Evans on drums, and a guitarist named either Hipgrave or Michael Stephans. Drummer Barrie Barlow became a member in 1963 after Evans had switched from drums to piano. By 1964 the band had developed into a seven-piece Blue-eyed soul band called the John Evan Band (later the John Evan Smash). By this point Evans had shortened his surname to "Evan" at the insistence of Hammond, who thought it sounded better and more unusual.

Sweden Single 1969

In 1967, the band moved to the London area, basing themselves in nearby Luton; they also travelled to Liverpool. However, money remained short and within days of the move most of the band quit and headed back north, leaving Anderson and bassist Glenn Cornick (who had replaced Hammond) to join forces with blues guitarist Mick Abrahams and his friend, drummer Clive Bunker, both from the Luton-based band McGregor's Engine. 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. 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. They were signed to the blossoming Ellis-Wright agency, and became the third band managed by the soon-to-be Chrysalis empire. It was around this time that Anderson purchased a flute after becoming frustrated with his inability to play guitar like Eric Clapton:

                    "I didn't want to be just another third-rate guitar player who  sounded like a bunch of other third-rate guitar players. I wanted to do something that was a bit more idiosyncratic, hence the switch to another instrument. When Jethro Tull began, I think I'd been playing the flute for about two weeks. It was a quick  learning curve...literally every night I walked onstage was a flute lesson."

UK Single 1968

Released in 1968, their first single, "Sunshine Day", written by Abrahams and produced by Derek Lawrence, was commercially unsuccessful. On the original UK MGM 45 rpm record label, the group's name was misspelled "Jethro Toe", making it a collector's item. Anderson questions the misnomer as a way to avoid paying royalties. The more common version, with the name spelled correctly is actually a counterfeit made in NY.

They released their first album This Was in 1968. In addition to music written by Anderson and Abrahams the album included the traditional "Cat's Squirrel", which highlighted Abrahams' blues-rock style. The Rahsaan Roland Kirk-penned jazz piece "Serenade to a Cuckoo" gave Anderson a showcase for his growing talents on the flute, an instrument which he started learning to play only half a year before the release of the album. 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."

Following this album, Abrahams left after a falling out with Anderson and formed his own band, Blodwyn Pig. There were a number of reasons given for Abrahams' departure: he was a blues purist, while Anderson wanted to branch out into other forms of music; Abrahams was unwilling to travel internationally or play more than three nights a week; or there was simply no way a band could exist with two strong-minded heads (Anderson and Abrahams) pulling it in different directions. Abrahams' himself described his reasons more succinctly: "I was fed up with all the nonsense, and I wanted to form a band like Blodwyn Pig."

France Single I969

Guitarist Tony Iommi, from the group Earth (who would soon change their name to Black Sabbath), took on guitar duties for a short time after the departure of Abrahams, appearing in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, in which the group (all but Ian's vocals, which were recorded live) mimed "A Song For Jeffrey" in December 1968. Iommi returned to Earth thereafter. David O'List (who had just left the Nice) also deputised on guitar with Jethro Tull for a few shows and was briefly considered as a possible permanent replacement for Abrahams, although these plans never materialised.

1969–76: developing their own style:
After auditions for a replacement guitarist in December 1968, Anderson chose Martin Barre, a former member of Motivation, Penny Peeps, and Gethsemane, who was playing with Noel Redding's Fat Mattress at the time. Barre was so nervous at his first audition that he could hardly play at all, and then showed up for a second audition without an amplifier or a cord to connect his guitar to another amp. Nevertheless, Barre would become Abrahams' permanent replacement on guitar and the second longest-standing member of the band after Anderson. Another contender for the job, Steve Howe, later guitarist with Yes, failed to pass his audition.

Spain Single 1970

This new line-up released Stand Up in 1969, the group's only UK number-one album. The LP unfolded to a photo insert of the band attached to the covers like a pop-up book. Written entirely by Anderson – with the exception of the jazzy rearrangement of J. S. Bach's Bourrée in E minor BWV 996 (fifth movement) – it branched out further from the blues, clearly evidencing a new direction for the group, which would come to be categorised as progressive rock alongside such diverse groups as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Genesis, Camel, The Nice, Gentle Giant, and Yes. A couple of months prior to the sessions for this album, the band recorded one of their best-known songs, "Living in the Past", which was originally issued only as a single. Despite its unconventional 5/4 time signature, the song reached number three in the UK charts. Although most other progressive groups actively resisted issuing singles at the time, Jethro Tull had further success with their other singles, "Sweet Dream" (1969) and "The Witch's Promise" (1970), and a five-track EP, Life Is a Long Song (1971), all of which made the top twenty. In 1970, they added keyboardist John Evan (initially as a guest musician) and released the album Benefit.

In December 1970, bassist Cornick was "invited to leave" by Jethro Tull manager Terry Ellis, as he had become distanced from the other more reclusive band members, and he formed the band Wild Turkey. He was replaced by Jeffrey Hammond, the childhood friend and former Blades bandmate of Anderson's and Evan's whose name appeared in the titles of the songs "A Song for Jeffrey", "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square", "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me", and in the lyrics of the Benefit track, "Inside." Hammond was often credited on Jethro Tull albums as "Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond", a reference to the fact that Hammond's mother's maiden name was also Hammond, no relation to his father.

 US Promo Single1969

This line-up released Jethro Tull's best-known work, Aqualung, in 1971. On this album, Anderson's lyrics included strong opinions about religion. The song "Hymn 43" was released as a single, and the album provided plenty of FM radio fodder with the tracks "Aqualung", "Cross-Eyed Mary" and "Locomotive Breath". The Aqualung album would become the band's first to crack the U.S. top ten, reaching No. 7 in June 1971. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in July 1971.

Because of the heavy touring schedule and his wish to spend more time with his family, drummer Bunker quit the group after the Aqualung album and was replaced by Barrie Barlow (who was rechristened "Barriemore" by Anderson) in early 1971. Barlow first recorded with the band for the EP Life Is a Long Song and made his first appearance on a Jethro Tull album with 1972's Thick as a Brick. Disagreeing with the assessment from some music critics that Aqualung had been a concept album, Ian Anderson decided to give them "the mother of all concept albums", including the preposterous idea that the lyrics had been written by an eight-year-old boy. The album consisted of a single track running 43:46 (an innovation previously unheard of in rock music, split over the two sides of the LP, with a number of movements melded together and some repeating themes. The first movement with its distinctive acoustic guitar riff received some airplay on rock stations at the time. Thick as a Brick was the first Tull album to reach number one on the (US) Billboard Pop Albums chart (the following year's A Passion Play being the only other). This album's quintet – Anderson, Barre, Evan, Hammond, and Barlow – lasted until the end of 1975, and was, in essence, a reunion of The Blades, with Barre being the only member of Jethro Tull who had not been in The Blades.

Uk Single 1969

1972 also saw the release of Living in the Past, a double-album compilation of remixed singles, B-sides and outtakes (including the entirety of the Life Is a Long Song EP, which closes the album), with the third side recorded live in 1970 at New York's Carnegie Hall concert. With this album's release, the "Living in the Past" single gained popularity in the U.S., becoming the band's first Top 20 hit there (reaching No. 11).

In 1973, while in tax exile, the band attempted to produce a double album at France's Château d'Hérouville studios (something The Rolling Stones and Elton John among others were doing at the time), but supposedly they were unhappy with the quality of the recording studio and abandoned the effort, subsequently mocking the studio as the "Chateau d'Isaster". (An 11-minute excerpt was released on the 1988 20 Years of Jethro Tull boxed set, and the complete "Chateau d'Isaster Tapes" were finally released on the 1993 compilation Nightcap, with overdubbed flute lines where the vocal parts were missing.) They returned to England and Anderson rewrote, quickly recorded, and released A Passion Play, another single-track concept album, with allegorical lyrics focusing on the afterlife. Just as "Thick as a Brick" had, A Passion Play contained instrumentation rather uncommon in rock music. The album also featured an interlude, "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles", which was co-written (along with Anderson and Evan) and narrated by bassist Hammond. A Passion Play sold well but received generally poor reviews, including a particularly damning review of its live performance by Chris Welch of Melody Maker.

Advertise 23rd October 1969 

Even as the band's popularity with critics began to wane around this time, their popularity with the public remained strong, as evidenced by high sales of their follow-up album, 1974's War Child. Originally intended to be a companion piece for a film, it reached number two on the U.S. Billboard charts and received some critical acclaim, and produced the radio mainstays "Bungle in the Jungle" and "Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of the New Day)". It also included a short acoustic song, "Only Solitaire", widely thought to be aimed at L.A. Times rock music critic Robert Hilburn, who wrote a harsh review of the Passion Play concerts at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. However, other War Child reviews insist the song came from the aborted 1973 "Chateau d'Isaster" recordings (thus pre-dating Hilburn's review), and is therefore aimed at music critics in general. The War Child tour also featured a female string quartet playing along with the group on the new material.

In 1975, the band released Minstrel in the Gallery, an album which resembled Aqualung 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 introspective, cynical, and sometimes bitter lyrics. Critics gave it mixed reviews, but the album came to be acknowledged as one of the band's best by longtime Jethro Tull fans,[citation needed] even as it generally fell under the radar to listeners familiar only with Aqualung. By this point Jethro Tull had been awarded six R.I.A.A. gold records for sales of Stand Up, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past, A Passion Play, Aqualung and Minstrel in the Gallery.

For the 1975 tour, David Palmer, who had long been the band's orchestra arranger, officially joined the band on keyboards and synthesisers. After the tour, bassist Hammond quit the band to pursue painting. John Glascock, who earlier was playing with flamenco-rock band Carmen, a support band on the previous Jethro Tull tour, became the band's new bassist. 1976's Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! was another concept album, this time about the life of an ageing rocker (which Anderson insisted was not autobiographical). Anderson, stung by critical reviews (particularly of A Passion Play), responded on Too Old... with more sharply-barbed lyrics. [Wikipedia + AMG]

01. "A New Day Yesterday" – 4:10
02. "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square" – 2:12
03. "Bourée" (J. S. Bach arr. Jethro Tull) – 3:46
04. "Back to the Family" – 3:48
05. "Look into the Sun" – 4:20
06. "Nothing Is Easy" – 4:25
07. "Fat Man" – 2:52
08.  "We Used to Know" – 3:59
09.  "Reasons for Waiting" – 4:05
10. "For a Thousand Mothers" – 4:13

Bonus Tracks:
11. "Living In The Past" – 3:23
12. "Driving Song" – 2:44
13. "Sweet Dream" – 4:05
14. "17" – 3:07

Extra Bonus: Live in Stockholm 1969 (FM Broadcast) (@320)
01. "My Sunday Feeling" - 05:47
02. "Martin's Tune" - 10:45
03. "To Be Sad Is A Mad Way To Be" - 04:48
04. "Back To The Family" - 04:09
05. "Dharma For One" - 9:08
06. "Nothing Is Easy" - 14:20
07. "A Song For Jeffrey" - 03:32

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France Single 1969

Not to be missed: Jethro Tull - Live in Stockholm 1969 (FM Broadcast) (Bootleg)

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Bitrate: 320
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Jethro Tull was a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock; folk melodies; blues licks; surreal, impossibly dense lyrics; and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn't dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. At the same time, critics rarely took them seriously, and they were off the cutting edge of popular music since the end of the 1970s. But no record store in the country would want to be without multiple copies of each of their most popular albums (Benefit, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past), or their various best-of compilations, and few would knowingly ignore their newest releases. Of their contemporaries, only Yes could claim a similar degree of success, and Yes endured several major shifts in sound and membership in reaching the 1990s, while Tull remained remarkably stable over the same period. As co-founded and led by wildman-flautist-guitarist-singer-songwriter Ian Anderson, the group carved a place all its own in popular music.

Tull had its roots in the British blues boom of the late '60s. Anderson (b. Aug. 10, 1947, Edinburgh, Scotland) had moved to Blackpool when he was 12. His first band was called the Blades, named after James Bond's club, with Michael Stephens on guitar, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (b. July 30, 1946) on bass and John Evans (b. Mar. 28, 1948) on drums, playing a mix of jazzy blues and soulful dance music on the northern club circuit. In 1965, they changed their name to the John Evan Band (Evan having dropped the "s" in his name at Hammond's suggestion) and later the John Evan Smash. By the end of 1967, Glenn Cornick (b. Apr. 24, 1947, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England) had replaced Hammond-Hammond on bass. The group moved to Luton in order to be closer to London, the center of the British blues boom, and the band began to fall apart, when Anderson and Cornick met guitarist/singer Mick Abrahams (b. Apr. 7, 1943, Luton, Bedfordshire, England) and drummer Clive Bunker (b. Dec. 12, 1946), who had previously played together in the Toggery Five and were now members of a local blues band called McGregor's Engine.

In December of 1967, the four of them agreed to form a new group. They began playing two shows a week, trying out different names, including Navy Blue and Bag of Blues. One of the names that they used, Jethro Tull, borrowed from an 18th-century farmer/inventor, proved popular and memorable, and it stuck. In January of 1968, they cut a rather derivative pop-folk single called "Sunshine Day," released by MGM Records (under the misprinted name Jethro Toe) the following month. The single went nowhere, but the group managed to land a residency at the Marquee Club in London, where they became very popular.

Early on, they had to face a problem of image and configuration, however. In the late spring of 1968, managers Terry Ellis and Chris Wright (who later founded Chrysalis Records) first broached the idea that Anderson give up playing the flute, and to allow Mick Abrahams to take center stage. At the time, a lot of blues enthusiasts didn't accept wind instruments at all, especially the flute, as seminal to the sound they were looking for, and as a group struggling for success and recognition, Jethro Tull was just a little too strange in that regard. Abrahams was a hardcore blues enthusiast who idolized British blues godfather Alexis Korner, and he was pushing for a more traditional band configuration, which would've put him and his guitar out front. As it turned out, they were both right. Abrahams' blues sensibilities were impeccable, but the audience for British blues by itself couldn't elevate Jethro Tull any higher than being a top club act. Anderson's antics on-stage, jumping around in a ragged overcoat and standing on one leg while playing the flute, and his use of folk sources as well as blues and jazz, gave the band the potential to grab a bigger audience and some much-needed press attention.

They opened for Pink Floyd on June 29, 1968, at the first free rock festival in London's Hyde Park, and in August they were the hit of the Sunbury Jazz & Blues Festival in Sunbury-on-Thames. By the end of the summer, they had a recording contract with Island Records. The resulting album, This Was, was issued in November. By this time, Anderson was the dominant member of the group on-stage, and at the end of the month Abrahams exited the band. The group went through two hastily recruited and rejected replacements, future Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi (who was in Tull for a week, just long enough to show up in their appearance on the Rolling Stones' Rock 'N Roll Circus extravaganza), and Davy O'List, the former guitarist with the Nice. Finally, Martin Barre (b. Nov. 17, 1946), a former architecture student, was the choice for a permanent replacement.

It wasn't until April of 1969 that This Was got a U.S. release. Ironically, the first small wave of American Jethro Tull fans were admiring a group whose sound had already changed radically; in May of 1969, Barre's first recording with the group, "Living in the Past," reached the British number three spot and the group made its debut on Top of the Pops performing the song. The group played a number of festivals that summer, including the Newport Jazz Festival. Their next album, Stand Up, with all of its material (except "Bouree," which was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach) written by Ian Anderson, reached the number one spot in England the next month. Stand Up also contained the first orchestrated track by Tull, "Reasons for Waiting," which featured strings arranged by David Palmer, a Royal Academy of Music graduate and theatrical conductor who had arranged horns on one track from This Was. Palmer would play an increasingly large role in subsequent albums, and finally join the group officially in 1977. 

Meanwhile, "Sweet Dream," issued in November, rose to number seven in England, and was the group's first release on Wright and Ellis' newly formed Chrysalis label. Their next single, "The Witch's Promise," got to number four in England in January of 1970. The group's next album, Benefit, marked their last look back at the blues, and also the presence of Anderson's longtime friend and former bandmate John Evan — who had long since given up the drums in favor of keyboards — on piano and organ. Benefit reached the number three spot in England, but, much more important, it ascended to number 11 in America, and its songs, including "Teacher" and "Sossity, You're A Woman," formed a key part of Tull's stage repertory. In early July of 1970, the group shared a bill with Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Johnny Winter at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, GA, before 200,000 people. 

By the following December, after another U.S. tour, Cornick had decided to leave the group, and was replaced on bass by Anderson's childhood friend Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond. Early the following year, they began working on what would prove to be, for many fans, the group's magnum opus, Aqualung. Anderson's writing had been moving in a more serious direction since the group's second album, but it was with Aqualung that he found the lyrical voice he'd been seeking. Suddenly, he was singing about the relationship between man and God, and the manner in which — in his view — organized religion separated them. The blues influences were muted almost to non-existence, but the hard rock passages were searing and the folk influences provided a refreshing contrast. That the album was a unified whole impressed the more serious critics, while the kids were content to play air guitar to Martin Barre's high-speed breaks. And everybody, college prog rock mavens and high-school time-servers alike, seemed to identify with the theme of alienation that lay behind the music. 

01. My Sunday Feeling
02. Martin's Tune
03. To Be Sad Is A Mad Way To Be
04. Back To The Family
05. Dharma For One
06. Nothing Is Easy
07. A Song For Jeffrey

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