Stumbled upon this video last night while surfing Youtube, and I really liked it. So I thought, why not share it? (In fact, maybe I can make this a regular feature on this blog. "Sharing Music I Like", or something like that.)
Jethro Tull is one of those bands that I've always been meaning to get into, but never did. I had a couple friends in college who were really into them, and I was always intrigued by what I heard on the classic rock radio stations. But I never went any deeper than their radio hits.
Notes:
* Jethro Tull is the kind of music which, by all rights, should only appeal to us geeks. It's medieval fantasy stories combined with mystical sounding flute solos. And yet, fascinating to think, this stuff was legitimately big back on the mainstream charts back in its day. ("The Witches Promise" was number 4 on the UK charts, according to Wikipedia).
* In my mind, I've always associated Jethro Tull with the prog-rock era of the mid-70s. I didn't realize they were already on the charts in 1969 and 1970.
* The studio version of the song is on Youtube HERE, and sounds a little bit clearer. But it's fun to see the energy behind Ian Anderson's live performance in the above clip. I'm not quite sure what's going on with his weird facial expressions. Either he's deliberately mugging it up for the camera, or these are the contortions he needs to make in order to overcome his nerves force all the notes out. I like to imagine it's the latter. He looks like he's really giving it his all to force the song out. And then the way he throws his whole body into the song about 2:22 is really fun.
One of my favouritest buddies from childhood to today is a YOOJ fan of these guys. And I just don't get what's stopping me from joining his (and your) ranks. As a kid the whole drama and energy should have hit the sweet-spot for me. And they pretty much embodied what I thought hippies were all about -- which ought to be another recommendation, since becoming a hippie was what I aspired to up until about 14 or so. But somehow JT's stuff swung wide -- and still does. There was a moment in the late-80s when they toned down the flute-whiffling and slid sideways into some unusual guitar rhythms that sounded like a cross between Robert Fripp and Mark Knopfler -- THAT I enjoyed listening to. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteBlack Sabbath, OTOH, was more in my wheelhouse. I only discovered recently that JT briefly stole Sab guitarist Tony Iommi to play with them, in '68, when JT was enormous and the Sabs were a sloppy blues band. He played with JT for a month or so, when they took part in the Rolling Stones' RnR Circus. Then he left and called up his mates again. Everyone seemed to understand that his leaving JT was a Big Deal, and they pulled up their socks and got serious about rehearsals, etc, taking their act to the next level. England must've been an explosively verdant environment for young musicians back then.
I never actually got huge into Jethro Tull in my youth, although I certainly liked them well enough. I would always turn the volume up whenever one of their songs came on the classic rock radio stations. But for some reason I never went beyond their radio hits. I never bought any of their albums.
ReplyDelete...the past 5 days, however, I've fallen into a bit of a Youtube Jethro Tull rabbit hole. One video has lead to another, and I've found that the more I listen to them, the more I dig them. I don't know why I never bothered to listen to their full albums 20 years ago, but better late than never I guess.
You're not a huge fan, huh? I guess it's hard to account for musical taste. I couldn't logically explain why I like the music anymore than you can explain why you don't like it.
But for whatever reason, it resonates with me. I really like the flute. It seems to add a bit of old school mystical air to their music.
I just looked up Tony Lommi just now. (I had no idea about that little chapter, by the way, so thanks for the tip). Interesting quote from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Iommi#Earth_and_Jethro_Tull
I learned quite a lot from him, I must say. I learned that you have got to work at it. You have to rehearse. When I came back and I got the band (Earth) back together, I made sure that everybody was up early in the morning and rehearsing. I used to go and pick them up. I was the only one at the time that could drive. I used to have to drive the bloody van and get them up at quarter to nine every morning; which was, believe me, early for us then. I said to them, "This is how we have got to do it because this is how Jethro Tull did it." They had a schedule and they knew that they were going to work from this time till that time. I tried that with our band and we got into doing it. It worked. Instead of just strolling in at any hour, it made it more like we were saying, "Let’s do it!"