What was the >real reason< why Glenn Cornick got fired from Jethro Tull after all?

Interestingly, Martin said Tull was the most fun and harmonious during the period that Hammond was in the band.

 

Glen did a Q&A a while before he died, which you should still be able to find online. He clearly still nursed a degree of bitterness toward Ian and said he was 'shocked' at the rapidity of the Anderson takeover after Abrahams left. He didn't get on with Abrahams at all, apparently.

 

Yes: when Jeffery left, the shutters came down.

 

I don't think Anderson compensated some of the band members very fairly. Barlow said he and John Glascock got screwed.

 

I really liked Glenn Cornick. It's a real head scratcher why he was fired? Jethro Tull were a huge success and touring the world after their great album 'Benefit' then I hear Glenn is fired and Jeffery Hammond Hammond is the new bass player. Nothing against Hammond but Cornick was a much better musician in my opinion. I think Ian wanted his old friend Jeffery in the band as Glenn was stealing some of the stage presence from Ian. But I must admit Jethro Tull never missed a beat without Glenn and became more famous without Glenn. Even losing Clive Bunker could not stop Jethro Tull from a stratospheric rise to the very top. And Ian had his way his band his success.

 

I'll look this up, thanks!

To be sent home from America purposefully on a different plane than the rest of the group (once Ellis broke it to Glenn - this is according to him, in the DE book) must have been a pretty awful feeling of rejection...

 

But it wouldn't be long before everybody but the drummer stole big time some of the stage presence from IA, and none of these guys got fired for it...

 

Barlow has always, understandably, been bitter about the "A" Saturday night massacre, and I think it colors his entire experience with Tull. Ian didn't replace John when he was unable to participate in the recording of Stormwatch.

 

Looking at the footage from the German Swing In documentary on the band during their autumn 1969 tour, I got the impression that Glen could be a bit of a 'loose cannon' on stage - ie, having his own interactions with the audience. Ian has talked of him going on stage in America with his Holiday Inn room key prominently hanging out of his pocket, so the groupies would know which room door to knock on! I think Ian feared it was only a matter of time before it would be difficult to rein Glen in.

The post-Cornick/Bunker band was very much IA as Master of Ceremonies with the other band members playing their allotted roles (John 'Sad Clown' Evan, 'Sporting Blue' Barrie Barlow, etc). There was no room for spontaneity and every performance was more or less the same, right down to the jokes.

 

Very true even Barlow had great stage presence, what a great drummer. Yeah, I don't know what happened but Glenn got screwed big time. Ian really disliked something! Poor Glenn lost out on millions of dollars.

 

I don't think Glascock was well-compensated, which was why he supposedly couldn't even pay for his own funeral. That was the source of Barrie's outrage - he'd assumed that Glascock was on a similar salary to the rest of them and when he learned how much lower that salary was, he took umbrage at Ian for exploiting a vulnerable person.

In the 1979 Lively Arts documentary, Martin and Barrie seem to living high on the hog with nice houses in good areas.

 

I'm assuming most people on this thread will already have seen this documentary, which was made for German television in 1969.




It shows the band just as it was on the verge of massive success and includes fascinating footage of Glenn's and Ian's parents.

There is no sense of inter-band conflict to be seen, though it's clear that Ian was already isolated from the rest of them.

 

It's hard to fathom why Glascock by his 4th or something year with the band would have received a lower salary than the rest... He was the best darn bass player they ever had and will ever get! I love Jeffrey (and Glenn of course), but John was... something else!

 

He was, but he joined the band after they'd become internationally successful and his recruitment represented a massive career leap for him. From what I can gather, he was an unassertive character who loved Tull's music and probably felt privileged that he was being paid at all to have a good time. Ian may have felt confident driving a hard bargain because wasn't dealing with someone with whom he had previous history.

 

I don't know about Glascock's salary, but I remember Dave Pegg mentioned that when he did his first Tull tour he got paid an amount that for him at the time was a lot of money, but he found out later that for Tull it wasn't much money.

 

Pegg had a higher profile than Glascock when he joined Tull and had a good relationship with Anderson, which may have counted for something. I've heard he wasn't well off and may even have been in debt when Fairport disbanded in 1979, so a 'steady substantial wage' would have been welcome. By contrast, Ian never felt he had anything in common with Glascock, though he respected his musicianship.

Tony Williams (replacement bass player on the 1978 world tour) has spoken of the degree of bad feeling in the band at that time, and of how he was glad not to have to attend band meetings.

 

Interesting thread. I'm not much of a Tull fan, but clicked on this since Glenn Cornick was born in the same town (Barrow-in-Furness) and went to the same school (though he left before I started). I know Glenn is well thought of in Barrow as one of its very few famous sons, and it's lovely to read all the wonderful remarks about him here and in the comments of the above YouTube.

 

It's nice to imagine our favorite bands as all mates with an "All for one and one for all" attitude, but by the time a band has been together for a few years and/or achieved a certain level of success, they become a business like any other. And successful businesses usually don't pay their employees more than they have to. Hell, even the Stones kept Ron Wood on salary for 20 years.

Have not seen that, thanks.

 

In the German documentary posted above, Ian and Martin play as a flute duo a nice classical piece to introduce "Bourée". I'd never heard that section before. Anyonw knows what it is?

...Never got the fascination of the day with the one-leg flute playing BTW... I'm 61, and I can do it! (>fingers crossed<)

 

The argument about Glenn's "onstage extravagance" doesn't wash. Just look at footage of Hammond circa '75 with the striped suit and bass, romping about. (Btw, he was my favorite Tull bassist with a rough, earthy style that was lost the minute Glasscock stepped in with his more precise sound - although Songs from the Wood is divine.) Anderson has been accused of eccentric, tyranical behavior over the years, but I suspect Glenn was dabbling in extracurricular substances that went against Ian's code of conduct, and he knew he could replace him with his old friend anyway. I've always suspected he wanted Hammond in from the start. Or maybe Ian just didn't like the stoner headband or had some other personal pique. Seriously, bands are like that. Yes didn't like Tony Kaye holding his left hand in the air when he played solos. But he was fired because Jon Anderson wanted his own synthesizer wizard. And that's the thing - we usually know why these musicians get fired. But in Glenn's case, it's odd that his exit hasn't been fully explained after all these years; partly because Glenn himself was reluctant to talk about it much.

 

I don't think he was reluctant, at least not latterly. It was more a case of not having been told why he was fired, other than 'Ian doesn't want you in the band' through a third party.

I think Jeffery HH's stage antics were very much a 'scripted' part of the show, whereas Glenn's weren't and represented him going 'off piste' to an extent. You may be right about the headband, too, and the fact that Glenn seemed to be a 'real' hippy when the other Tulls were only 'wearing uniforms', as Zappa would have put it.

In the liner notes of the Benefit reissue, Ian talks of Glenn 'growing apart' from his early-to-bed, book-reading bandmates and that may be no more than the truth - though it bothered them a lot more than it bothered him.

 

I'm also a big fan of Jeffrey's bass work > "Thick As A Brick". Yet Glascock was so both incredibly creative and accurate... And IIRC, Anderson and/or Barre said (DE book of TOTRnR?) that he used to often come up with his own lines.

 

The footage with Ian's parents is so dear!

And you can hear, just live in the room from that little old console, that the Island Living In The Past 45 sounds great!

 

I thought Glenn himself said he felt he was let go because he was randy and single and looking for fun, and Ian/everyone else was not.
This is not to denigrate anything above. I think that if Glenn was told that, it could just as easily been a smoke screen for any one of a number of resons above. Given what we know about Ian's desire for complete control and his clean living lifestyle, it could be that it got to the point where every single thing Glenn did just bugged the living hell out of him.

 

Unless I goofed in my research, it seems it can't be found anymore.