Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 173

Record label: Island (UK) Reprise (US)

Produced: Terry Ellis and Ian Anderson

Recorded: Morgan Studio, London; April 1969

Released: August 1, 1969

Chart peaks: 1 (UK) 20 (US)

Personnel: Ian Anderson (v, g, flute, k, mandolin, balalaika, hm); Martin Barre (g, flute); Glen Cornick (b); Clive Bunker (d, pc); Andy Johns (e)

Track listing: A New Day Yesterday; Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square; Bouree; Back To The Family; Look Into The Sun; Nothing Is Easy; Fat Man; We Used To Know; Reasons For Waiting; For A Thousand Mothers

Running time: 38.18

Current CD: Chrysalis 5354582 adds: Living In The Past; Driving Song; Sweet Dream; 17

Further listening: Aqualung (1971); LP/singles compilation, Living In The Past (1972)

Further reading: Flying Colours: The Jethro Tull Reference Manual (Greg Russo, 2000); www.jethrotull.com

Download: iTunes; HMV Digital

There was a time when Jethro Tull were kings of the British rock underground. Hard to imagine, perhaps, given the perception of many that they’re purveyors of music-hall buffoonery in monstrously unfashionable clothing, but they came second only to The Beatles in the Melody Maker poll of 1969, streets ahead of more conventionally swaggering rock behemoths like Led Zeppelin or The Who. Having worked their way up by constant gigging and a reputation founded largely on Ian Anderson’s uniquely charismatic and eccentric stage persona (shabby raincoat, hair, flute, standing on one leg), Tull would enjoy a good two or three years as rock aristocracy before slipping gently down to a more sustainable level. As Anderson was quick to realise, being ‘top of the second division’ has its advantages, not least in longevity. Thirty years later the Tull brand would still be shifting a dependable half-million worldwide units per annum.

Though America would always prefer Aqualung (1971) and Thick As A Brick (1972), for the Brits the flute-dominated Stand Up is the fondest memory – a triumph of youthful imagination, drive, wit and naïveté with just a little dash of melancholy, where later there would be cleverness, cod-pieces and concepts.

‘When we did Stand Up,’ Anderson recently recalled, ‘I thought, Hey, we’re on our second album – there could be a third! That’s about as far as I saw it going. I can remember writing the material for it and really struggling for ideas. If you get one, firstly it’s a relief and secondly, if it’s a good one then you’re jumping up and down. That excitement was there then and it’s still there now. Mind you, it would be difficult for me to write Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square now. It would seem a bit silly.’

As on Tull’s debut, the influences were ‘black American blues, which it all started with when I was 16 years old and, from growing up in Scotland, Scottish folk music, as well as the English folk heritage which I started getting aware of later. I don’t think you could call it folk rock, although it’s one of the many terms that have been applied to it. I can only say we’re sort of a rock band, but with a lot of different influences.’