The Making of Jethro Tull's Greatest Album

Being the bandleader that he was, Ian Anderson carved a different style with his band. As their artistic peak was approaching, they recorded one of the most remembered rock albums - one that lived on in the hearts of many fans and new ones alike!

The story so far...

After their successful 1970 tour where the band expanded to a quintet with the coming of keyboardist John Evan, the band began to carve their next album. Just before Christmas of 1970, they walked into Island Records' newly-opened Basing Street Studios in London (now Sam-West), to record this album. Alongside them were Led Zeppelin who were also there to carve their Untitled 4th Album informally known as Led Zeppelin IV. While Zeppelin got to work on the lower floor in a studio with bedroom-like acoustics, the Tull boys mostly worked upstairs in a section that had been transformed from an old church. Tull and Zeppelin were the "gunea pigs" for the studio seeing as none of the gear there had been tested yet.

The album itself:

Back when my classic rock station played heavy amounts of prog rock, I somehow got into Tull (about late Junior/early Senior year of high school). It got so addicting that because there wasn't much music streaming available back then, a friend of mine lent me his copy of Aqualung so I could rip it to my iPod (yes, you read right).

Thanks to my local classic rock station, I already knew Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary, and let's not mention Locomotive Breath having its iconic piano intro that John Evan actually composed when the rest of the crew took a break.

The album is divided into two parts subtitled by the opening track of each side. The Aqualung side portrays six characters most noteably Aqualung being a homeless old man. In fact, the cover photo on the record is just as iconic. It was crafted by Ian Anderson's then wife Jennie Franks who'd shown him sketches of homeless people through area parks. Even the follow-up track, Cross-Eyed Mary, references to him "Or maybe her attention is drawn by Aqualung. Who watches through the railings as they play." Martin Barre's guitar work here is also the finest! Cheap Day Return is a stripped back, acoustic track as a sort of "bridge" on the album about Anderson visiting his ill grandfather.

The second half, subtitled My God is filled with religious musings on the distinction between God and religion. This side adresses religion introspectively and sometimes even irreverently in My God, Hymm 43, the bridge song Slipstream, and the closing track Wind Up. Locomotive Breath, although making a reference to God, does not really tend to follow the aforementioned script, which begs the question...

...Is Aqualung a Concept Album?

Yes, it's been said before. Many fans and critics alike have been forced to label Aqualung a concept album particularly because of the second side and its themes of God and religion. Truth be told, however, Aqualung IS NOT a concept album - no matter what anyone tells you. The album is merely a collection of songs, which Martin Barre has stated sort of set the stage of future albums featuring a mixture of acoustic and electric pieces.

In 2004, Jethro Tull were invited to perform at XM Satelite Studios in Washington DC, an event I regret missing because I was unfamiliar with them back then and hope to find a recording of now. On the live rendition of Aqualung that was recorded and released, Ian Anderson spoke to the crowd, and I quote. "I always said at the time that this is not a concept album. This is just a collection of songs where three or four of them may have been keynote pieces, but it's certainly not a concept album. In my mind, when it came to recording the next album, Thick as a Brick [1972] was recorded in pretty much the sense of, 'Hey! They thought Aqualung was a concept album, O-K we'll show you a concept album!' But Aqualung again, in my mind, was never really a concept album, just a collection of a bunch of songs."

Some years after the album, John Evan said in an interview that the album was most labelled as a concept album by American audiences as a form of a "Chinese whisper." That is, you play an album to some Americans and you tell them that there's a central theme, and they all then like to think that it's a concept album.

Overall/Final Thought

Anderson and Barre in particular have stated that Aqualung would either be the turning point towards success, or the peak of their success and a steady downfall in the years after. Thankfully, it turned out to be the former.

Despite being the last record with percussionist Clive Bunker, who left the following year and was succeeded by John Evan Band (precourser band to Jethro Tull), Barrimore Barlow, Aqualung is an important milestone in Tull's history book. In the years release, it has sold some 7 million units worldwide and still is their best seller. It's been listed on many best-of magazines and critically well received. (Tull, by the way, were at a peak with their journalists in 1973). I do hope classic rock stations around the country will begin to recognize this great album again and play some of its tracks.