For almost six decades, Ian Anderson has remained one of the most distinctive figures in British rock.
As the flautist, singer, and principal songwriter behind Jethro Tull, the multi-instrumentalist has helped shape a sound that blended blues, folk, classical, and rock into something completely its own.
From the early grit of Stand Up and Aqualung to the ambition of Thick as a Brick, his work has always carried an idiosyncratic voice in rock’s gene pool. Anderson’s image as the flautist on one leg has even become the band’s trademark.
Now 78, he shows little interest in slowing down. Still touring under the Jethro Tull banner, Anderson continues to revisit and reframe a catalogue that has become a valuable part of British music history.
In April, he returns to Edinburgh and The Usher Hall, a venue bound up with his own story. “I grew up in Edinburgh, which to me is my hometown, although I was born in Dunfermline and moved to Edinburgh when I was three,” he says. “Most of my earliest memories are there from around the ages of four to seven and beginning school. ”
Those memories are rooted in the capital’s bus routes and an appetite for exploration. “When I was old enough to travel on my own, I used to take the number 31 and 26 buses. I’d get on when I was nine or ten and go all the way to the end, just to see where they would take me.” He recalls slipping through broken railings into the Water of Leith, what’s known as the “green lung” and “falling into the river” to his mother’s horror. He would also row out to Cramond Island in a small homemade dinghy with his brother. “It was dangerous,” he admits today, having recently revisited some of those places of childhood adventure. Although his parents had bought a school uniform for Edinburgh’s Royal High, he never had the chance to wear it as the family relocated to Blackpool just before his secondary education began.
By the late 1960s, his restless and nomadic spirit had carried him into the heart of British rock’s most mythologised period. In December 1968, Jethro Tull appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, alongside John Lennon, The Who, and the Stones themselves. “Some memories are good, some are sad,” he says. “Brian Jones was a really benign and modest guy, but he wasn’t in good shape (it would be his final performance with the Stones before his death in July 1969).
He had been ostracised from the other members of the band as he was a bit doolally and not able to play.” He recalls Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts as friendly, Keith Richards as distant, and Mick Jagger as fiercely driven. “He didn’t want to come off second best to The Who,” Anderson says. “He pushed himself hard but ended up blowing his voice during rehearsals.”
While John Lennon was on the bill, they didn’t talk on this occasion. It’s not inconceivable that they crossed paths in Edinburgh during the 1950s when Lennon was visiting his wider family in Ormidale Terrace. The Tull frontman does recall a wave from him when they were both on Top of the Pops in February 1970. Tull performed The Witch’s Promise while Lennon sang Instant Karma. Of Lennon, Anderson was quietly admiring. “I was never a huge Beatles fan, but John was the one I liked most. He had originality and attitude. Paul was more polite, more of a crooner. John had a nasally twang to his voice and came up with great elements of the songs, which we were encouraged to believe they wrote together.”
Encounters with other giants of the time left similar impressions. He first met Jimi Hendrix in Stockholm at the end of the 1960s. “He was shy and self-effacing,” Anderson recalls. “I ended up dragging him into his own press conference. He hated those things.” They shared a bill at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, weeks before Hendrix’s death.
“I think he was led astray by hangers-on,” Anderson reflects. “The simple pleasures of sex, drugs, and rock and roll took their toll.” With Led Zeppelin, Tull toured with them for a U.S. arena tour in 1969. Anderson grew friendly with Jimmy Page but remained distant from Robert Plant. “I wasn’t a party guy,” he says. “If you weren’t into that, you didn’t really fit in. My reserve was taken as hostility, which wasn’t true.” He first encountered Plant in 1968 at a London club. “It was immediately obvious he had talent and confidence,” he says. “A short time later, he was in Led Zeppelin.”
Anderson’s success with Tull was happening at the same time. When he was asked to keep up interest while on tour in America, his manager asked him to write a song for UK radio. “I was told to write something catchy to keep the pot boiling,” he recalls. “I jokingly said, ‘Give me an hour,’ but I dutifully went up to my hotel room and wrote a song.” He delivered a track in an unusual time signature, inspired by Dave Brubeck’s Take Five and Blue Rondo à la Turk. “It was about as uncommercial as you could make it with the time signature and the title of the song,” he laughs. “But it was a top 3 hit in the UK and was also a hit in the US (reaching number 11) a few years later. They didn’t want to release it at the time in the States, as they felt it was a step too far, but it served its function.”
In 1971, Anderson returned to Edinburgh with Tull to play The Usher Hall as a major touring act. For the singer, it was deeply personal. His older brother was managing a pharmacy on Princes Street. “I walked in to see him,” Anderson recalls. “He didn’t recognise me. He thought I’d come in to complain.” When recognition dawned, the reaction was unforgettable. “He was shocked, surprised, and impressed that the little brother had come good. I invited him to the concert that night. He was astonished.”
As he prepares to return to The Usher Hall this spring, Anderson remains reflective of those formative years rather than nostalgic. The Lothian buses, sailing to Cramond Island, the brother in the pharmacy on Princes Street, the smoky corridors with Hendrix, the shows with Zeppelin all form part of a continuing story that remains rather than a distant past. “Growing up never really stops,” he says. “It’s something you never draw a line under,” he adds thoughtfully. “I’m still working on it now.”
Jethro Tull: The Usher Hall, 22 April 7.30pm
cultureedinburgh.com
