The deluxe series of Jethro Tull hardcover book-style reissues continues with Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition, a new 3CD/2DVD version of Jethro Tull’s 11th album, originally released in 1978. As with previous releases, Steven Wilson and Jakko Jakszyk have undertaken new remixes in stereo and surround of both the original LP and a host of bonus material. Wilson remixed Heavy Horses and nine associated outtakes (seven of which have never been released in any mix), while Jakszyk remixed a 1978 concert in Bern, Switzerland28th May 1978 recorded a month after the album’s release. (At least some of this material is believed to have appeared on that same year’s double live album, Bursting Out.) Two accompanying DVDs feature LPCM stereo (96/24 for the studio material and 48/24 for the live show) and 5.1 surround mixes of what’s on the CD, plus early music videos for “Heavy Horses” and “Moths” and two vintage television spots.
Considered the second in a folk-rock trilogy of the band’s that started with Songs From The Wood(1977) and closed with 1979’s Stormwatch, Heavy Horses matched frontman Ian Anderson’s lyrics about agrarian life and the modern world with a slightly more hard-driving musical soundtrack. Critics and fans alike found much to like in the album, which became their 10th consecutive 20 album (going gold in America, Canada and the U.K.); Rolling Stone said at the time that the band’s folk leanings “has suited Jethro Tull wonderfully.”
Packaged in the same book style as its predecessors, Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition features a 96-page book of liner notes including lyrics, track-by-track notes by Anderson, interviews with Maddy Prior (who recorded her 1978 solo debut Woman In The Wings with the members of Jethro Tull) , Darryl Way (the Curved Air co-founder who played violin on Heavy Horses), and studio engineer Colin Leggett, and a band timeline that covers all recording and touring from January 1977 to November 1978.
Weird and wonderful! Ian’s flute improvisation shows that he must have spent a high percentage of his life practicing the flute … it is amazing how he just breathes music. So much energy and sensitivity at the same time … a really great band … and a really great time. The application of some jazz to folk, classical and popular music
From The Rockpalast Archives JETHRO TULL“SwingIn” Full Documentary 27.11.1969)
Songs : 01.Nothing Is Easy 02:18 02.Bourée 08:03 03.Sweet Dream / .For a Thousand Mother 20:42
In 1971, Island Records released a double sampler album called El Pea. This compilation cost the princely sum of £1.99 and featured many fledging artists who would go on to become household names,this album was a revelation, and changed my attitude to music forever.
Island Records started out with a catalogue of Jamaican music but the charismatic founder, Chris Blackwell, soon diversified into an eclectic stable of contemporary acts. Some didn’t make it, some did, but all of them appeared on one or other of the samplers Island Records released in the early 1970s.
The appeal of the samplers was clear. Punters got a chance to hear some of the best new music at a heavily discounted price, whilst the record company got to promote music that did not readily lend itself to radio or TV airplay. Some of the compilations were classic recordings in their own right, and Island Records probably came out with the classiest.
El Pea was released in the UK in 1971, but it has an enduring appeal. This was probably the folkiest of the Island samplers, with the inevitable influence of Joe Boyd. However it had its heavier moments, a touch of prog and a little reggae to make for a heady brew. The album cover was hardly arresting and probably played too much on the pun in its name – a long-playing double LP called… El Pea, However the slapdash artwork disguises a classic album. They couldn’t even get the track listing right – you might be pleased to see Nick Drake on the album but the track listed as “One Of These Things First”, is actually the even better, astonishing, “Northern Sky”. Another track worth the purchase price is by McDonald and Giles, previously of King Crimson fame, and the album from which the track comes is one of those forgotten gems you won’t regret checking out.
You can’t get El Pea on CD, but all of the tracks are available on subsequently released CDs. Additionally a number of compilation CDs have come out over the years to reprise the glorious days of the Island sampler.
With selections ranging from much-anticipated new albums by superstars Traffic, Free, and Cat Stevens; cult demigods Mott the Hoople and Quintessence; and a handful of names that might well have been new to the average browser: Mike Heron, slipping out of the Incredible String Band with his Smiling Men With BadReputations debut; Nick Drake, still laboring away in absolute obscurity; and so on.
There was also a spotlight shone on Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the so-called supergroup whose own eponymous debut was still awaited with baited breath, and the choice of the virtuoso “Knife Edge” over any of the album’s more accessible tracks further confirms El Pea’s validity. Any other label would have gone for “Lucky Man,” knowing that no one could resist its plaintive charms. “Knife Edge” let the ingenue know precisely what to expect from Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
And so it goes on — from Jethro Tull to Blodwyn Pig, from Fairport Convention to Sandy Denny, 21 tracks spread across four sides of vinyl serve up one of the most generous and alluring label samplers you will ever lay your hands on
A1 – Traffic – Empty Pages
A2 – Sandy Denny – Late November
A3 – Alan Bown – Thru The Night
A4 – John And Beverley Martyn – Auntie Aviator
A5 – Fairport Convention – Lord Marlborough
Side B
B1 – Jethro Tull – Mother Goose
B2 – Quintessence – Dive Deep
B3 – Amazing Blondel – Spring Season
B4 – McDonald & Giles – Extract From Tomorrow’s People – The Children Of Today
B5 – Tir Na Nog – Our Love Will Not Decay
B6 – Mountain – Don’t Look Around
Side C
C1 – Free – Highway Song
C2 – Incredible String Band – Waiting For You
C3 – Cat Stevens – Wild World
C4 – Bronco – Sudden Street
C5 – Mike Heron – Feast Of Stephen
Side D
D1 – Emerson Lake & Palmer – Knife Edge
D2 – Nick Drake – Northern Sky
D3 – Mott The Hoople – Original Mixed-Up Kid
D4 – Jimmy Cliff – Can’t Stop Worrying, Can’t Stop Loving
D5 – Mick Abrahams – Greyhound Bus
Jethro Tull the British progressive rock group. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and the flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969, after he replaced original guitarist Mick Abrahams.
The complete session recorded by Jethro Tull on 16th June 1969 for John Peel on the Top Gear show on BBC Radio 1 and broadcast on the 22nd of that month. Ian just didnt realise the greatness of Glenn Cornick r.i.p and Clive Bunker..this was magic..the other line ups were good. Clive was along with ginger baker and mitch mitchel..the best if their era.bonzo was the best thumper and barlow best technician.
Recording date: 16th June 1969 First broadcast: 22nd June 1969.
Tracklist: Bourée / A New Day Yesterday / Fat Man / Nothing is Easy
John Peel was a great supporter of the 1968 incarnation of Jethro Tull , the band did their first session for TopGear before their first LP was released. He was present when the band played at a free concert in Hyde Park on 20th June 1968, and both Peel and Tull can be seen in a (silent) British Pathé film clip made at the event. In an enthusiastic account of the festival , Peel wrote: “Jethro Tull had bee preceded to the park by rumours of their goodness. They played with fire and brought out the first rays of the sun…..” In another of his IT columns, a few months later, he praised their debut session: “I wonder did you hear Jethro Tull on Top Gear – they were very good and I look forward to their LP..”
John Peel was a fan of Mick Abrahams‘ guitar playing, which can be heard on the band’s debut single “A Song for Jeffrey”, whose psychedelic-blues style shows the influence of Captain Beefheart’s Safe As Milk LP. But once Abrahams left (replaced by Martin Barre), After he left Jethro Tull, Mick Abrahams‘ own bands (Blodwyn Pig and Mick Abrahams Band) got plenty of airplay on Peel’s shows, and Abrahams did sessions for them.
Peel lost interest in the band. This, apparently, caused a sort of altercation between Peel and Ian Anderson which led to Peel abandoning the band.
Ian Anderson dedicated the 40th anniversary edition (released in 2010) to John Peel, stating that he was regretful that he never had the chance to make up with him. During the months following the recording and release of This Was, our little Blues band featured on a number of BBC Radio sessions, some on the John Peel show, some for other broadcasters (note: all the sessions the band did in 1968 were recorded for “Top Gear”) and the results – amazingly enough – were retained by the BBC in whatever cavernous vaults and audio dungeons line the bowels Bradcasting House in Portland Place, then and now the home of the “Beeb”. These sessions were, as far as I remember, completely live recordings and stand the test of time surprisignly well. Sonically, they are pretty damn fine. […]
But John, who had a soft spot for original Tull guitarist, Mick Abrahams, was not to be so supportive of our next effort. He advised me, at a co-appearance in a Devon club in early ’69, that he didn’t like the new songs of Stand Up and thought it at mistake that we had apparently lost touch with our blues roots and Mick in particular.
Martin and I were a little stung by this and so the mood was not good when we recorded the songs for Peel’s live sessions show four moths later. John Peel, himself, didn’t turn up, which made us feel somewhat unloved! Peel’s producer John Walters reported some of this bad feeling to his master and thus began a long and regrettable period of disassociation from one of the two or three people most supportive and influential in getting Tull’s career started.
“Nice Enough to Eat” is a budget priced sampler album released by Island Records in 1969. Continuing the policy set by its predecessor You Can All Join In, the album presented tracks from the latest albums by their then established artists including Free, Traffic, and Jethro Tull, and introduced tasters from newer signings to the label, notably Nick Drake and King Crimson. The inclusion of the Nick Drake track, “Time Has Told Me”, has been credited with providing the first opportunity for many record buyers to hear Drake’s music.
It was priced as low as 14 shillings and 6 pence (£0.72), less than half of the standard album price at the time. The album is described as a “somewhat incoherent sampler of folk-rock, prog rock, and prog-tinged hard rock”, but with a “stellar artist lineup”
It was combined with You Can All Join In for a CD Re-release in August 1992 entitled “Nice Enough To Join In”
The cover was designed by Mike Sida, who had already provided the cover for Spooky Two, and went on to produce several further classic Island album covers including Free’s Fire and Water and Traffic’s “John Barleycorn Must Die”. The front cover’s simple motif of names of featured bands spelt out in alphabet sweets (in a combination of blue/biscuit colours alone) is subverted on the rear cover, where most of the letters have been dispersed and replaced by what seem to be brightly coloured tablets. The presence of (at least parts of) medicine capsules might make a suspicious observer suspect a reference to drugs.
“You Can All Join In” was a budget priced sampler album, released in the UK by Island Records in 1968. It was priced at 14 shillings and 6 pence (£0.72), and reached no. 18 on the UK Albums Chart that year
It was arguably instrumental in breaking world-class bands such as Free, Jethro Tull and Traffic to a wider audience. It represented one of the most unexpected marketing triumphs of the age — an (admittedly budget-priced) gathering of underground unknowns riding the label’s own reputation for keeping its finger on the pulse, and out-performing many of the era’s bona fide superstars. Wynder K. Frog, Art, Tramline, Clouds these were not names one normally expected to find hogging the number 18 slot on the chart.
Yet, place familiarity (or the lack thereof) aside, and You Can All Join In is one of those seamless compilations that simply cannot be improved upon. A dozen tracks highlight the best — and that is the best — of Island Record’s recent and forthcoming output, from much-anticipated debut albums by Jethro Tull, Free, and Spooky Tooth to the sophomore effort by Fairport Convention. There’s also a healthy taste of the label’s most-successful-so-far signing, Traffic, as a leaf from Steve Winwood’s back pages — the Spencer Davis Group’s “Somebody Helps Me” joins Tramline’s cover of “Pearly Queen” and Traffic’s own “You Can All Join In” (yes, indeed, this collection’s title track). one of those seamless compilations that simply cannot be improved upon. A dozen tracks highlight the best – and that is the best – of Island’s recent and forthcoming output, from much-anticipated debut albums .
The early ’70s were the golden age of British record-label samplers, with Island themselves following through with three, Vertigo weighing in with the legendary “Suck It and See”, and CBS’ redoubtable Fill Your Head With Rock ranking among a myriad others. None, however, echoed either the success or the resonance of You Can All Join In.
The Cover Designed by Hipgnosis and although not as imaginative as some of their later work, the front cover photograph was taken in Hyde Park and is said to feature “every single one of the Island artistes … bleary eyed after a party. The rear cover consists merely of a track listing and monochrome images of the covers of eight of the sampled albums .
Clive Bunker, 2 Neil Hubbard, 3 Gary Wright 4 Glenn Cornick 5 Bruce Rowland 6 Martin Barre 7 Mick Weaver 8 Ian Anderson 9 Patrick Campbell-Lyons 10 Ashley Hutchings 11 Alex Spyropoulos 12 Chris Wood 13 Richard Thompson 14 Ian Matthews 15 Steve Winwood 16 Ian A. Anderson 17 Jim Capaldi 18 Mike Harrison 19 Martin Lamble 20 Simon Nicol 21 Harry Hughes 22 Rebop Kwaku Baah 23 Chris Mercer 24 Simon Kirke 25 Paul Rodgers 26 Billy Ritchie 27 Andy Fraser 28 Ian Ellis 29 Sandy Denny
It was combined with the follow-up, Nice Enough To Eat for a CD Re-release in August 1992 entitled Nice Enough To Join In (Island Records IMCD 150).
Side One
“A Song For Jeffrey” Jethro Tull – (Alternative mix, original version from This Was) (ILPS 9085)
“Sunshine Help Me” Spooky Tooth – (from It’s All About Spooky Tooth) (ILPS 9080)
“I’m a Mover” Free – (from Tons of Sobs) (ILPS 9089)
“What’s That Sound” Art – (from Supernatural Fairy Tales) (ILP 967)
Steven Wilson 5.1 and stereo mixes • 96-page booklet • Incredible value
The latest in a run of fine Jethro Tull deluxe reissues gallops into view this February – “Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition”. Just like the 40th anniversary edition of Songs From The Wood released in May, this one also marks four decades since the original album’s release and is a five-disc bookset.
Heavy Horses was the second in a trilogy of folk rock albums by the progressive folk-rockers – following Songs From The Wood (1977) and preceding Stormwatch (1979) – and its songs inspired by horses and agricultural life went down well on both sides of the Atlantic. Top 20 chart positions in the UK and America were backed up by critical praise for its melodies and instrumentation, and the flute-playing of lead singer and flautist Ian Anderson.
“As a child, my big passion was to get off the leash and explore the local wooded and leafy suburbs,” recalls Anderson. “So it didn’t suddenly become new in 1977, it was just that the subject matter fitted what I wanted to write about at the time.”
The ‘New Shoes Edition’ kicks off with a Steve Wilson stereo remix of the original album plus nine ‘associated recordings’ (seven of which are previously unreleased) on the first CD, and a live 1978 concert from Berne, Switzerland is spread across CDs two and three.
The two DVDs feature 97 audio and video tracks, with studio work (including bonus tracks) remixed to 5.1 (and stereo) by Steven Wilson and live material handled similarly by Jakko Jakszyk. These discs also include a flat transfer of the original mix of the album and promotional video footage and two period TV ads.
All of this is packaged up in a 96-page book, featuring a written history of the album and corresponding tour, including complete lyrics for the album and bonus tracks, track-by-track annotation by Ian Anderson, rare photos and exclusive interviews with musicians Maddy Prior and Darryl Way, and studio engineer Colin Leggett.
“Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition”is released on 9th February 2018.
Released 42 years ago on October 14th, 1974 Jethro Tull “War Child
“War Child” is the seventh studio album by Jethro Tull , released in October 1974. It was released almost one-and-a-half years after the release of “A Passion Play”. The turmoil over the critics of the last album and the supposed break up of the band surrounds the production of War Child, which obliged the band to do press conferences and explain the next plans for Jethro Tull
Much of the music derived from past recording sessions of the band. “Only Solitaire” and “Skating Away on theThin Ice of a New Day” were left over from the summer of 1972, writing sessions for what was to have been the follow-up to “Thick As A Brick”. The basic tracks and lead vocals for those two songs were recorded during September 1972 sessions in France. “Bungle in the Jungle” also shares some elements with material recorded in September 1972. Ian Anderson “It was actually late ’72 or early ’73 when I was in Paris recording an album that never got released, although one or two of the tracks made it out in 1974, but that was at a time when I was writing an album that was exploring people, the human condition, through analogies with the animal kingdom.“TwoFingers” is a rearrangement of “Lick Your Fingers Clean”, a track from the “Aqualung” (1971) recording sessions that was not included on that album’s original release.
The album prominently features string orchestration from David Palmer across an eclectic musical set, with the band members, as the two predecessor albums, playing a multitude of instruments. The music is lighter and more whimsical than the dark A Passion Play, with hints of comedy in the lyrics and the music’ structure. Although, the lyrics still unleash lashing critiques of established society (as in “Queen and Country” and “Bungle in the Jungle”, religion (“Two Fingers”) and critics (“Only Solitaire”)
Jethro Tull‘s 12th studio album, Stormwatch, concludes with “Elegy,” a quiet instrumental of pastoral acoustic guitar and melancholy strings. The title is so appropriate. Composed by keyboardist-orchestral arranger David Palmer in honor of his late father, the three-minute piece serves as a gentle swan song for bassist John Glascock, who died from effects of a cardiac infection soon after being dismissed from the band (and only playing on three tracks). But it’s also an elegy in a broader sense, a quiet mourning for Jethro Tull’s classic era — the ’70s.
Stormwatch is the last essential Jethro Tull album, a cohesive curtain call for the band’s trademark prog-folk style. But it’s also the black sheep of their catalog, overshadowed by 1977’s Songs From the Wood and 1978’s Heavy Horses the brilliant one-two punch that revitalized the band after a handful of lackluster mid-decade LPs. Pegged by critics as the final installment of a “folk-rock trilogy,” Stormwatch continues in a similar vein as those earlier classics, blending progressive instrumental finesse (notably the more metallic guitar sound of mainstay Martin Barre) with British folk serenity (the reliable acoustic guitar and flute of frontman-songwriter Ian Anderson).
Though Anderson has always been the band’s chief creative force, every Jethro Tull album is only as good as the players behind him. By 1979, the core of this classic line-up (Anderson, Barre, Palmer, keyboardist John Evan and drummer Barrie Barlow) had developed a rare level of chemistry for a rock band, having played together since 1972’s celebrated Thick as a Brick. Stormwatch is defined by that dynamic interplay, offering some of the most unique arrangements in the Tull discography.
The band’s rarely utilized funk influence came to the forefront on several pieces, including the propulsive “Something’s on the Move” and the Eastern-tinged instrumental “Warm Sporran” the latter dominated by Anderson’s deft bass playing.
Meanwhile, “Dark Ages” is one of Tull’s most engaging longer pieces, stretching out to nearly 10 minutes as it seamlessly links disparate musical passages, including a stormy guitar solo by Barre and a climactic section of harmonized vocals and synthesizers. As a technical showcase, Stormwatch ranks alongside Thick as a Brick and Songs From the Wood as the band’s most striking work.
Barrow’s contributions are particularly memorable, as he skirts between locomotive bombast (“North Sea Oil”) and frenetic groove (“Orion”). Since Anderson took over bass responsibilities early on in the recording process (after having dismissed Glascock for health concerns), the frontman had a unique relationship with Barrow on this project.
“Some of Barrie’s best performances are to be found on this record,” Anderson said in the liner notes to a 2004 remaster, dedicated to the drummer. “Since I had the task of playing bass, we bonded in a musical way quite different to usual. Bass players and drummers have to have that special musical thing going, and we found that extra dimension quite easily. But of course, we all would rather have had the healthy presence of John throughout the recording.”
Unfortunately, Stormwatch also showed signs of creative fatigue. “Home” is bogged down by its own breezy balladeering; the Anderson solo spotlight “Dun Ringill” is based on an eerily familiar guitar figure essentially a hybrid between “The Mouse Police Never Sleeps” and “Thick as a Brick.” And the lyrics, exploring weighty themes of corporate greed and environmental dread, were less distinct than the fanciful sketches of Songs from the Wood or the earnest naturalism of Heavy Horses.
With the neon-tinted ’80s looming, prog-rock bands were forced to adapt or go extinct. But Jethro Tull’s classic line-up dissolved organically, each member departing in a domino effect.
After the Stormwatch tour, Barrow quit the band, brokenhearted after the death of his close friend Glascock. Meanwhile, a drained Anderson planned to start work on his first solo album, which pushed out the frustrated duo of Evan and Palmer. (Under commercial pressure from longtime label Chrysalis Records, Anderson agreed to label his solo project, 1980’sA, under the Tull moniker.)
As such, while Stormwatch never matches the absurd, grandiosity of Thick as a Brick or the playful wonder of Songs From the Wood, it remains an essential item in the Tull oeuvre. This is the last souvenir of the band’s most fruitful period.
Jethro Tull
Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, bass guitar (except tracks 2, 9, 10, bonus tracks 12, 13, 14)
Martin Barre – electric guitar, mandolin, classical guitar
For illustrator Iain McCaig, working with the band Jethro Tull it was a labour of love. He was already a huge fan, So when commissioned to do the art for the band’s 14th studio album. It took McCaig 14 days to complete the artwork, and he even admits to completing the last touches while en route to deliver it on the tube. Now involved in movies – writing, desiging and direction – he’d still love to paint Ian Anderson’s portrait!
“Ian gave me a cassette with his work-in-progress songs for inspiration. We discussed a lot of ideas together during that first meeting. I honestly don’t remember who came up with what, but the upshot was that I went home and sketched an image of a bard tormented by the music from a pan pipe-playing beastie on his shoulder. Ian pointed to the fey little fellow and said: “That’s our cover”.
I had just discovered the Narnia books and was struck with an idea from Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, where a painting of a sea comes to life and begins to spill out of the frame. The lyrics from Ian’s song – “I see a dark sail, on the horizon, set under black clouds, that hide the sun” – combined with the Beastie from my first sketch, completed the picture.
“I’m also a big fan of puzzle pictures, and decided to leave some ‘easter eggs’ in the art. Hence the faces of the band – Dave Pegg, Martin Barre, Peter Vitesse and Gerry Conway – on the four corners of the picture frame, and the carved runic inscription that says… ah, but that would be telling!”
Jethro Tull were, and are still, one of my favorite bands of all time. Aside from that cassette that Ian gave me of his his work-in-progress songs (with lines like “I see a Broadsword, dum diddly-um dum dee”), the band generously allowed me to sketch while they recorded several of the songs in the studio. There aren’t many commissions like this one!
“Jethro Tull and Chrysalis both seemed pleased with the cover. For some of The Broadsword… concerts, they built the entire picture frame around the stage, with the dark-sailed ship crashing through it at the end. Ian also performed with a life-sized articulated Beastie on his shoulders, complete with flashing eyes and real bones beneath the latex, which sat in my attic room after the tour and scared the crap out of visitors. As for the fans, they have been very kind. Ian says he’s seen the cover image tattooed over countless body parts, and I was greeted by my cover painting on banners, posters and T-shirts and other memorabilia at a recent Tull concert.
“The final image was a merging of ‘Beastie’ and ‘Broadsword’.
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The Fat Angel Sings 