IN FOR THE LONG TULL
50 years on, theatrical frontman Ian Anderson still drawing big crowds
There is a buzz about the current tour by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.
It’s the kind of buzz one would expect for an act that burst onto the scene 18 months ago, with the average high school kid counting spare change to ensure the amount in hand also covers taxes and handling fees. You know the drill: the sort of thing the average fan has been looking forward to since the last band, last concert, last album, last video, last buzz, in a world where a song released at 12:02 p.m. will already be a hit online by 12:05.
But Jethro Tull is no new act promoting a debut album. It’s a band whose history has stretched well beyond 18 months, or even 18 years.
Tull turned 50 last winter, and the legendary British group still commands enough interest for Anderson to sell out stadiums.
When the theatrical frontman and company perform, the crowd will watch a man who still appears to wear tights but lost his signature codpiece a few decades ago. Fans still pay hard-earned dollars to see a band that used to bounce across the stage and play as if their fingers would bleed, whose leader was likened to the mad-dog portrayal of Fagin in the Oliver! movie musical.
I know the kind of effect Jethro Tull’s music can have on listeners: It grabbed my attention 48 years ago, and the band’s albums are rarely more than a foot away from my CD player.
My fascination with Tull led to acquaintanceships with Anderson and other members of the band.
In 1978, when I was running the radio station at Concordia’s Hall Building in Montreal, I made my way backstage after a concert at the Forum, slipping past security to hopefully meet and strike up a connection with the outwardly hippie-esque singer, in order to tap into some understanding of why there was such a love of Tull’s music.
Their manager at the time set up an interview the following day, and for the next 40 years as a freelance writer I have met with Anderson to discuss the band’s latest albums, his newest side projects and why an expected five-year career had stretched across decades. After a string of interviews, Anderson agreed to my penning a biography of the band, A Passion Play: The Story of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, which was published in 2013.
Anderson is Tull’s only remaining original member. (Tellingly, the 50th anniversary tour is credited as Ian Anderson Presents Jethro Tull.) Surviving members of that first lineup are in their 70s, and many alumni no longer even play music. Former bassist Jeffrey Hammond, who landed in the band in the early ’70s, left to pursue painting in 1975 after Tull’s best albums had been spun out in a line from Aqualung to Minstrel in the Gallery.
“After we finished that particular tour (for Minstrel), Jeffrey took his stage clothes,” Anderson explained by phone, “and took them out back of the theatre and burned them ceremoniously, and never played in Jethro Tull again. He has been painting for the past 40 years, never being even slightly interested in rejoining the band for a moment — although he does introduce one of his favourite songs on a rear projection during the show, to announce, without any surprise, our first single: A Song for Jeffrey.
“The same goes for our original keyboard player, John Evan, who is actually living in Australia today and sings with a Welsh choir.
“There have been over 30 band members in Jethro Tull since we began in 1968. The idea of any kind of reunion with that many musicians is daunting.”
Although Anderson is the only remaining original member from 1968, guitarist Martin Barre — first heard on Tull’s second album, 1969’s Stand Up — worked side by side with him for most of the band’s 50 years, and was almost as integral to the sound as Anderson’s voice and flute.
Tull’s reputation is tied to its work in the ’70s, and a time when complex progressive rock pieces ran far beyond the standard hit song length of three minutes. On albums such as Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, a single song covered both sides of the record, and some radio stations would actually play the full 45-minute song.
Now that Anderson is celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary, there is speculation that he may retire from the game — but apparently the dates for the next tour are already being booked.