“Toot the flute”: the album that made Ian Anderson give up on his dreams of being a guitar-god
What do you look for in music? If the answer is consistency, then Jethro Tull isn’t the band for you. While they are dubbed unfairly by many as the rock band with the flute player, Jethro Tull actually represents one of the most versatile bands on the planet. Flicking through their discography is like filing through an unorganised record shop, as there isn’t a genre under the sun that the band haven’t dabbled in.
Of course, while we can sit here and praise their musical innovation (which we will), we should also address the glaring fact that there is a flute player in the band who is responsible for a vast range of their ideas. Ian Anderson is more than just someone who picks his way through a piccolo; he is an exciting musical mind who has helped Jethro Tull ascend to become the band that people know and love today.
He wasn’t always destined to be a flute player, but there is some music that he credits with helping him decide to go down this unconventional route in rock. When Anderson did an interview and gave his top ten albums of all time, it appears that there are two which pushed him towards the flute as opposed to the guitar, and the rationale seems to be that he didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of some of the excellent guitarists of the day.
The first was Jimi Hendrix. When discussing his album Are You Experienced? Anderson was quick to load praise onto Hendrix as being a complicated and talented artist. “A lesson in sadness and madness!” When discussing the album, he said, “Jimi was the wild Eric of his day, and we played alongside him on a few occasions until his tragic death following the Isle Of Wight Fest in 1970.”
The next album that clearly had a big impact on Anderson was one featuring Eric Clapton. The John Mayall record Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton was another record that showed Anderson the guitar talent of some other artists and encouraged him to try something different.
“This was the record which persuaded me to give up notions of guitar-playing excellence,” he admitted, “And toot the flute instead.”
While these artists were clearly big influences towards Anderson as an individual, there were others who helped Jethro Tull find their voice as a band. For instance, when the band toured with Led Zeppelin, they realised that you can be experimental and incorporate multiple genres into your sound while still being commercially successful. This set the stage for Jethro Tull, and they weren’t just a rock band with a flute player; they were a rock band that didn’t believe in any musical boundaries.
“I think what they showed to all their peer group as musicians was that there was, first of all, a very powerful and dramatic way to perform simple, direct rock music and also to introduce elements of more eclectic music,” Anderson concluded. “Because Zeppelin, near the beginning, there were a lot of elements of folk music, and Asian music, and African music that crept into their stuff.”
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