The album Ian Anderson called a musical step forward: “Landmark”
Flutes will never, ever be cool. When not even ‘Stairway to Heaven’ can make an instrument cool in the world of hard rock, you know they’re shit out of luck. ‘Gallows Pole’ and ‘The Battle of Evermore’ made mandolins work in that strange, patchouli-scented bridge between folk and hard rock, but the moment someone brings out a flute, you’re just a LARP-er who’s gone too far. Fortunately for the rock band most associated with the instrument of choice for Ron Burgundy, Jethro Tull made their resolute, unchanging uncoolness part of their appeal. Because there’s power in that, right?
The vast, vast majority of people in this world are absolutely not cool and trying very hard to be. It takes legitimate guts to be as honest with the world as Ian Anderson was and say: “I think that what blues rock is missing is a large helping of traditional English folk and my newfound appreciation for the flute.” Especially because Anderson was in the process of starting his whole music career from scratch. He only picked up the flute because he’d been disheartened by discovering Eric Clapton from his initial calling, the guitar.
His brush with “God” showed him just how far away he was from the level he’d need to be to make a name for himself the traditional way. However, he then did what few aspiring musicians did when they threw in the towel on their guitar hero dreams and decided to do something entirely new and incredibly out there. He began taking to the stage with his band of old school friends Mick Abrahams, Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker with his newly acquired flute, and learned to play the instrument by jamming with them live on stage, accenting their typical blues-rock with his flute flourishes.
This was exactly the kind of novelty that got you noticed back in the day, especially with his habit of playing the flute standing on one leg. The cult following they secured got them a record deal, and their first album This Was came out in October 1968 to a decent reception. However, there was a problem. All the flute nonsense was grating on Abrahams, and the band suddenly found themselves down a lead guitarist. After auditioning the likes of Mick Taylor and Tony Iommi, Anderson settled on a man who would become his lieutenant for the next 44 years.
Martin Barre was a fan of the band and, unlike Abrahams, was far more interested in pushing the boundaries of blues rock than just replicating what had come before. The effect this had on the band was instantaneous and can be seen in the first album they released with Barre, 1969’s Stand Up. The Tull we know today came together with that record, and to this very day, Anderson considers it the moment he knew that his band were destined for great things.
In an interview with Classic Rock Revisited conducted in 2018, Anderson had this to say of the album “In 1969, when that was released, it was an album of much more original music. It was a step forward musically for me and a big step forward for Martin and for the other two guys who hadn’t really encountered that kind of music before as musicians and performers…so that’s a landmark album.”
A lesson that all of us can take forward I think. Cool comes and goes but if you can be lame in just the right way, it might just make you a rock star!
