From the Editor- Ian Anderson Interview

February 4, 2016 by Bill Hart

I’m thrilled to publish an interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull on TheVinylPress. Anderson is a deeply reflective, articulate man who was willing to share some of his thoughts on his extraordinary style of music-making- particularly the early, seminal albums during a period of dramatic change in popular music– a transformation in which Anderson played a vital role. Anderson gives us a first hand perspective on this watershed period that reshaped popular music forever. We owe a debt of gratitude to this gifted and deservedly legendary composer and artist. Here is the piece: Ageless Troubadour: A Chat with Ian Anderson.

At the time I was working on this piece, I also immersed myself in the early Tull records, from This Was and Stand Up, to Benefit and Aqualung. I had done an extensive vinyl shoot-out of a number of different pressings of Aqualung over the past summer. Though I had no plans to do that sort of in-depth comparison for each of the other early albums, I thought my listening notes of a few different pressings, offered here, might be of some value to readers. I also found myself reengaging with the music in a different way when listening to these earliest albums as a larger body of work, rather than individually. So, in addition to some comments about different pressings, I’m also adding a few thoughts about the music itself. (These are strictly my own views, and do not reflect the views of Mr. Anderson). If you are relatively new to the music of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, you are in for an adventure. I’ve been listening to him for almost 50 years and marvel at things I am still discovering in his music even though many of his pieces have long been embedded in my DNA.

Bill Hart

February 4, 2016

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