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
