Despite having spent a significant part of my formative musical years immersing myself in all things Prog (alongside Punk and Post Punk. Go figure) JETHRO TULL never hit this teenager's radar unlike Yes, Genesis,Van Der Graf Generator et al, the latter in fact a favourite of one Mr. J. Rotten, so maybe I was onto something.
Thus, as unbelievable as it may seem given my track record, I approach the seminal 1971 album 'Aqualung' an unsullied listening virgin. Mind you this is no re-issue cash-in but a live revisit recorded at the end of 2004 with the band donating all proceeds from the special edition to various charities for the homeless.
I'm stumped from the outset as the opening segment of the title track is just so Spinal Tap all I can envisage is lead singer Ian Anderson trapped in some kind of pod warbling (and he does warble with a strangely nasal twang that seems more akin to the voices of the Goons than a veteran rock 'n' roller) towards dwarves dancing around miniatures of "Stone'Enge".
Things quickly improve and it soon becomes apparent that on many levels 'Aqualung' the album (or certainly its live version) is far less prog and much more folk rock and on the whole an interesting time-piece that in parts seems fresh and relevant in today's brave new world of 'cool' folk, Britannia or otherwise. The innocent and quirky 'Mother Goose' certainly covers much of the territory currently occupied by Devendra Banhart while the brief but illuminating acoustic strum of 'Wand'ring Aloud' is just a simple earthy pleasure, no less affecting than say Zeppelin's 'Going to California'.
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On 'Crosseyed Mary', 'Up To Me' and 'My God' they also flaunt their love of the riff and the theatrics of rock that positions them closer to the likes of Sabbath and Focus than say Steeleye Span. And you've gotta love those flute solos.
By the end the most interesting aspect of the whole enterprise is the easy charm of Anderson and cohorts in re-positioning their 25 year old album from a relic of the past to a rallying cry for the boundless freedom of folk music and, if you will, a prog-enitor worth investigating for the current wave of musicians pushing and pulling at the genre's boundaries.
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