Buying the albums sampled on “You Can All Join In”.
We continue this time with Ian Anderson’s notes in the insert with the Collectors Edition of the CD:
“I huffed and puffed and eventually got a note or two out of it. I reinforced the weak sound by singing the note in rough unison and so began the early “trademark” sound of Jethro Tull. But, in fact, I had employed the method of “scat-singing” while playing the guitar a few years earlier and also with the lowly tin whistle! When Jeffrey Hammond (then at Art college in London) heard my faltering playing in the early months of 1968, he introduced me to the music of Roland Kirk, and I found a ready influence to further shape [sic: split infinitive!] my relationship with the instrument.
“In February 1968 [when I had just started my second term in grammar school], after a series of unlikely precursors, the name Jethro Tull was settled on by our managers and agents, The Ellis Wright Organisation, when the band began to find acclaim around the blues clubs of London and the Southern [sic] UK.
After failed attempts to persuade me to give up my slowly-improving flute-playing and let Mick do all the singing, our managers having spectacularly failed to rouse the interest of any record companies, agreed that we should make an album anyway and shop around for a deal afterwards.”
More from his most illuminating notes next time. Meanwhile, here is another picture from the insert:
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