Friday 12/4/2020 12:30am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – Benefit (1970)

Benefit is the third studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released in April 1970. It was the first Tull album to include pianist and organist John Evan – though he was not yet considered a permanent member of the group – and the last to include bass guitarist Glenn Cornick who was fired from the band upon completion of touring for the album. It was recorded at Morgan Studios, the same studio where the band recorded its previous album Stand Up however the band experimented with more advanced recording techniques.

Frontman Ian Anderson said that he considers Benefit to be a much darker album than Stand Up, owing to the pressures of an extensive U.S. tour and frustration with the music business.

1. “With You There to Help Me” 6:20
2. “Nothing to Say” 5:13
3. “Alive and Well and Living In” 2:48
4. “Son” 2:53
5. “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” 3:49
6. “To Cry You a Song” 6:16
7. “A Time for Everything?” 2:45
8. “Inside” 3:38
9. “Play in Time” 3:49
10. “Sossity; You’re a Woman” 4:37
11. “Singing All Day” 3:07
12. “Sweet Dream” 4:03
13. “17” 6:20
14. “Teacher (UK Single Version)” 4:58
15. “Teacher (US Album Version)” 4:03

Ian Anderson – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar (uncredited), flute, balalaika, keyboards, production
Martin Barre – electric guitar
Glenn Cornick – bass guitar, Hammond organ (uncredited)
Clive Bunker – drums, percussion
Dee Palmer – orchestral arrangements
John Evan – piano, organ

Thursday 10/29/2020 12am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – Crest of a Knave (1987)

Crest of a Knave is the sixteenth studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull, released in 1987. The album was recorded after a three year hiatus caused by a throat infection of vocalist Ian Anderson, resulting in a changed vocal style by Anderson. Following the unsuccessful electronic rock album Under Wraps, Crest of a Knave saw the band returning to a more hard rock sound. The album was their most successful since the 1970s, and the band enjoyed a resurgence on radio broadcasts, appearances in MTV specials, and the airing of music videos. It was also a critical favourite, winning the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental in what was widely viewed as an upset over the favorite, Metallica’s …And Justice for All. The album was supported by “The Not Quite the World, More the Here and There Tour”.

1. “Steel Monkey” 3:39
2. “Farm on the Freeway” 6:31
3. “Jump Start” 4:55
4. “Said She Was a Dancer” 3:43
5. “Dogs in the Midwinter” 4:37
6. “Budapest” 10:05
7. “Mountain Men” 6:20
8. “The Waking Edge” 4:49
9. “Raising Steam” 4:05
10. “Part of the Machine” 6:54

Thursday 8/13/2020 12pm ET: Feature Artist – Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially playing blues rock and jazz fusion, the band later developed their sound to incorporate elements of hard rock and folk to forge a progressive rock signature. The band is led by vocalist/flautist/guitarist Ian Anderson, and has featured a revolving door of lineups through the years including significant members such as guitarists Mick Abrahams and Martin Barre, keyboardists John Evan and Dee Palmer, drummers Clive Bunker, Barriemore Barlow, and Doane Perry, and bassists Glenn Cornick, Jeffrey Hammond, John Glascock, and Dave Pegg.

The group first achieved commercial success in 1969, with the folk-tinged electric blues album Stand Up, which reached No. 1 in the UK, and they toured regularly in the UK and the US. Their musical style shifted in the direction of progressive rock with the albums Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972) and A Passion Play (1973), and shifted again to hard rock mixed with folk rock with Songs from the Wood (1977) and Heavy Horses (1978). After an excursion into electronic rock in the early-to-mid 1980s, the band won its sole Grammy Award with the 1987 album Crest of a Knave. Jethro Tull have sold an estimated 60 million albums worldwide, with 11 gold and five platinum albums among them. They have been described by Rolling Stone as “one of the most commercially successful and eccentric progressive rock bands”.

The last works as a group to contain new material were released in 2003, though the band continued to tour until 2011. Anderson said Jethro Tull were finished in 2014; however, in September 2017 he announced plans for a tour to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the band’s first album This Was. The compilation 50 for 50 was released in 2018.

The reformed group—now billed as “Ian Anderson and the Jethro Tull band”—still performs live, and has announced tour dates into 2021. The current band line-up includes musicians who have been members of Anderson’s solo band since 2012.

Wednesday 12am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – Songs From The Wood (40th Anniversary) 2017

Songs from the Wood is the tenth studio album by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released February 1977. The album signaled a new direction for the band, who turned to celebrating British pagan folklore and the countryside life in a wide-ranging folk rock style which combined traditional instruments and melodies with hard rock drums and electric guitars.

The album is considered to be the first of a trio of folk rock albums: Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses (1978) and Stormwatch (1979). An extended title line appears on the album cover: “Jethro Tull – with kitchen prose, gutter rhymes and divers – Songs from the Wood”. The title track contains two of these phrases in its lyrics.

The UK music-paper adverts read: “Jethro Tull present ‘Songs From The Wood’. A new album of Old Magic. Songs From The Wood. It’s inspired by the thought that perhaps nature isn’t as gentle as we’d like to believe. And it takes as its theme the natural and supernatural inhabitants of the woodlands of old England. Warm and friendly, harsh and bitter by turns, it includes ‘Ring Out Solstice Bells’ as well as Tull’s new single ‘The Whistler’ and seven other songs. Find a quiet spot and listen to it soon.”

On May 17, 2017 Jethro Tull released a five disc ‘bookset’ version of Songs from the Wood with a 96-page booklet that includes a track-by-track annotation of the album and its associated recordings by Ian Anderson. It is similar to the band’s other 40th Anniversary reissues, with the first disc containing another Steven Wilson stereo remix followed by ‘associated recordings’ including the previously unreleased “Old Aces Die Hard” and “Working John, Working Joe.” The second and third discs contain 22 previously unreleased live tracks, recorded on the American leg of their 1977 Songs From The Wood Tour, from November 21 (Landover, Maryland) and December 6th (Boston), remixed to stereo by Jakko Jakszyk. The set also includes DVDs.

CD 1:
1. “Songs From The Wood” 4:55
2. “Jack-In-The-Green” 2:31
3. “Cup Of Wonder” 4:34
4. “Hunting Girl” 5:10
5. “Ring Out, Solstice Bells” 3:48
6. “Velvet Green” 6:05
7. “The Whistler” 3:31
8. “Pibroch (Cap In Hand)” 8:35
9. “Fire At Midnight” 2:27
10. “Old Aces Die Hard (previously unreleased)” 8:41
11. “Working John, Working Joe (previously unreleased)” 5:11
12. “Magic Bells (Ring Out, Solstice Bells)” 3:25
13. “Songs From The Wood (unedited master)” 4:53
14. “Fire At Midnight (previously unreleased unedited master)” 2:35
15. “One Brown Mouse (early version)” 3:35
16. “Strip Cartoon” 3:19
17. “The Whistler (US Stereo Single Mix)” 3:32

CD2 Live 1977
1. “Wond’ring Aloud” 2:33
2. “Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day” 4:04
3. “Jack-In-The-Green” 3:14
4. “Thick As A Brick” 13:15
5. “Songs From The Wood” 6:01
6. “Instrumental” 2:27
7. “Drum Solo Improvisation” 4:16
8. “To Cry You A Song” 2:33
9. “A New Day Yesterday” 2:54
10. “Flute Solo Improvisation interpolating – God Rest Ye Gentlemen/Bourée” 8:14
11. “Living In The Past/ A New Day Yesterday (reprise)” 2:32

CD3 Live 1977
1. “Velvet Green” 6:26
2. “Hunting Girl” 5:39
3. “Too Old To Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young To Die” 4:16
4. “Minstrel In The Gallery” 5:39
5. “Cross-Eyed Mary” 3:45
6. “Aqualung” 8:32
7. “Instrumental Improvisation” 3:31
8. “Wind-Up” 4:54
9. “Back Door Angels / Guitar Improvisation /Wind Up (reprise)” 7:15
10. “Locomotive Breath” 5:47
11. “Land Of Hope And Glory / Improvisation / Back Door Angels (reprise)” 4:00

Wednesday 12am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – A Passion Play (1973)

A Passion Play is the sixth studio album by Jethro Tull, released in July 1973 in both UK and US. Like its predecessor, Thick as a Brick (1972), it is a concept album comprising individual songs arranged into a single continuous piece of music (which is split into two parts on the original vinyl LP release). The theme of the concept is apparently the spiritual journey of one man (Ronnie Pilgrim) in the afterlife. In the original tour to support the album, three videos were used: one for the intro of the “play”, a second for “The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles”, and a final short segment to conclude the act. The whole of the concert was the high water mark of Jethro Tull’s elaborate stage productions.

Despite initially receiving generally negative reviews, with many critics comparing it unfavourably to Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play became Jethro Tull’s second No. 1 album in the United States.

1. “A Passion Play, part I
I. “Act 1: Ronnie Pilgrim’s funeral — a winter’s morning in the cemetery”
I. “Lifebeats” (instrumental)
II. “Prelude” (instrumental)
III. “The Silver Cord”
IV. “Re-Assuring Tune” (instrumental)
II. “Act 2: The Memory Bank — a small but comfortable theatre with a cinema-screen (the next morning)”
I. “Memory Bank”
II. “Best Friends”
III. “Critique Oblique”
IV. “Forest Dance #1” (instrumental)
III. “Interlude: The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles”
I. “The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles” (Ian Anderson, Jeffrey Hammond, John Evan)”

2. “A Passion Play, part II
I. “Interlude: The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles”
I. “The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles” (Anderson, Hammond, Evan)
II. “Act 3: The business office of G. Oddie & Son (two days later)”
I. “Forest Dance #2” (instrumental)
II. “The Foot of Our Stairs”
III. “Overseer Overture”
III. “Act 4: Magus Perdé’s drawing room at midnight”
I. “Flight from Lucifer”
II. “10:08 to Paddington” (instrumental)
III. “Magus Perdé”
IV. “Epilogue””

Saturday 12am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – 50 For 50 (2018)

50 for 50 is a boxed set which spans fifty years of Jethro Tull, released in 2018. It includes some of the band’s biggest hits from 1968 to 2003.

“Nothing Is Easy”
“Love Story”
“Beggar’s Farm”
“Living in the Past”
“A Song for Jeffrey”
“A New Day Yesterday”
“The Witch’s Promise”
“Mother Goose”
“With You There to Help Me”
“Teacher” (U.S. version)
“Life’s a Long Song”
“Sweet Dream”
“Aqualung”
“Minstrel in the Gallery”
“Critique Oblique”
“Weathercock”
“Cross-Eyed Mary”
“Boureé”
“Dun Ringill”
“Heavy Horses”
“Hunting Girl”
“Bungle in the Jungle”
“Salamander”
“Pussy Willow”
“Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die”
“Songs from the Wood”
“The Whistler”
“Really Don’t Mind/See There a Son Is Born”
“Moths”
“One White Duck / 010 = Nothing At All”
“Cup of Wonder”
“Ring Out Solstice Bells”
“Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of the New Day)”
“A Christmas Song”
“One Brown Mouse”
“Rare and Precious Chain”
“Kissing Willie”
“Rocks on the Road”
“Fylingdale Flyer”
“Paparazzi”
“North Sea Oil”
“Steel Monkey”
“Black Sunday”
“European Legacy”
“Budapest”
“Broadsword”
“Dot Com”
“Farm on the Freeway”
“This Is Not Love”
“Locomotive Breath”

Tuesday 12am ET: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – Minstrel in the Gallery (1975)

Minstrel in the Gallery is the eighth studio album by British band Jethro Tull, recorded in April and released September 5, 1975. The album goes in a different direction from their previous work War Child (1974), with the orchestration being replaced by a string quartet conducted by David Palmer. The band also returned to the blend of electric and acoustic pieces, in a manner closer to their early ’70s albums such as Benefit (1970), Aqualung (1971) and Thick as a Brick (1972), and for the first time since their two concept albums of Thick as a Brick (1972) and A Passion Play (1973), they recorded a song of more than ten minutes, which occupies almost all of the second side of the record.

It would be the last album to feature bassist Jeffrey Hammond, who was replaced by former Carmen bass player John Glascock.

1. “Minstrel in the Gallery” 8:13
2. “Cold Wind to Valhalla” 4:19
3. “Black Satin Dancer” 6:52
4. “Requiem” 3:45

1. “One White Duck / 010 = Nothing at All” 4:37
2. “Baker St. Muse”
a) “Pig-Me and the Whore”
b) “Nice Little Tune”
c) “Crash-Barrier Waltzer”
d) “Mother England Reverie” 16:39
3. “Grace” 0:37
4. “Summerday Sands” 3:32
5. ” March The Mad Scientist” 1:44
6. “Pan Dance” 3:11

Wednesday 4pm: Sounds of The 70s

This week on the Sounds of The 70s, music from:  Frankie Valli, Wet Willie, John Miles, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, David Dundas, Wayne Newton, Electric Light Orchestra, Jethro Tull, KC & The Sunshine Band, Jackson 5 and many more . . . 

Thursday 6pm: Across The Tracks: Featuring – One (Part 3)

This installment of Across The Tracks feature tune with “ONE” in the title.  We’ll feature music from James Taylor, Laura Branigan, Queen, Ronnie Dyson, Deep Purple, Tommy Cash, Murray Head, Wallflowers, Jethro Tull and much more across the tracks and genres.  

Wednesday 10pm: Feature LP: Jethro Tull – Heavy Horses New Shoes Edition (2018)

Heavy Horses is the eleventh studio album by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released on 10 April 1978. It is considered the second album in a trilogy of folk-rock albums by Jethro Tull, although folk music’s influence is evident on a great number of Jethro Tull releases. The album abandons much of the folk lyrical content typical of the previous studio album, Songs from the Wood (1977), in exchange for a more realist perspective on the changing world – the album is dedicated to the “indigenous working ponies and horses of Great Britain”. Likewise, the band sound is harder and tighter. The third album in the folk-rock trilogy is Stormwatch (1979). An expanded, five-disk version was released on 2 March 2018.

On 2 March 2018 Jethro Tull released a five-disc ‘bookset’ version of Heavy Horses with a 96-page booklet that includes a track-by-track annotation of the album and its associated recordings by Ian Anderson. It is similar to the band’s other 40th Anniversary reissues, with the first disc containing another Steven Wilson stereo remix followed by ‘associated recordings’ including seven previously unreleased tracks. The second and third discs contain 22 previously unreleased live tracks, recorded at the Festhalle in Berne Switzerland during the European leg of their 1978 Heavy Horses Tour, from 28 May 1978, remixed to stereo by Jakko Jakszyk. The set also includes DVDs.

1. “…And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps”
2. “Acres Wild”
3. “No Lullaby”
4. “Moths”
5. “Journeyman”
6. “Rover”
7. “One Brown Mouse”
8. “Heavy Horses”
9. “Weathercock”
10. “Living In These Hard Times (version 2, previously unreleased)”
11. “Everything In Our Lives (previously unreleased)”
12. “Jack A Lynn (early version, previously unreleased)”
13. “Quatrain (studio version, previously unreleased)”
14. “Horse-Hoeing Husbandry (previously unreleased)”
15. “Beltane”
16. “Botanic Man (previously unreleased)”
17. “Living In These Hard Times (version 1)”
18. “Botanic Man Theme (previously unreleased)”

We are feature CD1 of the package.

Wednesday 2pm: Sounds of The 70’s

Today on Sounds of the 70’s, music from Warren Zevon, Allman Brothers Band, Betty Wright, Supremes, Jimmy Buffett, Abba, Jethro Tull, Jean Knight, Carol Douglas, Doobie Brothers, Elton John, Stampeders, Led Zeppelin and more . . .  

Wednesday 9pm: Dominic Forbes Rock Talk with Martin Barre

Join Dominic Forbes with his interview of Martin Barre of Jethro Tull.  Music featured in this hour Thick As A Brick, Locomotive Breath, Aqualung, Cross Eyed Mary.  Immediately following join us for Jethro Tull our Feature Artist at 10pm.
 
Martin Lancelot Barre (born 17 November 1946) is an English rock musician best known for his work with progressive rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he recorded and toured from their second album in 1969 to the band’s initial dissolution in 2012. In the early 1990s he initiated a solo career that has now spawned four studio albums plus several guest appearances.

He has also played the flute and other instruments such as the mandolin, both on stage for Jethro Tull and in his own solo work.

On the first album that Barre recorded with Jethro Tull, Stand Up, he said that he was: “terrified because I had just joined the band. It really showed a change in direction for the band and when it was accepted and became a successful album, we gained a lot of confidence. We extended that confidence into the making of Benefit, in which we were a lot more at ease.” On the next album, the world success Aqualung, Martin was more confident, stating that in the recording: “Everybody [the band] had input into the making of the album.”

In the following period, his solos blended virtuosity with classical music, like on Minstrel in the Gallery, where the opening track has a four-minute solo, or his piece (shared with Barrie Barlow) “Conundrum” and “Quatrain” in Bursting Out. Martin declared that much of the material from Jethro Tull catalogue was written by himself and Ian Anderson, with Ian getting the credit for writing the lyrics and having the initial idea for the music, which: “then I, or someone else in the band, contribute parts to it.” There are two albums where he is credited for having put “additional material,” both classics Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses, which Martin has already stated to be two of the albums which show his best playing. Curiously, his favourite album in Jethro Tull is the most controversial of the band’s career, Under Wraps, which contains two tracks co-authored by him. On his work with Jethro Tull, Martin also stated: “I’m quite pleased with my playing on Crest of a Knave, which was basically me, Ian and [bassist] Dave Pegg working in the studio for two months, so I had ample time to put a lot of myself into that album.” He is credited in only another two tracks of Jethro Tull albums: “Hot Mango Flush,” from J-Tull Dot Com and “Winter Snowscape” from The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. For his contribution to Jethro Tull music, Martin stated: “I’ve done bits and pieces on albums. Sometimes it’s a riff; sometimes it’s a little segment of music … I don’t mind taking a small role in the writing, and a larger input into the arrangement and playing.”

About the end of his involvement in Tull, Barre stated in 2015 that “It’s important that people realize there will never be a Jethro Tull again. There will be two solo bands: the Ian Anderson Band and the Martin Barre Band, and long may they exist, and long may they enjoy playing music. I’m not being pedantic. I always hate to hear, “Oh, you’ve left Jethro Tull.” I haven’t really. Ian wanted to finish Jethro Tull, wanted to stop the band completely.” – Wikipedia

Sunday with Ron Kovacs (8a – 12p) ET

Join Ron Kovacs for another edition of Sunday.  This week music from Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Steeleye Span, The Band, The Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Mamas & the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Ryan Adams, Joan Armatrading, Beck, Jackson Browne, Harry Chapin, Tracy Chapman, Jim Croce, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Dan Fogleberg, Steve Forbert, Ben Howard, Carole King, Mark Knopfler, Gordon Lightfoot, Van Morrison, Patrick Park, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen, Cat Stevens, Teddy Thompson, Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, Warren Zevon and more . .. .   Live starting 8am on RadioMaxMusic.

Rock Talk with Dominic Forbes 10pm ET

This week Dominic Forbes chats with Martin Barre on Rock Talk:   

Martin Lancelot Barre (17 November 1946, Kings Heath, Birmingham, West Midlands, England) is an English rock musician.  Barre was the guitarist for rock band Jethro Tull, starting with the band’s second album in 1969. Barre once said that he tried not to listen to other guitarists so that he would not be influenced by them. He said he never took guitar lessons so that he would not sound like other players.  He has also played the flute, both on-stage for Jethro Tull and in his own solo work.