What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?

Subject: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From:
Date: 25 Sep 00 - 11:11 PM

Hi!

Jethro Tull affected a lot of people. They still do. What do you think Ian Anderson's folk roots are? He does have some trad in his playing, and yet I am bemused by my bouquet of confusion as to what it is. Got any ideas?

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Rana
Date: 25 Sep 00 - 11:28 PM

I don't know what his "folk roots" are - all I remember is really liking his stuff from the 70s - Witches Promise, etc were and still are some of my favourite songs. I actually haven't heard too much after 1980 (shame on me I'm sure) but I noted that Fairport's Dave Pegg became a mainstay in the band - I'm interested in hearing other comments on this thread - I may actually go out and get more recent stuff!

Rana

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Troll
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 12:28 AM

I haven't followed them for years but "Songs From The Wood" was pure Pagan. But if I had to guess, I'd say trad.

troll

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 01:49 AM

Rana... David Pegg joind forces with Jethro Tull in 1979 after John Glasscock died... It was after one of the famous Fairport Convention break-ups, I'm pretty sure...

From the sources I've read, other than an interest in rural English life, Ian Anderson doesn't really have much in the way of 'folk roots'... he was first a classical guitar player and self-taught blues and jazz floutist... The rusticy phaze that Tull went through in the mid 70's was mostly the result of Ian finally having the money and moving to the country... Minstrel In The Gallery was sort of the beginning of it, and some say it peaked during Heavey Horses... the threads of rustic life stay in Ian's and Tull's music though through to present day...

check out http://www.cupofwonder.com/ It's one of THE Jethro Tull web sits out here...

{~`

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Peg
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 12:03 PM

Here is my two dollars on the ole Pagan Tull subject:

http://www.cupofwonder.com/essays6.html

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 12:57 PM

Tull scholar eh?!?! Where does one go to get THAT degree?? LOL!!!

Damn fine bit of essay there Pegger... I'm curious though... How woud you punctuate Dun Ringill? Ian is notorious for putting his line breaks in the middle of sentances and such... There's a few variations I've tossed aroundin the old nog'n for some time now, and I'd be curious to hear yer take on it?

{~`

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 01:52 PM

Peg, that is phenomenal...thank you. Yes, this is the poser @play, ttr, (who got a sound talking to by Joe, and must stop this @play persona...do NOT do as I have done)

What really got me going, was the picture in Maddy Prior's homepage of her and Ian together...( http://www.gaudela.net/prior/frames.html ) Just another 'minstrel in her gallery', and yet...

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Peg
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 02:40 PM

Clinton; thanks. I wrote that a while back. Hey you can get a degree in almost anything in this fair country of ours...;)

I am not quite sure what you mean by "punctuate"??...the way the title is usually spelled in "Dun Ringtill" but I think you mean the lyrics...to me it is very much a sort of free form poem, with an incantatory quality to it...

I had a chance to go visit some friends who were travelling in the UK last year, and to stay where they were staying in various spots in Wales, Scotland, etc and wouldn't you know it they WENT to Dun Ringtill!!! and I missed it!!!! I could not afford the trip at the time. I must get directions there from my friend and see it one time, I hear it is quite magical and the view spectacular...

Thomas: thanks to you, too.

I don't get what you mean by this "@play" stuff but it sounds like you have been misbehaving if Joe chastised you. ;)

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:00 PM

Yes, I gave Thomas a sound talking-to for posing under a false identity, and made him promise to buy me a beer as his penance. The perpetrator's penance is a pint per poser post.
-Fr. Joebro-

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:03 PM

Say that five times fast, immediately AFTER you drink the beer.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Peg
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:04 PM

oh, now I get it...DUH. And I call myself a Tull scholar!!!

Joe; Do I have to do something bad to suffer the horrible punishment of buying you a single malt scotch?

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:31 PM

Er,....Uhm,.....a, Joe?





Are ya sure ya want all those pints in one sitting....? Sould be QUITE an interersting evening.... But,... if you insist! You shall make quite a case, I think!

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: GUEST,Nancy
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:40 PM

Here's a MP3 site where I was listening to what was described as "Traditional English Folk." It sure sounds like Jethro had alot of influence from Englands past.

Check it out at: http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/55/traditional_english_folk_s.html

By the way, he played in California near me (Redding) and I heard he was still awesome. Also, he invested his money in Scottish fisheries and is quite a wealthy man now:) I like to see an old rocker who didn't squander all his money!

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: khandu
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 08:56 PM

Listening to the Celtic program "Thistle and Shamrocks" I have heard many acoustic guitarist whose style of playing sound amazingly similar to much of Anderson's playing.

I am aware that this does not answer the original question, but, since I have been a Tull nut from 1970 til now, I just wanted to give a little input on this thread.

So much for that, ay?

khandu

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 26 Sep 00 - 11:19 PM

Sorry nancy, but I can't let it slide...

Jetro Tull, in this context, is a 'they', not a 'him'... The 'him' you speak of who once built fish ladders and now breeds Bengal cats is Ian Anderson...

{~`

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 27 Sep 00 - 04:08 AM

According to my friend originally from the Black Isle, Easter Ross, Ian Anderson went to the same school in Dingwall so he would have been exposed to the usual Scots ceilidh influences.
RtS

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: gnu
Date: 05 May 09 - 07:32 PM

I think this question is answered in the music. I discern orchestral minstrel, almost medievil. You may discern bullshit..... in my statement. Not in the tunes.


My personally percieved premise regarding the body of works of one (?) of the most influential "groups" of yet to fore in the history of music over the past 50 years has to be.... I don't care.

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Bobert
Date: 05 May 09 - 07:47 PM

Ya' know, some bands just have that chemistry and originality that creates success and then once they have that then they have the luxary of time to branch out and learn stuff that they might not have known form the beginning... I think that Ian falls into this category... The success that they had in the late 60's and early 70's provided him with alot of money and time to mess around with other stuff...

"it was a new day yesterday, it's an old day now..."

B~

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 05 May 09 - 10:09 PM

Ian was on Can Blue Men Sing The Whites on BBC4 the other day, apparently they started as a blues band. I suppose that's folk innit? (ducks hastily to avoid shower of erudite hair splitting)

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: number 6
Date: 05 May 09 - 10:25 PM

When I first them back in 1968 .. it was a tune (from their first album) called "Serenade to a Cuckoo" ... I thought they were a jazz group aka Roland Kirk with a bit of Wes Montgomery. What a excellent tune it was too ! It's still one of my favs of all tiem.

serenade to a cuckoo

biLL

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 06 May 09 - 02:16 AM

With folk music being so popular in the UK in the mid to late 60s, it's not surprising that so many rock musicians of the time came into contact with folk. Rod Stewart, Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend and Stevie Winwood are just four such musicians. Pete Townsend, for example, came across Bert Jansch before The Who were formed - and was mightily impressed with Bert's playing.

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 09 - 03:56 AM

Serenade to a Cuckoo is a tune by Roland Kirk, who held Ian Anderson in some considerable contempt on account of him ripping off (& trivialising) Kirk's signature flute style. Still, Anderson could never circular breathe, let alone do so whilst playing nose-flute at the same time, much manifest anything like the musical sophistication of a giant like Roland Kirk:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0WVSUW0sZU

Good singer though, at least he was until he developed the nasal whining that sets in after Passion Play. What happened there I wonder? Folk Roots? Bollocks! Here they are at their finest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k7hVQxHRbk

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: number 6
Date: 06 May 09 - 07:44 AM

IMHO .... I don't think Ian an was ripping off Kirk, and I don't think it trivialized Kirk at all .... and I have to thank Ian for introducing (via cuckoo) a 17 year old Canadian kid (me) to the extradordinary music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

biLL

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 06 May 09 - 11:57 AM

A number of local hopefuls used to turn up at singers' nights at the old Blackpool Folk Club (Higson's King's Arms, Talbot Road, resident group the Blacpool Taverners) in the sixties (before my time, I'm relying on tales told against himself by the late Pete Rodger). Among them were writer Allan Prior's daughter Maddy, Roy Harper and Ian Anderson. According to Pete, he refused them all floor spots at one time or another. The only one who seems to have held anything against this cavalier treatment was Roy Harper, who returned in the seventies in a white Rolls-Royce, presumably to impress Pete with his success in foreign parts. He lived locally in the eighties and maintained a good relationship with Pete and the club. Ian Anderson contributed to one of Roy Harper's later albums, and apparently said at some point that the only reason he left Blackpool was that Roy Harper left.

Ross

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 09 - 12:11 PM

I don't think Ian an was ripping off Kirk, and I don't think it trivialized Kirk at all

Rahsaan certainly thought so, on both counts!

Subject: RE: What are Jethro Tull's folk roots?
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 06 May 09 - 12:24 PM

Good for Rahsaan ... he's entitled to his opinion. Some artists are known to be very tempermental about such issues ... and some aren't.

Two of Kirk's albums were purchased by me within the year of hearing Tull's Cuckoo. Another one later in the 1970's.

I never did purchase a Tull album ... was not a fan at all. This not a criticsm of their music, far from it. I just didn't care for them. But I still think they did a good job on Cuckoo.

biLL