Similarity, Tull/Zeppelin

Following up on the mid-70s comments (in Circus? Rave?...) by Ian Anderson re. Led Zeppelin, along the lines of "With their music and my lyrics we could go somewhere"... In typical half-tongue-in-cheek, rock star insolence mode, I recall that Anderson bitched in particular the chorus from "Whole Lotta Love" as "gotta whole buncha lovin' or something". This from memory. IA says Robert Plant never forgave him...

 

May start a mash-up group called Led Tull

 

Mind you, Plant did employ Barriemore Barlow to whack skins for him on a couple of tracks. I am sure they were the really tricky ones that neither Phil Collins or Cozy Powell could even begin to attempt.

 

But one thing Tull were emphatically NOT in the seventies was boring. A typical Tull concert of that period featured theatrics, humour, 'rehearsed spontaneity' along with reliably great musicianship. And Tull was a crowd-pleasing band that went out there to make friends and fans - whereas there are multiple tales of Zep being condescending and arrogant toward their audiences.

I like both bands but if I had to choose between a concert by either band in the seventies, I'd choose Tull every time.

 

And Robert Plant has 10 times more hair than Ian Anderson...
Seriously, I’m not sure that Led Zep had played to 10x more people than Tull by 1972. I do agree with you that I doubt Zep we’re worried about any band usurping their position. I can certainly believe Robert Plant was jealous of Ian’s song writing skills which I thought surpassed RP by 1969.

 

I don't think Robert Plant was much into the kind of music that Ian Anderson wrote, so I would rather doubt that. Actually, as is not unusual when the British get together, I am detecting a certain whiff of class animosity underlying a lot of this rivalry between the groups.

 

Ian Anderson was not from an advantaged family, nor was he a London snob thumbing his nose at the bloke from the Midlands.

 

This thread is freaking fantastic! It's like getting dropped back into high school again.......... Oh the memories.

BTW - I like both bands. Just happened to see Tull well over 300 times and Zeppelin around 45 times.

 

Look what you've done, you've started a Tull vs Zep thread!

I still have not heard what you hear, but 3 months ago I only played the 3 songs 3 times each, then gave up.

 

Well now we know how the whole thing started.

 

Robert Plant? The same guy who STOLE the lyrics from Willie Dixon?

 

Each band hi

 

They did send Ian to grammar school though, from which he was kicked out because he refused corporal punishment. If I understand OK, this is where he fell out with his parents. Left home and preferred cleaning cinema loos to tend to himself. This is the story he tells anyway. If true, he did pretty good on his own.

 

Robert and Ian came from broadly the same social grouping (ie, the lower middle-class), though Robert went to a 'posh' (albeit state) school, so I don't think 'class animosity' applies here. More likely, it was a clash between an extrovert and obvious party animal (Plant) and an early-to-bed, book-reading introvert (Anderson).

 

Ian went to a grammar school that specialised in science. He passed 8 GCE 'O' levels and could have gone to university had he wanted to. I get the impression he was an academic all-rounder and came near the top in most subjects without really trying to (a bit like McCartney). I've always heard it rumoured that he has a genius level IQ.

 

I dug both bands from very early in their respective careers. Even though both started as blues rock bands (Anderson admits that was simply a foot in the door, not the musical path he envisioned) and both enjoyed big success in the same period, I probably wouldn't even think of them in the same sentence. What Anderson was doing, particularly Stand Up, was marvelous. For me, Zep always comes back to the first album, despite their considerable catalog.
I think seeing them live, in their heyday, was a whole different thing.

 

Tull had two successive albums that topped the US charts in 1972-73: symbolically, at least, that meant they were briefly level-pegging it with Zep. They were also playing, and selling out, the same venues.

 

To give an idea, in 1973, Tull sold more seats at the Montreal Forum than The Rolling Stones had in '72! This is from stats about the old Forum which were published when it closed down in the 90s, by the Journal de Montréal.

 

My understanding was that, while Tull was big in America, they were HUGE in Canada. Bungle In The Jungle was a big hit single, yes?

 

I think it did at least good. I remember it playing from the juke box at the pool room! Yes they were huge in the province of Quebec; don't know about the rest of Canada though. Hopefully member TooTull will chime in on this...

 

Barrie Barlow is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all time - indeed, was considered THE greatest by one John H. Bonham, Esq.

And being an 'all-time great rock player' (so called) is neither here nor there: all Tull members, past and present, were great ENSEMBLE players, which is finally more important than being a 'virtuoso' who can't work within a unit.

 

I doubt Led Zeppelin was ever jealous of Jethro Tull, particularly in 1972 and 1973.

 

I think Page and Bonham both left school at sixteen... but I’m not going to claim any members of Tull thought themselves superior, whatever their fans might like to think about them...

 

I'm a big fan of Tull AND Zeppelin--both of which were hugely successful in the USA during the seventies. There's little reason for complaining for the fan bases of either band.

The thing that I've always found a little odd about Jethro Tull is that the two albums that hit number one on the Billboard charts are the group's least commercial efforts. How often does THAT happen?

 

Cool thread. There are many similarities from a thousand feet up between both bands. I always thought Tull was a little less blues and more British folk centered than Zep.