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5/25/06 - Ian Anderson Awarded at "Ivors": Ian Anderson walked away with the Lifetime Achievement award at the Ivor Novello Awards, a yearly songwriting awards show presented yearly by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.

5/25/06 - Orchestral Tull Dates in the U.S.: Ian Anderson will be performing shows with various orchestras throughout the U.S. this summer. For more, check the latest tour dates.
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TULL TICKER ARCHIVE

Jethro Tull will pass on the rocking chairs, thank you

Legendary '70s band is still rolling with blues-jazz-folk sounds

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Jethro Tull dished out a semi-sarcastic song (and album) called "Too Old to Rock and Roll (too young to die)."

Who knew we'd still be asking about it and pondering the consequences, all these years later?

"We had no faith in the durability of rock and roll in those days," ruminates the group's creative mainstay Ian Anderson.

"Back then, if you were really lucky you'd get to make two or three records and then you'd open a little restaurant. We were brainwashed 'cause that's what happened with pop musicians - even though some of the blues and jazz guys I admired back then, like Muddy Waters and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, were already seasoned pros with no intentions of quitting. Now, in hindsight, we see that the rock of the '70s became a form of classical music, and that we could keep revisiting those themes."

They're no longer the arena headliners and 60 million-album sellers they once were - mentioned in the same breath with the likes of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Genesis in terms of artistic accomplishment and popularity. 

But Anderson, longtime guitar colleague Martin Barre and the rest of the "new" Jethro Tull are still kicking up a lot of dust with their unique and arty mix of hard blues, wailing jazz, minstrel-in-the-gallery folk, classical pomp and exotic ethnic strains.

Ian's voice sounds as good as ever, and he's a much better flute player now than he was in the '70s, when this dramatic, Dickensian-styled stage figure souped up his light whistling with lots of exhuberant (Kirk-like) wheezing and humming sounds.

In fact, Ian Anderson has become a bit of a draw on the classical concert circuit, too, with upcoming peformances planned with symphony orchestras in Germany and Italy, doing up the music of Tull. (Not bad for a self-taught player who still can't read music!)

At the moment, the 55-year-old Anderson is happy to be touting two new Jethro Tull wares - a performance CD and a concert DVD, both called "Living with the Past," although the contents of each are radically different. The audio disc mostly spotlights the current Tull blokes - some of whom have only been around for a decade or so - while the video delivers a recent reunion of the still-surviving original band mates.

Oh, and come Tuesday night, the New Jethro Tull will also be concertizing here at the none-too-shabby Academy of Music. 

Off stage as well as on, Ian Anderson has always seemed a figure full of lyrical fire and brimstone - especially regarding the evils done to mankind in the name of religion. (And how prophetic has he proven, of late, in that regard?)

But these days his "locomotive breath" has cooled some. The man's become much friendlier, self-effacing and, egads, even joke-cracking in interviews. Clearly Anderson is grateful to still be walking this earth, and happy to be tossing feed to his exotic blue chickens as he tosses bon mots to a reporter from his country estate 100 miles outside London. "Even the eggs are blue," he crows.

It's also revealed in our chat that his ominous "too young to die" lyric has come back to haunt Anderson, more than once. 

"In fact, that line was sparked by a real life-and-death experience - one of those white-knuckle plane rides in a thunderstorm where you swear if you get out alive, you'll become a nun," he cracks. "But then you manage to land and 50 feet up the runway, you've forgotten all about it and start talking about the sound check that night."

Then, six years ago, Anderson suffered another life-threatening experience on a plane. The travails began with him tearing ligaments in his left knee, then refusing to quit an already underway tour. "I did two weeks of shows in South America in a wheel chair," he relates - quite a switch from his trademarked theatrical posture - balancing on one leg as he toots on his flute.

"Afterwards, I had to fly back to England and then on to Australia. The last flight almost killed me, because I couldn't get up and walk around and keep the blood circulating.

"By the time I got to Australia, I was feeling intense pain. A big blood clot had developed, going all the way from the ankle to the groin. They rushed me to the hospital, where I was laid up for two weeks. It's amazing this clot didn't break up, go to my lungs and do me in."

Anderson has since become a spokesman for his ailment - deep vein thrombosis - through a Web site called spotlighthealth

.com "that uses so-called celebrities like me and Larry King and Montel Williams to tell their gory stories to wake up the public."

Band colleague Martin Barre - with Tull since its second album, "Stand Up" - has also suffered health problems. The guitarist developed work-related repetitive strain injuries so severe "that doctors recommended surgery on his arm which might have ended his playing career. That's why we rushed to stage a reunion concert of the original Tull band for a video taping" - that DVD version of "Living with the Past." "We didn't know if the surgery would take, though now he's up and about again, playing in the band." And sporting an elbow brace by "his favorite French Couture surgical supplier, Trussem," Anderson kids. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Anderson the performer is once again balancing on one leg - "it wasn't the bum one" - though "only for a few minutes for the photographers to take their shots."

JONATHAN TAKIFF,
Philadelphia Daily News