Review of Jethro Tull's Stand Up

Released 1969

" Spent a long time looking for a game to play. My luck should be so bad now to turn out this way. Oh, I had to leave today just when I thought I'd found you. It was a new day yesterday, but it's an old day now."

I think that this was one of the first albums I bought when I moved up to Glasgow. It was either bought from Lost In Music in DeCourcey's arcade behind Byres Road in Glasgow or it was one of my last purchased from the outdoor market in Helston in Cornwall.

Either way, I shall be honest and say that my purchase was driven by a combination of the bands name (with echoes of O Level History) and that this was an original copy, designed to look like a wood carving complete with pop-up band members in the gate fold sleeve.

I knew nothing about Jethro Tull when I took the album home (or back to the halls of residence), but gauged from the year of it's release and the line-up of musical instruments, including flute and hammond organ, that this would be a worthwhile of spending £2.

The only flute playing I had come across thus far on my prog rock odyssey was by Peter Gabriel. I associated the hammond organ more with mainstream rock music than more obviously definable prog rock music, so I was intrigued to see what sort of animal Jethro Tull might prove
to be.

From the outset, I was surprised that this was considered a prog rock record. This was very competent, extremely worthy rock music, but it's roots were an odd combination of blues and folk. The rumbling drum and bass guitar and intermittent organ of the opening track is punctuated by Ian Anderson's highly unique vocal delivery, which was much more akin to the folk genre than any other, thereby potentially alienating a huge number of music fans in the process who couldn't see past the stereotypical image of the folk singer with the woolly jumper, the pint of real-ale with a finger in his ear, warbling on about past times and past peoples.

However neither the subject matter or the musical accompaniment has a great deal in common with folk per se, providing a unique dichotomy between the vocal and the instrumentation which
leans it nicely prog direction. On my first listen, the nasal vocal and blues rock accompaniment to A New Day Yesterday made me curious; curious as to when a normal style of singing would begin. In the same way that Peter Gabriel jumps from voice to voice, I expected Ian Anderson to suddenly shift gear and be more conventional. Realising fairly quickly that this wasn't going to happen, I found myself moving from curious to 'oh dear'.

With Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square it started to fit; the flute, the various acoustic accoutrement's and the voice certainly fitted together, being resolutely folk and no worse for it.

I realised that I had heard Bouree before and loved the clever merging of classical music and mad grunting that somehow worked well as an innovative proggy instrumental.

The remainder of the album continued to add to a cornucopia of musical types. I began to warm to the very tight rhythms, blistering guitar interludes, gentle acoustic asides and the inexcessive use of flute. My curiosity regarding the vocal had morphed into a fascination.

Yes there was a wide use of instruments employed in a wide range of musical styles, but I struggled at the end of the album to see it as a prog release. If I had to sit down with a prog virgin and select examples from my record collection which demonstrated the various traits of prog, I would struggle to find any credible moments on Stand Up. It's a fine, fine album but prog? I don't think so.

I learned in the next few years of the generally regarded 'classic' Tull albums such as Aqualung and Thick as A Brick, which any measure are clearly shining examples of the genre. I subsequently went back and reappraised Stand Up, thinking I'd missed something. Even now, many years on, my opinion is unaltered.