Jethro Tull

There are far too many examples of great albums that, released in the second half of the 1960s, never received the commercial recognition their artistic and musical merits deserved. "Stand Up", the second album released by Jethro Tull in July 1969, thankfully doesn't fall into this category. The success it achieved in the UK (number one) and in the US (number twenty) stands as fitting recognition of the remarkable leap in quality the English band made right after their debut the previous year ("This Was", October 1968).

During the latter part of '68, in fact, three significant events took place that paved the way for the recording of "Stand Up", which then took place in the spring of 1969.

The first of these is the departure of guitarist Mike Abrahams, who on the first LP had shared leadership of the group with Ian Anderson. The rift between the two musicians was artistic in nature, with Abrahams determined to continue down the blues rock path found on "This Was", while Anderson was intent on evolving the Jethro Tull sound toward more intricate and ambitious compositional structures. This led to an irreconcilable falling-out between the two and Abrahams' definitive departure in autumn '68 (shortly after the release of "This Was").

At the same time, Anderson emerged as the group's undisputed leader. "Stand Up" would thus essentially be his creation, from the writing of the songs to their arrangement. An album that kicked off a long-term artistic project defined by Anderson himself and based on an original blend of blues rock and folk-rock, with the addition of progressive rock from the 1970s onward. This was the path Jethro Tull would follow, with some changes in lineup and musical nuance, for more than thirty years, earning considerable international acclaim.

The second event was the search, immediately after Abrahams' departure, for a new guitarist compatible with Anderson's ideas and with the musical direction the group was about to pursue under his guidance. The first attempt involved Tony Iommi, who however soon proved incompatible in terms of style, attitude and intentions. Before founding Black Sabbath, he did however have time to join Jethro Tull for the filming of the "Rolling Stones Rock'n'Roll Circus" (December '68), where a superb version of "A Song For Jeffrey" (a track originally included on the first LP, "This Was") was performed. The right fit for what Anderson had in mind arrived shortly after: Martin Barre joined Jethro Tull toward the end of '68, well aware he was taking on a supporting role of the highest quality.

The third and final event concerns Anderson's rapid artistic maturation, both in songwriting and in envisioning striking arrangements and bringing them to fruition, thanks to his skills as producer and multi-instrumentalist. This fortunate circumstance also allowed him to shape a distinctive sound for Jethro Tull, one that would move beyond the uneven (though highly enjoyable) debut to achieve greater sonic coherence across the grooves of "Stand Up".

The chain of these three events - Abrahams' departure, Barre's arrival and the explosion of Anderson's creativity - thus led, in 1969, to the making of the second chapter in the English band's discography.

The continuity across the ten tracks of "Stand Up" is guaranteed by the new, prolific compositional streak of Ian Anderson (who wrote every track, and plays lead vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ, piano, harmonica, mandolin and balalaika) and by the artistic control he exercises over the rest of the band. The other members are: Martin Barre (electric guitar), Clive Bunker (drums and percussion) and Glenn Cornick (electric bass).

Now free of compromise, the 22-year-old bandleader decisively embraces the folk-rock made famous by countless British and American singer-songwriters and groups from the mid-1960s onward. It's a genre that allows for both melodic, singer-songwriter-style ideas and the introduction of striking sonic details carried by unusual instruments. Anderson extracts the poetic essence of this style, which in '69 was barely four years old, drawing out its value right from the writing stage, composing on acoustic guitar and voice just as any singer-songwriter would. This intimate, solitary creative process yields sonic gems that would have shone even in their barest, initial form. "Look Into The Sun", the album's finest moment, or "Reasons For Waiting", where the absence of drums underlines the song's singer-songwriter nature, best capture the inspiration shown in early '69 by the singer and flautist of Jethro Tull.

Once the rest of the band gets involved, the songs take on a pleasantly varied instrumental character, thanks to arrangements that, in their final form, are enriched by the contribution of the three excellent musicians alongside Anderson. The one exception to an otherwise thoroughly sound set of choices is the strings that creep in, overly mannered and cloying on "Reasons For Waiting", burying part of the instrumentation and briefly betraying the spirit of an otherwise near-perfect album.

Anderson's singer-songwriter turn is made even more compelling by the strikingly original direction given to themes and arrangements, which together create an atmosphere that is at once pastoral, dreamlike, assertive and modern.

The record is thus split between seven folk-rock tracks, which dominate its overall character, and three tracks still tied to the blues-rock of the previous LP. These latter songs ("A New Day Yesterday", "Nothing is Easy" and "For A Thousand Mothers"), however, are visibly shaped by Anderson's compositional leanings, in these three cases pointed toward the more complex sounds emerging at the end of the 1960s. Straddling the two styles is the sole exception of "Back To The Family", where the folk-rock of verse and chorus is set against, to striking effect, the intense, aggressive blues-rock of the middle eight (from 0:55 to 1:33 and from 2:20 to 2:56).

The musical element the band's leader uses to set the group apart within the British and American scene is unquestionably the flute. Though already present on the first Jethro Tull album, this ancient instrument, rooted in Western Renaissance music and later in classical music, becomes central to the structural and sonic makeup of the songs specifically with this record. Far from being a gimmick meant to grab the audience's attention or mere decoration for its own sake, Anderson's flute finds its definitive place on "Stand Up".

Here it is given the role of a third guitar, alongside Anderson's own acoustic and Barre's electric, serving a double function: at times rhythmic and accompanying (for instance, on "Fat Man", where it darts restlessly in and out of the arrangement's folds), and at other times acting as a lead instrument (for example, on "We Used To Know" from 1:07 to 1:25, on "A New Day Yesterday" from 2:09 to 2:42, or, repeatedly, on "Back To The Family").

From 1969 onward, these solos would become the focal point and most eagerly awaited moment of the band's performances, both live and on record, for two main reasons. The first is that, thanks precisely to this LP, the flute breaks free from its role as a mere decorative element in folk-rock, blues-rock and, more broadly, rock music. The second reason behind the popularity earned by Ian Anderson's flute solos is the way he shapes their gripping trajectory. The energetic, vibrant attack of the notes, driven forward with forceful breath and clearly audible at the start of every phrase, makes immediacy of impact his defining trait. Moreover, the whirling flow of notes that compress and then hurl forward, typical of the Jethro Tull flautist, brings with it a new musical language that would expand the expressive possibilities of numerous genres and musicians.

The album's sound is thus enriched with new inflections, shaped by this revolutionary way of deploying the flute within contemporary music. Occupying a highly prominent place in the arrangements and blending into them with total naturalness, it brings its timbre—now soft and fluid, now sharp and cutting—to the attention of a broad British and American audience. On top of that, more than solid technique, combined with genuine inspiration, allows Anderson's flute to lodge itself in the collective imagination and to mark, indelibly, the band's music from "Stand Up" onward.

Cementing this distinctive instrumental trait is the album's third track, "Bourée", developed by Anderson from a theme by the famous Baroque classical composer J.S. Bach. Probably the most celebrated piece Jethro Tull ever released, it reworks the French folk dance (called, precisely, bourrée, with two r's in the original spelling) that Bach reinterpreted in learned fashion in the early 1700s for lute (a distant ancestor of the acoustic guitar). Here the flute is brought to the fore both in the sweet main melody, borrowed from Bach and unfurled at the start and end of the piece, and in the song's more rhythmic, brisk and decisive middle section (from 1:17 to 1:52), which is instead entirely Anderson's own creation. The folk-rock of "Bourée" is carried almost throughout by the flute's propulsive flourishes, experimental in conception yet thoroughly engaging on the surface. One shouldn't overlook, though, the song's rhythmic backbone, tinged with faint jazz accents, where the electric bass line opens and closes the song with a walking bass reminiscent of hard-bop jazz, while the drums inventively vary the underlying shuffle. This successful blend of Baroque classical music, driving folk-rock and a jazzy aftertaste earned "Bourée" the A-side of the only single pulled from "Stand Up" (with "Fat Man" on the B-side), a commercial flop but a highly interesting artistic statement.

As already mentioned above, Anderson's skill as a multi-instrumentalist is showcased throughout every track of "Stand Up", bringing out colourful, unexpected facets. From the bluesy backdrop the harmonica lends to "A New Day Yesterday", to the wistful, reverb-drenched piano that rounds out the arrangement of "Look Into The Sun", by way of the sharp mandolin—so much so that it resembles a sitar—that unmistakably marks the sound of "Fat Man": these are examples of how the flautist knew how to translate his own musical versatility and curiosity into stimulating sonic touches, doled out with flair and without restraint.

Also falling into this category is the balalaika (a traditional Russian stringed instrument), amplified via a pickup, whose high-pitched vibrations are then filtered through a Leslie amplifier (able to make sounds broader and more fluid, as if the notes were melting together, thus losing the sharp contours they originally had). The result is a liquid, Renaissance-flavoured dance, at once exotic and ancient, which drives the rhythmic pattern and riff of "Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square". A bold sonic experiment, capable of surprising the listener and making this excellent folk-rock song pleasantly unusual. Rounding out the eclectic array of instruments supplied by the English bandleader's creativity, we should mention the fluid waves lazily raised by the Hammond organ that make up the dreamy backdrop of "Reasons For Waiting".

Bunker, too, steps outside the boundaries of his instrument, the drums, adding various percussion to several songs on the album: glockenspiel on "Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square", and maracas, claves and sleigh bells on "Fat Man". On both of these tracks we can also hear bongos and congas, with which Bunker replaces the drum kit in imaginative, vivid fashion.

Beyond the percussion, the drummer's style asserts itself above all on the album's three blues-rock tracks: "A New Day Yesterday", "Nothing Is Easy" and "For A Thousand Mothers". On these, the rhythm is handled with willful drive and irregular vehemence, digging into kick drum, tom-toms and timpani before exploding into loud, thunderous hits on the crash cymbal.

As for Cornick's electric bass, his gripping, decisive, almost percussive technique is clearly audible throughout the record, emerging in full force on the insistent, tight riff he carries alone on "For A Thousand Mothers" and on the unusual, elegant jazzy solo he performs on "Bourée" (from 1:51 to 2:28). What's more, on "Nothing Is Easy" (from 3:40 to 3:51 and in the song's coda) the bassist lays down the pulsing groundwork for rhythmic-melodic figures that hint at progressive rock, ones the band would revisit far more overtly and famously two and a half years later on the album "Thick As A Brick".

Barre's arrival as lead guitarist proves the ideal complement to the rest of the band, lending that sonic cohesion the group had been reaching for since their '68 debut and here finally achieves in full. This is made possible by the rock angles the guitarist's strings reveal, with a passion that is alternately delicate and abrasive. In particular, some of the album's most thrilling and incisive solos are his: from the soft, gently wah-wah-tinged brushstrokes in "Look Into The Sun" to the fascinating explosion of notes stretching out desperately in "We Used To Know", again achieved through the wah-wah pedal, this time put to the service of two prolonged, deeply felt solos that reveal the influence of Eric Clapton.

Barre also interprets with great sensitivity the necessary connection between Anderson's creative and melodic flights on one side and the dark, compact union forged by bass and drums on the other. The textures of his electric guitar, now impalpable, now abrasive, discreetly link together the elements that make up the arrangements, providing the ideal backdrop for the unmistakable sound born of Anderson's artistic vision. Worth noting is the heavily distorted rhythm guitar that underpins the tempo changes in "Back To The Family" and "For A Thousand Mothers" with regular cadences of fragmented electricity.

Anderson's lead vocal, not especially technical but mature, deep and the bearer of an evocative melancholy tinged with bittersweet irony, resolutely bets on expressiveness and wins that bet outright. Worth highlighting is the vocal line of "Look Into The Sun", which, floating poetically over the splendid melody, is rippled, almost imperceptibly, by an ecstatic, bittersweet emotion. Beyond transporting us into suspended, magical atmospheres ("Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square", "We Used To Know", "Back To The Family"), the singing that runs through "Stand Up" also holds unexpected surprises of real intensity ("Nothing Is Easy", "For A Thousand Mothers").

The singer (author of all the lyrics) touches on rather varied themes on this record, though the lyrics can overall be considered less significant than the music contained on the LP. The most recurring subjects are faded love and conflicted feelings toward one's family of origin, handled with originality by the band's leader. The words of "Nothing Is Easy" and "We Used To Know", on the other hand, stand out for urging the listener to see their own dark moments as a phase everyone goes through, one to be overcome with the help of music and personal tenacity.

"Stand Up", clocking in at around 38 minutes, has over the decades been overshadowed by the well-deserved fame of "Aqualung", released by Jethro Tull a year and eight months later. Despite this, it remains a work of great quality, one that definitively codifies the sound that would earn Jethro Tull worldwide acclaim. A laboratory in which Anderson's creativity is freed from any constraint, manifesting itself in a series of compositional and performance solutions capable of standing up to (and often besting) other, far more celebrated American and English albums from the late Sixties.

P.S. The remastered CD edition of "Stand Up" (2001) also includes four bonus tracks: the two singles, with their respective B-sides, also released in 1969 but outside the LP. They are "Living In The Past"/"Driving Song", which preceded "Stand Up" by a few months, and "Sweet Dream"/"17", which came out a few months after the album instead. Both 45s charted well (third and seventh respectively in the UK, without entering the American charts), yet they fall short of expectations, settling well below the quality standard set by "Stand Up".

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15/03/2026