Last updated October 2nd, 1999
"You have an angel on your shoulder but you wear the old god's horns.
And you dance around the maypole while the vicar makes a toast
to the pagan celebration, and extends an invitation to us all
so he can save us when we fall."
-- Jethro Tull, Left Right
The second present to the fans made by Chrysalis to celebrate Tull's 25th anniversary
was the two-CD set, The Best of Jethro Tull - The Anniversary Collection,
which featured some thirty-six tracks of the work of Jethro Tull culled from various
periods of the band. What makes this pair of CDs so interesting in some ways is the
fact that each and every Jethro Tull album is represented in this collection, from
This Was through Catfish Rising, and there are
a few pieces here that are terrific to see. Naturally, there are those who will disagree
with what makes "the Best of Tull" of course, but that is par for the course.
From my own point of view, the collection is a very good retrospective of the first 25
years of Jethro Tull. As mentioned above, every album is represented on the collection,
but I can't help but feel that some of the better songs were ignored in favour of others.
I'm fond of tracks such as "Beggar's Farm" (from the This Was album), but can't help but feel
that a different track, such as "Dharma for One" or "Breaking Me Up," might have been
more appropriate of the feel of that album. And I would certainly not have used "Kissing
Willie" (from the Rock Island
album here, since "Ears of Tin" or the title track from that album would have been more
appropriate and representative, whereas "Kissing Willie" received a tremendous
amount of airplay and has been overplayed. There are other individual choices I might
have made from other Tull albums in the same, subjective way, but perhaps that is the
real fun (and the strength) of this double CD - the fact of the matter is that Jethro Tull *has
so much music* to its credit must have made it difficult to choose which tracks to include
and not include. When it comes right down to it, this set is very nice and highly
representative of the best music that Jethro Tull has created over the past twenty-five (25!)
years, and is a great summary of the band's work and an excellent introduction to Tull for
those new to the band and who might not have wanted to pay a large sum of money for the
25th Anniversary Boxed Set.
That said, it's not an album that the Tull afficionado really needs, since he's got the other
stuff from this double-CD set on all the other Tull records and CDs.
The third gift that Tull fans got in 1993 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band's
music was another 2-CD set, this time called Nightcap. While the fans had
been promised something else, a four-CD set including three live set CDs and one
unreleased studio tracks CD, the Nightcap double CD proved to be quality,
rather than quantity. The first CD, "My Round," caused the biggest stir among the fans
for it contained much of the lost material from the infamous Chateau D'Herouville
(nicknamed "Chateau D'Isaster") sessions that Ian Anderson had previous thought
lost and gone. The second CD contained a vast number of unreleased tracks from
1974 through 1988, plus the Rock Island
and Catfish Rising session
tracks that had been released on the Living in the Past singles earlier in the
year. When all was said and done, this album was an absolute gem and well worth
the somewhat lackadaisacal other Tull products that Chrysalis had released on CD
for the anniversary. The two separate "Rounds" of this CD set are covered below.
My Round - The Chateau D'Isaster Tapes
When all is said and done, the first CD on the Nightcap double-CD set, My
Round - The Chateau D'Isaster Tapes, is the true gem in this set. Ian Anderson
had released three of the tracks from the infamous Chateau D'Herouville tapes
on the 20 Years of Jethro
Tull CD set, but he had thought that the remainder of the material from these
sessions was lost and gone, other than the material that existed in the form of the
present-day versions of A Passion
Play and WarChild.
Discovering that material, Ian Anderson realised that with the passage of time it
wasn't as bad as he had thought, and decided to release it on the Nightcap
CD as a treat for the fans. The material was pretty intact but some of it was still
unfinished and Ian Anderson added the flute recordings that were missing on some
of the tracks; hence the flute recordings sound somewhat current on parts of this.
The blueprint is here for A Passion
Play, and there is a good deal of additional music that has never been heard
before. The animal themes of the original material is still there and represented
quite nicely on the tracks found here, but the only real flaw with this material is
that many of the vocals were not recorded on the original material, and Ian Anderson
wisely chose not to add the vocals to them while "fixing them up" a bit. One actually
gets a much better feel from this CD of missing material as to what the album that
became A Passion Play
would have sounded like, but it would have been nice to see where "Skating Away
on the Thin Ice of the New Day" would have fit into the mix. To my fannish ear,
My Round is a brilliant set of music from a period when Tull was at the peak of their
game, both in the studio and in concert, and stands as a testament to the quality
music and lyrics they were making even on their "off days." Chateau D'Isaster
wasn't all that bad, at least to me.
Your Round - Unreleased & Rare Tracks
The second CD in the Nightcap set is the Your Round - Unreleased &
Rare Tracks. This CD contains previously unreleased studio tracks from 1974 to 1988,
including material from the Rock Island
and Catfish Rising sessions.
This CD was Ian Anderson's gift to the Tull fans who had stuck with the band, and it was
a terrific gift. In some ways, this CD contains some of Ian Anderson's finest songs,
and serves as a true showcase of his versatility and craftsmanship in his music. The
truly wonderful pieces on this CD include "Crew Nights," "A Small Cigar," and "Broadford
Bazaar," but there are some equally poignant pieces that deal wtih all manner of
subjects on the CD. "Silver River Turning" deals with pollution and "Man of Principle"
deals with matters of conviction and growing up the right way. Both "Paradise
Steakhouse" and "Piece of Cake" deal with amourous and sexual relationships, a
theme that Ian Anderson has explored before, and will explore again. "Commons
Brawl" deals with an incident in the English government that is nicely dealt with in the
song and "Lights Out" deals once more with scary things at night in bed. When all is
said and done, the Your Round CD is a terrific set of music, and one has to wonder
why most of the pieces on this one had not been released in the past. It is not as good
as the My Round CD, of course, but makes for a rather enjoyable two-CD set, and
completes the music found here nicely.
Final Thoughts
What makes this collection so unique in some ways, is that Ian Anderson insisted
that the Nightcap CDs be released at a very cheap price, and that all the
royalties from this CD set were to go to charities. The charities included The
Animal Health Trust and Balnair House, the Home of Highland Music. In the
final analysis, Nightcap is a brilliant set of material, and is a fitting third
gift to the fans for the anniversary of 25 years of Jethro Tull music. It is certainly
a CD set that should be part of every Tull fan's collection of works.
Go to the Ian Anderson Solo Albums
page for the Divinities: Twelve Dances With God review.
As the 1990s reached the half-way mark, Jethro Tull finally produced another album,
this time called Roots to Branches. In actual fact, this album had been
recorded before the Divinities tour, and David Pegg was splitting his time
too fine between Jethro Tull and Fairport Convention; as a result, Dave Pegg only
played on three of the tracks on the Roots to Branches album, while
American session player Steve Bailey played on the rest of the album. This came
as something of a shock to Tull fans, since they took to heart the foursome of
Anderson, Barre, Perry and Pegg as the core of Jethro Tull, but when all is said
and done the decision was made - and Dave Pegg left the band. Regardless of this,
Roots to Branches was a brilliant return on the part of the band. While not
as commercial as some of Tull's previous work, the album was an inspired set of
sessions that proved once more that Ian Anderson had not lost the creative edge
of the music. Andrew Giddings's impact on the keyboards was very much a
presence on this album, but the songs have that hint of the old Tull's greatness,
with new twists, turns, and branching out.
The Middle Eastern influences can be found to be very strong on Roots to
Branches, yet it retains some of the old flavoured folk music and still has that
rock 'n roll sound that Tull fans still love so much. There is also something of a
jazz feel to bits and piece of this Tull CD, something that hasn't been heard from
the band in some time. Once more, Ian Anderson's lyrics covered the full gamut.
"Valley" is a song about prejudice, inbreeding, and isolationism, while the beautiful,
but haunting "At Last, Forever" is about dying before one's significant other. My
favourite track on this album is "Beside Myself" which is a sad song that seems to
have many meanings; I leave you to draw your own conclusions about this one.
I'm also rather fond of "Another Harry's Bar," whose theme is universal these days.
When it comes right down to it, Roots to Branches is a highly innovative,
full of puzzles, album that has something for both the old and new Jethro Tull fan.
It's a record with a dizzying array of lyrical and musical genius and arrangements,
and should be an album that every Tull fan should hear at least once.
Jethro Tull did not record an album through 1997, and so EMI Records decided to
fill the gap with another "Best of" CD, this time called Through the Years.
The CD cover and insert is a bit brighter and more vibrant than the previous "Best of"
Tull collection single CDs, and the insert booklet has a bit of a retrospective on Tull
written by Casserine Toussaint. The album is an interesting mix of Tull's sound that
was priced at a level designed to attract the new fan to Jethro Tull, and it succeeded
to a mixed degree, in my opinion. Through the Years features some of Tull's
early and more contemporary sounds, ranging from This Was ("Dharma for One") and Stand Up ("We Used to Know") through
the contemporary Roots to Branches with stops along the way for music from
various other albums. The CD contains live versions of "Living in the Past" (from the
album of the same name)
and "Locomotive Breath" (from Aqualung),
but also has some interesting tracks such as Aqualung's "Wind Up," The Broadsword and the Beast's
"Beastie" and Too
Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die's "Quizz Kid." Not your typical Tull
offerings, but special enough to perhaps convince older Tull fans to pick up the CD as
well. And make no mistake, it's a worthy addition to any Tull fan's collection in some
respects. And a definite necessity for the newcomer to Tull.
It was four years from the time of Roots to Branches that Jethro Tull finally
released a new album, j-tull Dot Com, and fans were very happy to see this
album in the fall of 1999. The title of the album was derived from the band's website
URL, and it was fitting in many respects. The internet has become very popular over
the last decade or so, and Tull has realised the importance of the web - they are making
a serious attempt to keep the fans informed about the goings on in the world of Jethro
Tull (from tours down to the creative process of songwriting and recording), and the
website is mastered and maintained by Andy Giddings, making it a true Tull venture.
Oddly enough, j-tull Dot Com was recorded after Ian Anderson's third solo
album, The Secret
Language of Birds, but was released first because the new record company,
Fuel 2000 Records in North America and Papillon Records in the UK and the rest of
the world, wanted to put out the new Tull album first, so as to spark interest in the
band again (after all, they'd been without a new album for four years!) before releasing
the Anderson solo. The plan worked marvelously. In many respects,
j-tull Dot Com is a compromising record when compared to the innovative,
yet somewhat awkward, Roots to Branches. The most controversial
element of the album, is of course, the artwork for the booklet (designed by Bog
Zarkowski once more) and the cover of the album - the painting by Ian Anderson
depicting the Egyptian god Chnum (Num, Chnumis, or Chnubis, which translates
roughly as "spirit" or "breath," and was later known as Amun, "the hidden one"). The
painting was based on a gargoyle-like sculpture by a friend of Ian Anderson's, and
depicts the blue-skinned Chnum with an overly large phallus. The North American
cover of the album was toned down and the phallus was removed, and so there are
at least two different covers for the album that I know of.
In some ways, j-tull Dot Com appears to be a return to the sound of the
seventies for Tull, with strong song lyrics and the raging guitars of Martin Barre, but
on closer listening, the album has a feel wherein the flute is more of a supporting
instrument this time out, rather than being focused upon. The ethnic influences are
still very much present on this album, although the non-Western atmosphere that is
heard on the tracks is as much due to the unusual instruments used on the album as
to the ethnic influences themselves. Musically the album is superb; lyrically, the
album is brilliant. Ian Anderson's songwriting is as good now, if not better, than it
was in the Aqualung and
A Passion Play days,
and this album reflects that. "Spiral" and "Far Alaska" both deal with fantasy per
sé, the former dealing with awakening from dream and not quite being able
to tell reality from dream, while the latter is a realisation of the dream. "Hot Mango
Flush" and "Mango Surprise" are both centred around Ian Anderson's observations
of a Caribbean location, and are the two most controversial tracks on the record; one
either love them or hates them - there's no in-between on these. "Hunt by Numbers"
deals with cats, their impact on nature, and is based on Ian's love of cats that he
acquired through his wife, Shona. "Dot Com" (which is one of my favourite tracks
on the album, and has the lovely backing vocals of Najma Akhtar) was recorded
to reflect Ian's interest in the 'net, particularly in light of the Tull website's popularity.
My favourite track on the CD, "Wicked Windows" (which refers to a new pair of
glasses that Anderson had bought around that time), seems to owe have been
inspired by Charles Dickens' Scrooge. The heavy rock "El Niño" and "Black
Samba" are both good old-fashioned pieces that highlight Martin Barre's guitar
work, and these are countered by the lovely "Bends Like a Willow," the self-
effacing "The Dog-ear Years" and the romantic "A Gift of Roses."
j-tull Dot Com is an album that can't be called innovative in the true sense
of the term and as applied to Tull's earlier music, but it has a nicely balanced,
mature sound. It *is* a Jethro Tull album, and a fitting record to wrap up the 1990's
with, although many had wondered if and when this record would ever be recorded.
j-tull Dot Com was definitely worth the wait.
Proceed to Tull Into the Millennium.
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This page first went on-line January 12th, 1999