Post by Mark Lavallee on Nov 27, 2012 10:09:00 GMT -5
It's the late 80s and a band is celebrating their 20th anniversary, a monumental achievement at the time, nowadays that's about the time it takes for a band to put out 4 or 5 albums, back in the day that was the length of a long and prosperous career. What to do? Why, the much ballyhooed box set of course!
This is how Jethro Tull celebrated their 20th anniversary coming hot on the heels of the critically acclaimed "return to form" album Crest Of A Knave and the dreaded Grammy win, oh dear.
The inventively titled 20 Years Of Jethro Tull was released on June 27th, 1988 and peaked at #97 in the US & #78 in the UK.
3 CDs loaded up with an extremely generous amount of previously unreleased material, this was my first box set, back when 3 CDs (or 5LPs or cassettes) in an LP sized box with a nice booklet was considered a big deal. The box set is long out of print but fortunately most of the rare material has turned up as bonus tracks on the album remasters. Each CD is broken up into different themes, let's get started...
CD1: Radio Archives And Rare Tracks
This begins with 8 live BBC sessions, A Song For Jeffrey and Love Story from 1969, Far Man and Bouree from 1969, jumping back to 1968 for the non-album blues cover Stormy Monday Blues, back to 1969 for A New Day Yesterday and then jumping ahead to 1975 with strnagely abbreviated versions of Cold Wind To Valhalla and Minstrel In The Gallery. Sadly just the acoutic introductions, cutting out before the full band comes in to finish the songs. Why this was done is beyond me, when these tracks were added to the remaster of Minstrel In The Gallery they were still edited in this way. The older tracks have all since been rereleased on the This Was and Stand Up deluxe editions by the way.
Up next is a very nice live version of Velvet Green recorded in 1977, again this has since been rereleased on the remaster of Songs From The Wood.
Next we get a bunch of unrleased tracks, b-sides, ep tunes, etc. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow, I'm Your Gun, Down At The End Of Your Road, Coronach, Summerday Sands, Too Many Too, March The Mad Scientist, Pan Dance, Strip Cartoon, King Henry's Madrigal, A Stitch In Time, 17, One For John Gee, Aeroplane and Sunshine Day.
I'm going on memory here but I believe all of these tracks save Coronach and the Aeroplane/Sunshine Day single are available on the remasters. Jack From, Gun, Down At The End, Too Many Too are definitely on Broadsword And The Beast. A Stitch In Time and King Henry's Madrigal are on Stormwatch. Summerday Sands and Pan Dance are on Minstrel In The Gallery. 17 is on Stand Up, One For John Gee is on This Was.
Coronach was a single recorded in 1986, written by David Palmer as the theme to a historical TV series called The Blood Of The British. Beautiful song, a big favorite.
The Aeroplane/Sunshine Day single predates the first album, due to a printer's error it went out credited to Jethro Toe. Sunshine Day was the A side, an old John Evan Band number with the saxaphne edited out. Aeroplane was written by Mick Abrahams and neither were in any way a good indication of the band's sound. Nice to have but not essential.
CD2: Flawed Gems And Other Sides Of Tull
This begins with 14 previously unreleased songs. First, one known about for ages, the Aqualung outtake Lick Your Fingers Clean, little did Tull fans know they'd already had it in slightly reworked form as Two Fingers on War Child.
Next up was a nice slice of the Holy Grail for Tull fans, an 11 minute segment from the Chateau D'Isaster sessions. Scenario/Audition/No Rehearsal. One large chunk of the aborted follow-up to Thick As A Brick. This sat languishing in the vaults for 15 long years, finally fans got to catch a glimpse of what might have been. The audio deficiencis and studio problems that Anderson had with the recording is in no way evident here, indeed this material ranks up with the best the band ever released. Finally the (almost) entire recordings came out in 1993 on the excellent 2CD Nightcap collection.
What follows are a bunch of tracks that have since been rereleased on the album remasters save two, Beltane on Songs From The Wood, Crossword on Stormwatch, Saturation on War Child, Jack-A-Lynn on Broadsword And The Beast.
MotorEyes comes from the Broadsword sessions and hasn't been rereleased. Another excellent track that would have fit well on the album.
There's an untitled Blues Instrumental recorded during the Stormwatch sessions which also hasn't been rereleased. Next up is Part Of The Machine which was recorded specifically for the box set and was added as a bonus track to Crest Of A Knave. Next we have Mayhem Maybe and Overhang which are on the Broadsword remaster. Finally we have Kelpie which is on the remaster of Stormwatch and Living In These Hard Times which is available on Heavy Horses. The CD is rounded out with 5 of Anderson's favorite softer songs from various albums, all previously released material, Under Wraps 2, Only Solitaire, Salamander, Moths and Nursie.
CD3: The Essential Tull
Lots of previously unreleased live material and some songs taken off the albums. We begin with the regular studio versions of Witch's Promise and Bungle In The Jungle then we get a couple live tracks from 1987, Farm On The Freeway and a very abbreviated arrangement of Thick As A Brick. Things move back to 1982 for nice live versions of Sweet Dream, The Clasp, Pibroch/Black Satin Dancer and Fallen On Hard Times.
Back to the studio for Cheap Day Return and then live in 1987 again with Wond'ring Aloud and Dun Ringill. Studio again with Life's A Long Song and One White Duck. Again we're back live in 1987 with Songs From The Wood and Living In The Past. We get the original single mix of Teacher and the set concludes with live versions of Aqualung and Locomotive Breath from 1982.
There you have it. 3 songs on the first disc, 2 on the second and a dozen live tracks on disc 3 are all that remains unavailable. It'd all fit nicely on a single CD I believe. Don't think it'll ever see another release. There's a single disc "best of" that's available, waste of time though, too many gaping holes. The box can be had for a price, not under $100 unfortunately.
Final rating? At the time absolutely essential 5 out of 5, A+ 100%, now that most of it is available elsewhere? Depends on your level of fandom. Do you need the dozen live tracks? Most are inessential, another version of Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, etc. The other five unreleased tracks? Shame they're not available elsewhere. Given those 15 tracks I can only give it a 2 out of 5.
This is how Jethro Tull celebrated their 20th anniversary coming hot on the heels of the critically acclaimed "return to form" album Crest Of A Knave and the dreaded Grammy win, oh dear.
The inventively titled 20 Years Of Jethro Tull was released on June 27th, 1988 and peaked at #97 in the US & #78 in the UK.
3 CDs loaded up with an extremely generous amount of previously unreleased material, this was my first box set, back when 3 CDs (or 5LPs or cassettes) in an LP sized box with a nice booklet was considered a big deal. The box set is long out of print but fortunately most of the rare material has turned up as bonus tracks on the album remasters. Each CD is broken up into different themes, let's get started...
CD1: Radio Archives And Rare Tracks
This begins with 8 live BBC sessions, A Song For Jeffrey and Love Story from 1969, Far Man and Bouree from 1969, jumping back to 1968 for the non-album blues cover Stormy Monday Blues, back to 1969 for A New Day Yesterday and then jumping ahead to 1975 with strnagely abbreviated versions of Cold Wind To Valhalla and Minstrel In The Gallery. Sadly just the acoutic introductions, cutting out before the full band comes in to finish the songs. Why this was done is beyond me, when these tracks were added to the remaster of Minstrel In The Gallery they were still edited in this way. The older tracks have all since been rereleased on the This Was and Stand Up deluxe editions by the way.
Up next is a very nice live version of Velvet Green recorded in 1977, again this has since been rereleased on the remaster of Songs From The Wood.
Next we get a bunch of unrleased tracks, b-sides, ep tunes, etc. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow, I'm Your Gun, Down At The End Of Your Road, Coronach, Summerday Sands, Too Many Too, March The Mad Scientist, Pan Dance, Strip Cartoon, King Henry's Madrigal, A Stitch In Time, 17, One For John Gee, Aeroplane and Sunshine Day.
I'm going on memory here but I believe all of these tracks save Coronach and the Aeroplane/Sunshine Day single are available on the remasters. Jack From, Gun, Down At The End, Too Many Too are definitely on Broadsword And The Beast. A Stitch In Time and King Henry's Madrigal are on Stormwatch. Summerday Sands and Pan Dance are on Minstrel In The Gallery. 17 is on Stand Up, One For John Gee is on This Was.
Coronach was a single recorded in 1986, written by David Palmer as the theme to a historical TV series called The Blood Of The British. Beautiful song, a big favorite.
The Aeroplane/Sunshine Day single predates the first album, due to a printer's error it went out credited to Jethro Toe. Sunshine Day was the A side, an old John Evan Band number with the saxaphne edited out. Aeroplane was written by Mick Abrahams and neither were in any way a good indication of the band's sound. Nice to have but not essential.
CD2: Flawed Gems And Other Sides Of Tull
This begins with 14 previously unreleased songs. First, one known about for ages, the Aqualung outtake Lick Your Fingers Clean, little did Tull fans know they'd already had it in slightly reworked form as Two Fingers on War Child.
Next up was a nice slice of the Holy Grail for Tull fans, an 11 minute segment from the Chateau D'Isaster sessions. Scenario/Audition/No Rehearsal. One large chunk of the aborted follow-up to Thick As A Brick. This sat languishing in the vaults for 15 long years, finally fans got to catch a glimpse of what might have been. The audio deficiencis and studio problems that Anderson had with the recording is in no way evident here, indeed this material ranks up with the best the band ever released. Finally the (almost) entire recordings came out in 1993 on the excellent 2CD Nightcap collection.
What follows are a bunch of tracks that have since been rereleased on the album remasters save two, Beltane on Songs From The Wood, Crossword on Stormwatch, Saturation on War Child, Jack-A-Lynn on Broadsword And The Beast.
MotorEyes comes from the Broadsword sessions and hasn't been rereleased. Another excellent track that would have fit well on the album.
There's an untitled Blues Instrumental recorded during the Stormwatch sessions which also hasn't been rereleased. Next up is Part Of The Machine which was recorded specifically for the box set and was added as a bonus track to Crest Of A Knave. Next we have Mayhem Maybe and Overhang which are on the Broadsword remaster. Finally we have Kelpie which is on the remaster of Stormwatch and Living In These Hard Times which is available on Heavy Horses. The CD is rounded out with 5 of Anderson's favorite softer songs from various albums, all previously released material, Under Wraps 2, Only Solitaire, Salamander, Moths and Nursie.
CD3: The Essential Tull
Lots of previously unreleased live material and some songs taken off the albums. We begin with the regular studio versions of Witch's Promise and Bungle In The Jungle then we get a couple live tracks from 1987, Farm On The Freeway and a very abbreviated arrangement of Thick As A Brick. Things move back to 1982 for nice live versions of Sweet Dream, The Clasp, Pibroch/Black Satin Dancer and Fallen On Hard Times.
Back to the studio for Cheap Day Return and then live in 1987 again with Wond'ring Aloud and Dun Ringill. Studio again with Life's A Long Song and One White Duck. Again we're back live in 1987 with Songs From The Wood and Living In The Past. We get the original single mix of Teacher and the set concludes with live versions of Aqualung and Locomotive Breath from 1982.
There you have it. 3 songs on the first disc, 2 on the second and a dozen live tracks on disc 3 are all that remains unavailable. It'd all fit nicely on a single CD I believe. Don't think it'll ever see another release. There's a single disc "best of" that's available, waste of time though, too many gaping holes. The box can be had for a price, not under $100 unfortunately.
Final rating? At the time absolutely essential 5 out of 5, A+ 100%, now that most of it is available elsewhere? Depends on your level of fandom. Do you need the dozen live tracks? Most are inessential, another version of Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, etc. The other five unreleased tracks? Shame they're not available elsewhere. Given those 15 tracks I can only give it a 2 out of 5.