Last updated July 15th, 1999
Blues were my favorite colour,
til I looked around and found another song
that I felt like singing.
Trying so hard to reach you;
playing what must be played, what must be sung,
and it's what I'm singing.
-- Jethro Tull, Play in Time
The first album released by Jethro Tull, This Was was recorded over a relatively
short, two-month period in the summer of 1968 and was released in the fall of that year.
The title of the album was highly appropriate, as not long after the release of This
Was, Tull became a somewhat different band. As the band's first album, This
Was should have had more of an influence and impact than it does on the music that
later became the Jethro Tull sound, but it doesn't for two very simple reasons. First,
Jethro Tull emerged from the British blues boom that brought to the forefront such terrific
bands as Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Ten
Years After, and others, so it should be no surprise that their first album was very much
a blues album, and the jazz influences are clearly present. When it comes right down to
it, the music on This Was is very simple (compared to later albums) since it
sticks very close to the basic concepts that make jazz and the blues what they are. The
music found on this album is very much reminiscent of the kinds of stuff that could be found
on hundreds of blues and R&B albums of the late sixties. Secondly, this is the only
Tull album that does not feature the searing guitars of Martin Barre, since that job was in
the capable hands of Mick Abrahams at this time. "Serenade to a Cuckoo," a piece written
by jazz legend Roland Kirk, and "Cat's Squirrel," a traditional piece that was re-worked by
Mick Abrahams, show Abrahams abilities on the guitar to good advantage, but are also
a good example of what the sound of Jethro Tull was prior to their breaking out as a
musical act.
The music of This Was is very amateurish in some respects; while the CD recording
of the album is much sharper and clearer than the vinyl, I'm still fond of the old black plastic
version of the album as well (and I still keep that version of the album in my collection for
some obscure reason called "sentimentality"). That said, the music on This Was
is a rather interesting mix that sees some of the raw musical inspiration that will become the
Jethro Tull sound we all have come to know and love mixed in with the blues that were the
mainstay of the band prior to this time. The Tull sound is there, but not quite what we have
come to know. The tracks on the album that give a true indication of what is to come with
the band are "Beggar's Farm" (the only track on the album written by Ian Anderson and Mick
Abrahams) and "A Song for Jeffrey" (which is about a friend of the band's, Jeffrey Hammond,
who would become a member of Jethro Tull in later years). Mick Abrahams left Jethro
Tull shortly after this album came out, due to artistic differences with Ian Anderson, and
went on to form the blues-inspired Blodwyn Pig. At that point, the music of the band came
into Anderson's hands, but This Was is an album that highlights the potential of
Jethro Tull to exceed the limitations of the blues, yet is one that shows the origins of the band
better than any later album has. The liner notes on This Was says it all: "This is
how we were playing then - but things change. Don't they." Ian Anderson couldn't have been
more right in that regard.
Many fans of Jethro Tull argue that Stand Up, is, to all intents and purposes, the
first real Jethro Tull album. I don't particularly agree with this, primarily because the sound
that we associate with Tull is first evident on tracks like "Beggar's Farm" and "A Song for
Jeffrey" off This Was. Be that as it may, however, Stand Up is the album
with which Ian Anderson firmly took the helm, and on which Martin Barre joined the band
officially, becoming an eminently suitable replacement for Mick Abrahams. What makes
Stand Up so unique in some ways is that while Ian Anderson is firmly in control
of the band, the distinctive "Tull sound" that we have grown to love is here as well, even if
it is in its infancy, and thus the fans contention that this is the first "true" Tull album.
This album is very special in a couple of other respects as well. First of all, the band's use
of unconvential instruments such as the balalaika, mandolin, hammond organ, strings and
(of course) Ian Anderson's characteristic flute playing is a first on this album. Secondly,
the sequence of songs on the album - a rock song alternates with an acoustic piece of
music - is one of the strengths of this work. The lyrics of the music on this album are nothing
special, much as the lyrics on This Was were pretty ordinary considering what
we've come to expect from Ian Anderson in later works. (And let's face it, the brilliant
Aqualung was to be the standard for
Tullian lyrics, after all, although Thick
As A Brick ranks up there as well.) When all that is said and done, however,
there's a lot to like on this album.
While the band has made the move away from the blues with this record, there is still an
element of the blues that comes through, with such pieces as "A New Day Yesterday,"
"Nothing is Easy," and "Back to the Family" to name but three. However, other influences
are here as well, with a pseudo-Arabic feel to "Fat Man" and some searing guitar work by
Martin Barre on "We Used to Know." The best piece of music on this album is "Reasons
for Waiting," which is my favourite track on the album, and shows the writing of Ian
Anderson making leaps and strides in the right directions for the band. Stand Up
is a musical journey that is, for the most part, transitional, and shows the changes the band
is undergoing. While some of the music is very ordinary, there are flashes of the brilliance
for which Tull will be known in the future.
Benefit was the third album released by Tull, and it is a very good album, yet it
tends to be one that is overlooked largely because it is sandwiched between the
wonderfully different Stand Up and the quintessential Aqualung. From a musical point of view,
Benefit is much more sophisticated than Stand Up, and moves the music
of Tull clearly away from the blues. John Evan joins the band on piano and organ, and this
helps to flesh out Ian Anderson's complex musical ideas. Evans would become an integral
part of Jethro Tull later on, but his piano work on this album gives the music a somewhat
different sound than what we were accustomed to on the first couple of albums.
The music on the Benefit album is a blend of many different themes, and it is
important to note that this album's lyrics and music were written during the tour the band
undertook in 1969. The lyrics on this album are much more poetic than on the two previous
releases, full of imagery. This is emphasised on such songs as "Sossity; You're A Woman,"
"For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me," and "To Cry You A Song." In many ways, the album
seems almost introspective, and deals with many of the personal issues that Ian Anderson
and the band had ongoing at the time. One thing to note is that the US and UK versions
of the album were somewhat different. The U.S. version of the album includes "Teacher,"
which was released only as a single in Britain. The British version includes the cut "Alive
And Well And Living In," a tune that the U.S. audience can hear on the Living In The Past release. Suffice
it to say that when it comes right down to it, Benefit is an album that is musically
superior to its predecessor, Stand Up, but that tends to get lost between the two
albums that were made around it. The real strength of the Benefit album is that it
demonstrates some of the lyrical abilities that Ian Anderson was to show off over the course
of the next few album releases.
Continue on to A Tull For the Seventies.
The Emporium | Jethro Tull
Page | Tull Album Reviews | Page
Top
This page first went on-line July 3rd, 1998