Your Cart is empty
Subtotal£0.00
Your order details
I always enjoy a ‘which is their best album?’ debate, especially over bands that I own most of their catalogue. One of these is Jethro Tull, who I’ve loved since I was 15. Back then, as a naïve boy, I didn’t realise having a flute-playing front man was especially unusual, especially one that looked like a tramp.
The first album of theirs that I bought was Songs From The Wood, which I loved and saw them on that tour. I particularly loved the combination of a rock sound with acoustic folk lore and bought the Bursting Out double live - that’s how much I loved them, buying a double cost a fortune back then. I played it to death, especially captivated by the excerpt from Thick As A Brick.
I got Living In The Past next, loving Dharma For One and being reminded of the early hits which I knew well. That was followed by the Ring Out Solstice Bells EP, which I got around Christmas and loved it as a hippy who didn’t and still doesn’t believe in the Christian hi-jacking of Pagan festivities, as a kind of alternative festive season celebration.
Then my collecting went a bit mad. I think Tull were a bit unfashionable in the UK in 1979, so a lot of secondhand stuff became available, especially at the university shop, and I bought everything up to War Child and a lot of the early singles on Island.
The 80s was a strange time for big 70s bands, as they embraced new technology. But with Broadsword and the Beast and Crest Of A Kave they released two of their best. Under Wraps is much maligned but I’ve always liked it.
As I started collecting their singles, some stood out, like a white vinyl of The Whistler and a picture sleeve of Teacher and a picture disc of Rocks In The Road.
I bought their 25th anniversary box set in the 90s and Night Cap, on CD, which I loved and recently acquired the Chateau D’Herouville Sessions. Critical Oblique Parts 1 and 2 are brilliant, as is the riff on Left Right. No Rehearsal is classic mid-70s Tull, great riff and it really drives along, yet has a darkness lyrically. Amazing they thought these recordings were terrible
Which brings us to their best album. There’s so many to choose from, The live album is a close second, I feel and the early bluesy days are great and the Dire Straits-soundalike 80s output is a great direction. But if I had to choose to take only one, I’d still go for Songs From The Wood. That might be because it reminds me of being young, but that distorted guitar of Pibroch and the acoustic of tracks like Jack-in-the-Green is still captivating.
