Ian Anderson reflects on 50 years of Jethro Tull — and his left turn into farming

When music pundits debate the best bands not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the conversation ultimately turns to Jethro Tull.

The British unit fronted by flutist Ian Anderson was one of the biggest bands of the 1970s, when it earned 11 gold albums. It played Madison Square Garden 18 times, according to Setlist.fm, including every year of the ’70s except 1970, ’74 and ’76.

A website dedicated to the snubs, notinhalloffame.com, named Tull the third most deserving band still knocking on the hall doors after Kraftwerk and Oasis. Kraftwerk was nominated this year and Oasis just became eligible in January.

Jethro Tull didn’t even get nominated in 2019. Progressive rock bands generally get little respect from hall of fame voters, but Tull became a symbol of their denigration in 1989 when it was ridiculed for winning the first Grammy Award for Best Heavy Metal Band over the obviously harder-rocking Metallica and Jane’s Addiction.

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But that doesn’t seem to bother Anderson. The articulate, highly literate composer of such rock classics as “Aqualung,” “Locomotive Breath” and “Living in the Past” is proud of his reputation of not fitting neatly into any one musical category.

Anderson, 71, brings his latest incarnation of Jethro Tull, featuring his ensemble from his last solo act, to Fantasy Springs Resort Casino July 5 as part of an anniversary tour marking 50 years since a booking agent named Anderson’s fledgling blues band after an 18th century agriculturist. Anderson's 2017 album, "Jethro Tull – The String Quartets," featured the Carducci String Quartet, but this concert will feature the band's most popular repertoire.

Anderson, born in Scotland but raised to speak the Queen's English in Blackpool, Lancashire, discussed his half century with Tull in a telephone interview with a reporter culminating his 40 years with The Desert Sun, which became a starting point. The interview was edited for length and clarity.

THE DESERT SUN: This is my last Desert Sun interview and, looking back at my career, I realize this isn’t what I set out to do, but it’s better than how I thought it would end. So, let me ask you, when you were starting out, did you think this is where your journey would lead you?

IAN ANDERSON: Well, I suppose everybody starts out with different ideas that become a fantasy of where life might take you. In my early childhood, that was suggested by literature — children’s comics, I suppose. I went through all this in “Thick As A Brick 2.” That album was about what you might become in your life. The original “Thick As A Brick” was seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old schoolboy who is infused with some of the stereotypes of growing up post-World War II.

“Thick As A Brick” took that on so well, we did (the sequel) in the spirit of that: “Whatever happened to Gerald Bostock?" (the fictional schoolboy). We looked at the various options that might have resulted in his choices along the way, kind of mirroring not only my life, but the life of your ex-president George (W.) Bush, who, in an autobiography called “Decision Points,” describes his pivotal moments as he reached certain crossroads. I was 17 when I exited grammar school, having really been expelled for a misdemeanor, and I thought, “What am I going to do?” I went to enroll in the Blackpool police cadet force and they wouldn’t let me because I had too many examination (dis)qualifications. So I went to the local Blackpool Evening Gazette to become a journalist. They didn’t even need a tea boy (go-fer), so my third choice was to be an international rock star. That seemed to work out fine.

Were you really expelled for refusing to accept corporal punishment?

Yes, that was the reason I got removed. I said, "I’ll accept another form of punishment, but I won’t allow you to get whatever mysterious satisfaction you get from an old man" – late 50s or early 60s, actually – "beating a young boy on the buttocks with a cane."

Your music seems so literate. How did you discover a love for learning?

Well, for a couple years I went to art college, studying painting and drawing. It seems everyone over here (in England) went to art school to learn to be a musician. But that gave us some of the elements of creativity. We use the same terms in the “painterly” world as we do in music. We talk about line and tone and form and color and harmony. As an expression, music was far more immediate. You pick up a guitar, you make a noise, you entertain people or they throw things at you. If you’re a painter, it could be after your death before you’re recognized and that seemed to be an awfully long time. So I thought, “I’ll take that chance and go for potential reward now, being a musician.”

What were your early inspirations?

I would have to say what infused me musically in my late teens is pretty much the same as now. I grew up hearing church music and Scottish folk music and that went on 'til I first heard rock 'n' roll when I was 9 years old. I heard Elvis Presley sing “Heartbreak Hotel.” That’s the one that spoke volumes to British youth.

More: 10 songs showing the development of Jethro Tull

Bill Haley was perhaps the first sight we caught of a rock 'n' roll American (with) “Rock Around the Clock.” Many of us thought, ‘Oh, that sounds sexy and interesting.” But then we looked again and saw a middle-aged man, a little overweight and looking a bit uncomfortable playing what was basically sped-up country music. White man’s rock and roll, to begin with, was Elvis. There was something darker about him, which we didn’t really know until a few years later when (electric blues pioneer) Muddy Waters came on the scene as part of the traveling train of blues musicians brought to Europe by my good friend to-be, the German legendary promoter Fritz Rau. He got these guys (Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim and more) over from the U.S.A. They were part of a series called the (American) Folk Blues Festival.

I guess I was 18 when I first saw Buddy Guy and J.B. Lenoir and a few others in Manchester. This was the real deal. You were looking at people from a different culture, a different history. We didn’t know then what we know now about the history of black American culture. We just knew it was something seductive and interesting and inspiring. That is what kicked off the whole British blues thing during the mid-‘60s and gave rise to all the spin-offs, from the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin.

I love your string quartet album. It sounds like you've studied and appreciated great classical music despite coming from a blues background. What inspired some of your career left turns?

I’ve never studied classical music, but I do listen to it. I started with classical music seriously in the early ‘70s. It came through a Stanley Kubrick movie, which employed the music of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, “A Clockwork Orange,” which was scored by Wendy Carlos. It was shiny new, programmable synthesizer music, which she (used to) faithfully reproduce the 9th Symphony. It became a starting point for me and I quickly moved to (Herbert) Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, which is probably where I got into symphonic classical music in a way that was very inspiring. Over the years, I just continued to listen to a bigger variety of classical music. At the moment, my favorite is Handel.

I heard a radio interview in which you were talking about all the different kinds of music that was re-arranged from the same four notes, starting with Beethoven’s Fifth. Do you remember that?

Yes. The world’s iconic riffs that stay in the minds – sometimes in classical music, often in folk music and, on a very regular basis, in blues and rock 'n' roll. It is a minor miracle if you’re able to come up with (sings the riff to “Aqua Lung”) or (sings the riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”). Maybe you recognize it at the time, maybe you don’t, but suddenly, with the simplest arsenal of weaponry, you’ve actually obliterated a small town in the Midwest, which is what Zeppelin did. They just steamrolled across America with (sings the riff to “Whole Lotta Love”) and people were seduced by this without really knowing why. For a few of us who have those pieces to our names, it’s rather special.

Hitting the road and looking back at 50 years, how do you handle the different incarnations of Jethro Tull? How do you decide what to play from the various eras?

Well, on the 50th anniversary tour, it does focus for the most part on the first 10 years or so because that is when most people got to hear Jethro Tull. Younger fans learning about Jethro Tull will probably be drawn to the origins of the band and the first records. Since you can’t in two hours fit a huge amount of music, you’ve got to be a little editorial. There are a few songs from our very first album and a sprinkling of things through the ‘70s and into the '80s. You obviously have to leave a huge amount of stuff out, but we do other concerts, so we get to do different things.

So, at this point, are you happy with your direction?

I do feel I’ve managed to stretch out across what broadly passes as pop and rock music. I think I’ve covered maybe more than most people in my profession. I can think, "Well, I’ve tried a bit of this, I’ve done that. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so good, sometimes downright embarrassing." Giving it a fair amount of risk-taking along the way, that in itself is satisfying. Of course, there are other areas in life that I really am frustrated because I know I will never ever be an airline pilot. I will never be a politician, I will never be a famous war photographer. I can enjoy my interest in politics and I can enjoy my pursuit of photography as a hobby, but the chances of making a living at it are long since gone.

I did actually receive a couple weeks ago an email from a political party asking if I would consider standing as an MEP (Member of the European Parliament) in the European elections. Nice to be asked, but I thought they obviously aren’t checking my age or the fact that I have a pretty full diary. There are lots areas where I thought, maybe I should have stopped halfway through and done something completely different. To an extent, I did that when I went into farming and agriculture. That was 20 years of farming on the land and the scene from the late ‘70s through the new millennium. Then I thought, "Been there, done that," and I chose to carry on with being a musician because, obviously, farms aren’t necessarily sexy, while we flute players, the world is our oyster!

There was once a chance that I could have helped manage a farm in my retirement. But, that’s hard work!

It’s hard work, but it’s also in some sense spinning the roulette wheel because, however good you are at it, you are at the mercy of not just the weather but the national and international economics in terms of food production. It’s going to be a rough ride in the future for American farmers. Climate change, in spite of the flat earth deniers like your current president and his henchmen, really is happening and it’s really taking its toll. A degree-and-a-half and we’re talking about agricultural upheaval at a time when planet Earth has increased its population by slightly more than three times since I was born in 1947. That should cause pause for thought: We are faced with the almost impossible task of producing food for an estimated 13 billion, certainly 12 billion people by the end of this century (almost double today's population).

Leaving aside climate change, that would (mean) having to find radical agricultural improvements and new methodologies. Factor in climate change, and the rape of our forests and fields for producing crops that are of little use to us but make cattle fat, we are really facing some radical times.

I guess the one thing that gives me pleasure these days is planting trees. As a silviculturalist, I can claim about 30,000 oak, ash and other indigenous species of broad-leafed trees that we’ve planted here in the last years. It does give some real satisfaction to think that maybe, in some way, I’ve offset my carbon pollution from flying around the world in search of taxable dollars and all the other currencies I’ve burned.

Jethro Tull comes to Indio

What: Ian Anderson presents Jethro Tull in concert

When: 8 p.m., July 5

Where: Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84-245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio

Tickets: $59-$129

Information: (760) 342-5000 or fantasyspringsresort.com