So how long have we been doing this gig here at “The Daily
\nVault”? Put it this way — I would have sworn that, at some point,
\nI reviewed
\nSongs From The Wood<\/i>, the 1977 release from Jethro Tull.<\/p>\n
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Any reason to dig this one
\nback out of the Pierce Memorial Archives and give it a few spins at
\nfull volume is reason enough to celebrate. With this album, Ian
\nAnderson and crew helped to renew an interest in folk music for
\nmany people, all while maintaining ties to their musical past. It
\nwas a return to form for the band, and remains one of their best
\nworks to date.<\/p>\n
There is one word to describe this album — fun. From the
\nstylistic shifts in the title track and the harmony vocals which
\nare well utilized to the suggestion of bawdiness delivered in an
\ninnocent sounding track like “Hunting Girl,” Anderson and crew
\ncreate a disc that the listener wants to listen to, and wants to be
\na part of.<\/p>\n
The mixture of influences is quite diverse, ranging from folk
\n(“Jack-In-The-Green,” “Velvet Green”) to rock (“Cup Of Wonder,”
\n“Pibroch (Cup In Hand)” to even medieval (“The Whistler,” “Velvet
\nGreen”). But, like they had for most of their career to this point,
\nJethro Tull is able to jump these styles like they were mere bumps
\nin the road, making the transfers as smooth as can be.<\/p>\n
While the title track is undoubtedly the best-known of the nine,
\nthere is no clear winner for the best track on the disc. I could
\neasily give the award to “The Whistler,” a jovial little number
\nwhich dares to flaunt Celtic roots and make the listener want to
\ndance a jig to the chorus. (There was a video once for this song,
\nbut I don’t remember which home video I saw it on. Damned shame; it
\nwas as much fun as the song.) But also in the queue for the honor
\nis “Hunting Girl,” “Cup Of Wonder,” “Velvet Green” and, to an
\nextent, “Ring Out, Solstice Bells,” quite possibly the only
\nnon-denominational holiday track one will ever find.<\/p>\n
Weaknesses? I count but one — namely, “Fire At Midnight.” Even
\nthat is a misnomer, since the song is by no means bad, but it
\ndoesn’t quite live up to the high expectations the rest of the disc
\nbuilt up. I’ll use the old argument again: had this song been on a
\ndifferent album, it would have easily been a stand-out track.<\/p>\n
While
\nSongs From The Wood<\/i> marked the beginning of a period where
\nJethro Tull’s music was very rooted in folk, it would be wrong to
\nsimply label this record as pure folk music. Granted, the British
\nfolk scene was growing at this time. But Anderson and company
\nutilize several musical styles within these tracks, intertwining
\nthem to a point where it becomes almost unfair to try and
\npigeonhole the songs into one distinct cubbyhole. There is a word
\nto describe this sound — Tull.<\/p>\n
\nSongs From The Wood<\/i> is one of the best albums that Jethro
\nTull has ever released, even if it remains in the permanent shadow
\nof such musical giants as
\nAqualung<\/i>. In a sense, some of the tracks on
\nAqualung<\/i> suggested that Tull was on their way to this
\nparticular place in their musical lives. For that reason alone, one
\ncould argue that
\nSongs From The Wood<\/i> is the stronger of the two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5643],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38023","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jethro-tull","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38023"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38023"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}