The guitarist Ian Anderson claims could have never played in Jethro Tull: “He wasn’t very comfortable”
Music evolves not just from people playing well, but also through expanding what it can be. When people don’t just play music within their genre but instead push themselves in a bid to create something that encroaches upon other styles, that’s when it breaks boundaries. The Beatles highlighted how impactful embracing different styles could be as they built a bridge between cultures, allowing Indian classical music to filter into what they were making.
“George Harrison, on his own, opened up India to England,” said Andy Partridge, guitarist from XTC, “The man brings back a sitar and flirts with sitar lessons and all of a sudden, India means things to people […] Single-handedly, George Harrison brought India to English consciousness. In a non-colonial and non-judgmental kind of way.”
Led Zeppelin managed to do something similar with their music, as a lot of their sound was influenced by African and Indian music. They used different rhythms and layered them over rock songs to create a chaotic hard rock sound that completely changed how people perceived the genre.
For instance, on the band’s 1973 album, Houses of the Holy, they recorded the track ‘Dancing Days’. The inspiration for the song was the result of a track that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant had heard while travelling through Bombay (present-day Mumbai). When they recorded the song, they loved the strange-sounding rhythm of it so much that they ran outside and started dancing to it.
Led Zeppelin’s ability to embrace different cultures and styles of music inspired Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull to a large extent. After touring with Led Zeppelin, Ian Anderson realised that mainstream audiences are willing to embrace music that wasn’t in line with the mainstream and slightly left field, and as a result, he became obsessed with making more experimental music.
“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,” admitted Anderson. “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.”
While Ian Anderson was excited about making more ambiguous music, some of his bandmates, who joined Jethro Tull intending to make rock music derived from the blues, weren’t exactly thrilled when the flute and harpsichord came out. Thus, it also led to one of the band’s original members calling it a day.
“So there were lofty moments right after Jethro Tull began. Those ambitions, unfortunately, couldn’t include Mick Abrahams because he didn’t really respond well to the music I was writing, which went too far away from his love of blues and R&B,” said Anderson. “He wasn’t very comfortable with the way the music was going. The last thing he played on was a song called ‘Love Story’, which is getting away from the blues. You know—mandolin, some odd chords that wouldn’t be natural chords for a guitar player to come up with. That was the way we were headed.”
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