The sounds of 1971 live on

[JohnN]

http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/music-features/the-sounds-of-1971-live-on-1.1080391

The sounds of 1971 live on

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17 Jan 2011

Keith Bruce remembers a spectacular year for vinyl.

Glasgow’s Celtic Connections music festival, for all its basis on traditional forms, is more about geography than history, a great global coming together of loads of what might be (very) broadly categorised as “roots” music. However, before it gets under way, the regular bill of fare at new year always seems to have an historical feel, what with all those waltzes and polkas and performances of Messiah.

“Where would you like to be?” the season always asks, “The Vienna of Johann Strauss or the London (and Dublin) of George Frederick Handel?” To which BBC Radio 3 has added, with its epic survey of his music, the Salzburg of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, even if the composer himself was unlikely to recommend his birthplace as a desirable destination.

It’s enough to have a chap leafing through his own back pages, a distraction I am predictably prone to at this time of year. In a couple of weeks’ time I shall be 53, something about which I am neither boasting nor complaining. But those who share my wizard facility with figures will have calculated that this means I was 13 in 1971. This is not an event I expect to be marked like the anniversaries of Schumann and Chopin last year, or the bicentenary of Franz Liszt and the centenary of the death of Gustav Mahler in 2011, but it has got me thinking how fortunate I was to be embarking on my teens and my musical independence in that auspicious year.

Around my birthday George Harrison released My Sweet Lord, and I still have that very Apple label 45 in the Bruce alphabeticised singles storage system. However, my copies of Jeepster and Get It On by T Rex clearly failed to come home from a party, although the 1971 album from which they came, Electric Warrior, still has a secure place in the vinyl archive, even if I can’t swear that the extant copy is an original pressing.

Those of you who were at the start of secondary school then will remember the vinyl sports bags the boys all carried. They had a handy outside pocket in which to store a vinyl LP so that half of it was visible for maximum pose value.

And what discs we had to pose with in 1971 as we swapped purchases. A chap of eclectic tastes (me) could enjoy The Faces’ A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse and Rod’s Every Picture Tells A Story, Aqualung by Jethro Tull and Nursery Cryme by Genesis. There was The Stones’ zipper-sleeved Sticky Fingers, Led Zeppelin’s enigmatic “four symbols” album and Who’s Next.

For more mellow moments there was Tapestry by Carole King, Don McLean’s American Pie and Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Us really hip cats had Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Going On and Miles Davis’s A Tribute To Jack Johnson. Those of us signed in the oddballs club had a real thing for Family’s Fearless, The Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up and The Flaming Groovies’ Teenage Head.

That may well be just the half of it, but already it is a magnificent list from a seminal year. The Beatles? We didn’t miss them (although John Lennon’s Imagine and Paul McCartney’s Ram were released in the same year). I don’t seem to know any 12- or 13-year-olds – all the offspring of my friends are either much older or much younger – but I wish them the very best of luck with 2011. It has one storming act to follow from 40 years back.

Even better, we didn’t just swop those albums to listen to them. My teen generation were enthusiastic adopters of the cassette tape recorder, which was the first step in popular DIY recording and the democratisation of music-making. So the considerable investment of pocket money in a speculative new album was a shared and measured risk. Passed around, they were enjoyed many times more in cassette copies, an album on each side of a C90, custom sleeves made for the index cards. A direct output wired from the family radiogram, and increasingly skilled use of the pause button, made the process quite professional.

Some years later record labels began complaining that “home taping is killing music” and, 40 years on, we can comprehensively say that was a bare-faced lie. The music industry perhaps, but we were none too protective of that, as the generation that made punk went on to prove. Music is still very much alive and doing rather well, thank you – if not quite as spectacularly as it was in 1971.

http://www.denverpost.com/music/ci_17079620

Jethro Tull, for all its creative and commercial achievements, will always be remembered for its 1971 album "Aqualung," a classic that distilled the U.K. band's folk and hard-rock proclivities into a decidedly theistic (if anti-religious) message. Appropriately, the band is commemorating the disc's 40th anniversary with a summer tour where the album will be performed in its entirety (along with assorted hits).

 

[JohnN]

Upcoming concerts for Jethro Tull.

Saturday 19 March 2011
Jethro Tull at Waterfront Hall Auditorium
Waterfront Hall Auditorium Belfast, UK

Sunday 20 March 2011
Jethro Tull at The Royal Theatre and Event Centre
The Royal Theatre and Event Centre Castlebar, Ireland

Thursday 21 to Monday 25 April 2011
Byron Bay Bluesfest 2011 Bob Dylan, John Legend, Wolfmother, ZZ Top, B.B. King, Jethro Tull, Toots & the Maytals, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Michael Franti And Spearhead, Xavier Rudd, Indigo Girls, Los Lobos, Grace Jones, The Cat Empire, Ben Harper and Relentless7, and 35 more…
Byron Bay, NSW, Australia

Tuesday 26 April 2011
Jethro Tull at State Theatre
State Theatre Sydney, NSW, Australia

Wednesday 27 April 2011
Jethro Tull at State Theatre
State Theatre Sydney, NSW, Australia

Thursday 28 April 2011
Jethro Tull at The Palais Theatre
The Palais Theatre Saint Kilda, VIC, Australia

Wednesday 08 June 2011
Jethro Tull with Kansas at Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, CO, US

Saturday 25 June 2011
Jethro Tull at Orpheum Theatre
Orpheum Theatre Minneapolis, MN, US

Sunday 26 June 2011
Jethro Tull at Chicago Theatre
Chicago Theatre Chicago, IL, US

Friday 15 July 2011
Jethro Tull at Fortezza da Basso
Fortezza da Basso Florence, Italy

Thursday 28 July 2011
Jethro Tull at Amphitheater Hanau
Amphitheater Hanau Hanau, Germany

Saturday 30 July 2011
Jethro Tull with Bardic at Zitadelle Petersberg
Zitadelle Petersberg Erfurt, Germany

Sunday 31 July 2011
Jethro Tull at Circus Krone
Circus Krone Munich, Germany





and the flowers bloom like madness in the spring.

 

[JohnN]

+ From another era, some suitable music for this thread.

 

[westgate]

1971 along with '73, are my two most favorite years for rock music. actually, i loved most of the rock music that came out in that decade. even some of the disco.

 

[JohnN]

As reported 01/14/2011 in Hot Tix: String Cheese, Janet Jackson and more - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/music/ci_17079620#ixzz1Bm87O5ml

The official announcement is now added on the Tull site.
http://www.j-tull.com/tourdates/index.html
40th Anniversary Aqualung USA Tour




I'm tasting the smell of toast as the butter runs.

 

[JohnN]

1971 along with '73, are my two most favorite years for rock music. actually, i loved most of the rock music that came out in that decade. even some of the disco.

Absolutely! Agree!

 

[Buddy El Gato]

I prefer 1967. The summer of love, remember

The Doors - The Doors
Mellow Yellow Donovan
Surrealistic Pillow Jefferson Airplane
The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground
The Grateful Dead Grateful Dead
Are You Experienced The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles
Procol Harum Procol Harum
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Pink Floyd
Strange Days The Doors
Disraeli Gears Cream
Days of Future Passed The Moody Blues
Magical Mystery Tour The Beatles
Axis: Bold as Love The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Their Satanic Majesties Request The Rolling Stones
Mr. Fantasy Traffic

 

[westgate]

I prefer 1967. The summer of love, remember.

also an excellent year for rock music!

 

[JohnN]

http://www.j-tull.com/
Gotta laugh at "the snotted one's 40th".

Aqualung 40th Anniversary Tour hits USA in June, Ian solo dates in Latin America, and more!

Tull visits the USA in June in celebration of the snotted one's 40th. Just a few shows officially announced at moment but expect more soon. Ian visits Latin America in May with stops in Brazil, Argentina, Chile included among others. A few more Ian dates announced over 2011 for Finland, Cyprus, and Spain.

 

[JohnN]

also an excellent year for rock music!

Of course! It was great to be 11.