In The Studio with Redbeard

Tag: folk rock

  • Jethro Tull- Minstrel in the Gallery/Songs from the Wood- Ian Anderson

    Jethro Tull- Minstrel in the Gallery/Songs from the Wood- Ian Anderson

    Discussing Jethro Tull’s Minstrel in the Gallery, I am reminded that the life of an internationally successful legacy rock band leader, such as my guest Ian Anderson, requires not just business acumen but even the skills of a roving diplomat doing shuttle diplomacy. “Knowing a bit about Russia historically, and also having been there to perform several times, I’ve had a long association with Russia and a respect for the Russian people,” Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson admitted, “and I do have a grudging respect for (President) Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, because in many ways he’s a very canny, clever guy. He has all of the hallmarks of an international statesman, yet he’s made a decision (invading Ukraine) that I believe is the WRONG one…He’s just putting himself in a place where he will be reviled forever.”

    “I met Putin,” Anderson continues. “He was actually the right-hand man economic advisor to Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg around 1991-92. And he came to a Jethro Tull concert and we met him backstage. There is a photograph of me talking to Mayor Sobchak, and right on the edge of the photo you see this stern-looking evil face staring daggers at me. Putin didn’t like me talking to his boss.”

    “Prolific” doesn’t even begin to describe the massive musical output of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, and this fact becomes immediately obvious when you realize that Minstrel in the Gallery, released fifty yeas ago, and Songs from the Wood, released in February 1977, were already the English folk/progressive rocker’s ninth and tenth albums. There was nothing then that sounded remotely like the ancient pastoral songs and instrumentation on Minstrel in the Gallery and Songs from the Wood playing on the all-important American rock radio, and in spite of sounding so different (or maybe, as my guest Ian Anderson contends, because of it), Songs from the Wood became one of Jethro Tull’s bestsellers, peaking at #8 in sales on Billboard.


    By 1977 Jethro Tull was one of the biggest concert draws in the rock world, but for the five years preceding had alternately delighted their fans and music critics alike (Thick as a Brick, War Child) or confounded them (Passion Play; Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die). September 1975’s Minstrel in the Gallery and 1977’s Songs from the Wood (not to be confused with Songs from the ‘hood by Deathrow Tull, which would be a “heavy horse of a different colour” ) were so far afield from mainstream rock that it was refreshing, vibrant, impeccably played and arranged, and a stellar recording that tickles the ear to this day. Musical chestnuts include “Cold Wind to Valhalla”, “One White Duck”, the knees-up rocker “Minstrel in the Gallery”, “The Whistler”,”Velvet Green”,  and “Songs from the Wood”. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is my guest In the Studio  to regale us. –Redbeard
  • James Taylor- Mud Slide Slim @55

    James Taylor- Mud Slide Slim @55

    “Rockabye sweet baby” James Taylor is still recording wonderfully satisfying albums like the recent  American Standard and Before This World, and being chosen to open brand new live music venues as he did in Ft. Worth  fifty years after the album Sweet Baby James  captured the country’s attention. Now that’s finding the keys to a real time machine. Rolling Stone  magazine bestowed February 1970’s Sweet Baby James  with the ranking of #103 on their Top 500 Albums of All Time.

    For me, James Taylor’s music was the soundtrack of my life, the music that ushered me from a teen into manhood with honesty, gentility, and hope. For this conversation with a true American cultural icon, we begin by focusing on his Winter 1970 breakthrough (but not his first) album, Sweet Baby James,  containing “Fire and Rain”, “Country Road”, and that lullaby title song written not solely about the composer but his namesake nephew.

    In part two, James Taylor reacts to new stardom in several of the songs on 1971’s Mud Slide Slim, plus reveals the beginning of his life-long musical partnership with Carole King, who wrote James’ first #1 hit, “You’ve Got a Friend”.Five years after making the covers of both Time magazine and Newsweek, but no longer “baby James”, part three lets Taylor explore career success and domestic bliss with his 1975 multi-platinum Gorilla  album containing”Mexico”,”Shower the People”, and a toe-tapper Motown cover of “How Sweet It is to Be Loved by You” amidst a high-profile marriage to, then break up with, hit singer/socialite Carly Simon.- Redbeard

  • The Byrds- Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, the late David Crosby

    The Byrds- Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, the late David Crosby

    In a 24-month period beginning in Summer 1965, Los Angeles-based band The Byrds recorded and released four evolutionary albums which wrested away the world’s focus from the tidal wave of British Invasion bands led by The Beatles. The members of the original Byrds – singer/songwriter/electric 12-string guitar player Roger (Jim) McGuinn, singer/songwriter David Crosby, the talented but tortured late singer/songwriter Gene Clark, bass player Chris Hillman, & the late drummer Michael Clarke – were always unabashed in their acknowledgment of their influences, equal parts American folk singers, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Yet instead of being hopelessly derivative, somehow the Byrds ended up being one of the greatest imprints on both the form and substance of rock and country music to this day.

    Many of my classic rock interviews have subsequently been used in DVDs and feature films, but never more prominently than these conversations with The Byrds Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman in the two-part rock documentary now running on Epix called Laurel Canyon. McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman join me in this ultra-rare classic rock interview covering the first four Byrds albums Mr Tambourine Man,  Turn Turn Turn, Fifth Dimension, and Younger Than Yesterday in February 1967. – Redbeard

  • Roger McGuinn- Chestnut Mare- Dallas 1991

    Roger McGuinn- Chestnut Mare- Dallas 1991

    Roger McGuinn takes requests. We discovered that fact when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legendary leader of The Byrds brought that unmistakable voice and trademark twelve string guitar to my Dallas radio show not long after the release of his January 1991 strong solo album Back From Rio.  Roger obliged us with a song he wrote with Jacques Levy that appeared on The Byrds’ 1970 Untitled   album, a cornerstone in the country rock / Americana canon.- Redbeard