A Passion Play: The Story Of Ian Anderson And Jethro Tull Kindle Edition

I was looking forward to this book, which was delayed many times over the last couple of years, that probably made it more imperative that I finally get it. Telling a Tull fan that something new is out there but they can't have it is a brutal torture.....

When it finally arrived in early Oct. I dug right in. I was very happy with the amount of interviews the author was able to include. I do love reading (and listening) to the first hand accounts of The Blades and The John Evan Band and the early tales of Tull by ex-band members. That said, when the author began filling in the blanks between interviews I began recognizing his quoting (word for word) from "The Story of Jethro Tull" a radio show done with Ian Anderson and Terry Ellis in 1975. I have the very popular "underground" recording and started checking it against what I was reading. It was word for word. Apparently he thought it was done so long ago no one would notice. I'm not too concerned with the fact that he "borrowed" from this, un-acknowledged by-the-way, but I was very disappointed that I was not learning anything new!

Once he started straying from the radio show many of the authors facts were just downright wrong. Once his "facts" were at direct opposition to something stated by a band member in interview on the same page. The author states that in 1969, while in LA, the band records Living in the Past. Then 2 paragraphs later Glenn Cornick, quoting from a diary, recounts recording Living In the Past in W. Orange, New Jersey, which in fact it was, and was very easy for him to have checked. At another point he informs the reader that John Goodier (Andersons current Bass Player) is the permanent replacement for Andy Giddings (Tulls former Keyboard player). John O'Hara (Current keyboards) replaced Jon Noyce (Tulls ex Bass player) these are just careless mistakes that any good read over would reveal.
Another: Tull-A-Vision was the name of the big sceen used during the 1976 Stadium tours NOT the 1978 Madison Square Garden world wide satellite television broadcast.
Confusion continued in the 5 pages covering the 3 (Some might say moderately important) albums Songs from the Wood77, Heavy Horses78 and Stormwatch79, not a 5 page period of time. During the Stormwatch tour, in 1979, Dave Pegg comes on board to play bass, his story is told one chapter later during the recording of A in 1980. If I didn't know better I would have a completely wrong idea as to what happened there.
Mr. Rabey did not seem too interested in some of the 80s releases either, as say, the Broadsword and the Beast "review" was a scant six line paragraph. Why bother touching on the album at all? I thought there was some very notable things that happened with the band at that point in time......not mentioned at all. These are just a few of many more notable boners.
His quoting from the "Story of Jethro Tull" radio show from 75, continued throughout the book. I was very happy to get into the Ian Anderson interview section (the second half of the book) and this was done in and around the time of the release of The Secret Language of Birds, and its then clear that Ian was not much interested in and did not participate in the telling of the early history of the band for this book.
So over all I would say to those fans that have not read much of anything about Tull before "Stick to the interviews in this book" The rest is unreliable. 3 stars for the amount of interviews contained (Mainly John Evan, Glenn Cornick, Martin Barre and then later years with Ian Anderson) as they are the books' saving grace. After a second read I removed one star....
JTULL0FAN

Ian Anderson is Jethro Tull.He wrote all the songs (well 99%) and it was his vision that was carried forward.Whether Thick as a Brick or Passion
Play for better or worse he shouldered the blame,credit.Many fine players went thru the ranks down the years and are given equal time to
advance the narrative.One is surprised by the fact that Anderson is pretty much lauded by his former bandmates and feels a responsibilty
that they share in distributions of royalties.Tull is on hiatus currently but Anderson has a touring group carrying on.Hopefully he will rejoin with
Martin Barre his guitarist thru the years soon.

I have long been a fan of Jethro Tull, but knew very little about the band's background, members, etc. This is a good book and very informative. I read it very attentively. I did think that it got drier at the end when it was 'Ian Anderson's Thoughts', but overall a great source of info for the Tull fan.

Overall, not a bad effort. Most of the first years covered we pretty interested. My biggest complaint: he completely glossed over the 3 best albums (arguably the most interesting lps): Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses, and Stormwatch, as if they barely existed. His dismissal of these important albums only begins the "incomplete" aspect of the rest. If you want a nice history of the first seven years, go for it. As for the rest, not much is here. It should be called "A beggining of Tull"... As for wrap-up, not much is said about later years either.

To understand the background of this genius group is a thrill for me. I am enjoying reading about how easily and yet sometimes difficult putting their songs together were. If you are a Jethro Tull fan and loves their Music you won't be sorry reading this as it gives you the background you have always wondered about.

Decent read, good interviews with former band members. No real personal information about their lives or Ian’s. It’s about the music. Huge error that there is zero mention of the dot com record or the Xmas cd.