From a pebble thrown (Ian Anderson) (LP 881)

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson  TAAB 2: Whatever Happened To Gerald Bostock? (CD, Chrysalis/EMI,  2012) **

Genre: Progressive rock 

Places I remember: FOPP (Covent Garden)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: A Change Of Horses

Gear costume: Confessional

Active compensatory factors: I have written about this album before but it was years ago, before I started my album collection countdown (you can read my thoughts here).

Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson have become closely intertwined now - so much so that the two are pretty much inter-changeable and good musicians flesh out recent albums under either brand name, but I really miss the classic lineup with Jeffrey, Clive, John, Barriemore and Martin who made the first TAAB album. 

I particularly miss Martin Barre. His singular guitar sound is a shorthand for that classic seventies sound of Tull. There's quite a bit of electric guitar on TAAB 2 but it pales in comparison to the real deal.

Was he available for this album? Probably. I guess it's complicated - he toured with Anderson and a version of Jethro Tull the year before but he's not on this album or the 2017 anniversary Tull tour. A real pity and a lost opportunity as it would have given a further tangible link to the original album, aside from Ian Anderson obviously.

The concept behind this sequel is a series of what ifs. What if Gerald was a...? etc. Okay. I guess so. But, I can't help being a bit - mmmm, so what?

The music is polished and good and all, but it's not Jethro Tull is it and I realise that's really unfair, but he does open himself up to that criticism by linking this sequel back to one of my favourite albums of all time without any of the original blokes.

And there lies the rub. TAAB is a five star classic album. The sequel struggles to have any memorable tunes in comparison.

Where do they all belong? I have positioned this one with in the prog genre CD racks with Anderson's solo albums. Seems more appropriate. 

New blood, old veins (Ian Anderson) (LP 784)

Ian Anderson  Homo Erraticus (CD, Kscope, 2014) ***

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: Fopp (Covent Garden)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Turnpike Inn

Gear costume: Doggerland, Meliora Sequamur

Active compensatory factors: This maybe, possibly, could be, the third part of Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick (and Anderson's Thick As A Brick 2 from 2012), as the lyrics are again by the fictional Gerald Bostick.

It is a worthy third part (if that's the plan). Homo Erraticus is a progressive rock album which, according to Anderson, blends folk and medieval as well as heavy metal music styles. He does so with aplomb!

The music reminds me of classic flute/electric guitar style Jethro Tull.

The story line is something I've yet to get my head around (it's a conceit within a conceit), but I really like the way the album reveals more and more with each hearing. 

It is a rewarding experience. So, bravo Mr Tull.

Where do they all belong? As prog as prog gets in the 2010s.

Grace (Jethro Tull) (LP 293)

Jethro Tull Minstrel In The Gallery (CD - EMI, 1975/2002) ****

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: Charity shop in Caterham (I recently came across this for a quid and figured why not. It can join the vinyl and CD copies back home in NZ soon) 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Minstrel In The Gallery




Gear costume: Cold Wind To Valhalla, Baker Street Muse 

Active compensatory factors: This one gets lost when discussion turns to Tull's greatest moments; I think because it turned its back on the move away from Tull's new directions (as heard on the previous year's War Child) and returned to the early seventies format of long songs and prog leanings.

I love it more and more as time goes on. Martin Barre is a guitar hero of mine. He has very distinct tones and he's, thankfully, all over this album.

It also needs to be celebrated as the last album by the classic line up before Jeffrey departed.

Where do they all belong? A forgotten gem in the Tulliverse released after War Child and before Too Old To Rock'n'Roll: Too Young To Die!  

Alive and well and living in (LP 260)

Jethro Tull Benefit (Vinyl and CD - Chrysalis, 1970) ****

Genre: Progressive rock  

Places I remember: The vinyl came from the RCA record club in 1971. I loved the RCA record club. I'd pore over the booklet, read up in my music magazines and save hard. Then I'd wait for the magic parcel to arrive in the post. Heady days!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: With You There To Help Me




Gear costume: To Cry You A Song

Active compensatory factors: Benefit has grown on me over the years. In my early days it was over-shadowed by the greatness of Aqualung. But it's an album I keep coming back to more and more as the years drift by.

For me, it's the first Jethro Tull phase 2 album, thanks to the guitars of Anderson and the wonderful Martin Lancelot Barre. His distinctive lead guitar is all over this album and that's a very good thing from my pov.

The album easily drags me back to my bedroom at 18 Korma Avenue, Royal Oak, Auckland, NZ.

First track With You There To Help Me gets things off to a great start. I love its variety before it develops into a great flute/guitar duel before it's done and exits via some deserved applause.

Nothing To Say has plenty to say ('Every morning pressure forming all around my eyes. Ceilings crash, the walls collapse, broken by the lies') and includes a lovely guitar riff. The acoustic guitar bed and electric overlay is a winning formula throughout.

Third track, Alive and Well and Living In,  has a more laid back vocal but after Barre enters it lifts the track to another level. Then John Evan contributes some distinctive John Evan piano.

Son provides variety and contributes via a heavily treated Anderson vocal and some brutal guitar stabs. That continues with the first song on side two - Martin Barre's To Cry You A Song.

Inside is another varied track with a great shuffling beat and easy Anderson vocal.

Play In Time features backward/speed up freak out shenanigans and another great Barre riff.

Final track, Sossity, You're A Woman is a great hum along to finish us off.

Where do they all belong? As I say, the great JT phase two starts here with their third album.

My word's but a whisper (Jethro Tull)

Thick As A Brick 2 was a CD that I had to own but I was also nervous approaching it.

 

Like millions of others, I love Thick As A Brick - the 1972 album with the song split over two sides of vinyl. It is definitely the Tull album I play most often (Benefit and Aqualung come in second equal). I don't listen to it as a parody of a concept album, instead I always get lost in the word play and the wonderful music.

 

My worry with TAAB 2 was that it wouldn't live up to expectations, but Ian Anderson has successfully avoided that in cunning ways.

 

• He doesn't try to produce another long song to compete with the original.
• The sound he creates is identical to Jethro Tull of the early seventies, Aqualung and TAAB, era. It's so uncanny I had to read the liner notes to make sure Barriemore Barlow, Jeffery Hammond-Hammond and Martin Barre aren't on it. They are not.
• He starts and ends the album with a musical motif lifted from the original before soaring off in new directions, so there is a continuity of sorts between the two albums.
• The story of whatever happened to the central character of the original album allows enough scope for adventure and invention.

 

Quite Frankly I'm amazed. I read an article in Prog Magazine about it which was reassuring but I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it.

 

Ian Anderson in unlikely prog epic remake in 2012. Who would have thought it?