Jethro Tull: Stand Up - 1969

 

Despite the departure of guitarist-vocalist Mick Abrahams due to that old chestnut, musical differences, this second Jethro Tull album, from 1969, still carried several distinctly bluesy influences.

These were notably on the really excellent A New Day Yesterday - although Ian Anderson's folky proclivities - on tracks like Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square, the vaguely Beatles-ish Look Into The Sun and the fetching instrumental Bouree -  were surfacing rapidly, but not, as yet, the dreaded prog rock symptoms. Thank the Lord for that! 

Back To The Family is another of those Tull songs that has hints of Traffic and Cream about it, and more than just the flute. You have to hear it I guess. Whatever, it is a fine hard rock and acoustic merger. The album was released in an intriguing time - pre prog but post blues boom and psychedelia thus making for a nice mix of styles. It is a fine folk-blues-rock album, make no mistake. 

Reasons For Waiting is classic acoustic and flute early Jethro Tull. Nothing Is Easy is a fine track too, as indeed is the guitar-enhanced We Used To Know.

Fat Man has Anderson telling us he doesn’t want to be a fat nan, because people would expect him to be a lot of fun. The backing is very late sixties, with its bongoes, frantic acoustic strumming and what sounds like a sitar. 

For A Thousand Mothers also displays the same characteristics as indeed does the excellent non-album single, and the group's only big hit, Living In The Past. Both of them have that flute-rock sound that the Tull made their own. No-one else did it or even attempted it. In that respect the band were quite unique. 

Once more, I find that this is a surprisingly impressive, enjoyable and innovative album. It is not too proggy so that suits my tastes. It is a nice piece of late sixties rock - loose, fluid and musically interesting. You know, I have to say that I have really enjoyed properly checking out albums like this - I only really knew Living In The Past. Where have I been all these years, eh? Incidentally, I have read some misgivings about the sound on this album, but I find that the latest Steven Wilson remix is most impressive.