Why does Ian Anderson keep singing?

If you heard him in the mid-70s, well he was indeed at his peak...

The voice a Jethro Tull fan gets to hear nowadays is another singer's entirely. I used to preach that he should have the singing chore covered on stage by someone else - after all, IA has several other great talents as a stage performer - and he actually did so a little while ago for the TAAB commemorative tour. Now I'm not so convinced it would even work at all because the show, how Ian sees his role on stage, seems too much settled in its way anyway for a change like that to work.

But it can work, and it did, for lots of other acts. If you're a musician with many facets to your work, it's not because you lost your voice (or anything else) that you can't perform on stage in any other fashion...

 

With all due respect, you could be a much better teacher at 74 than you were at 34. In fact--not to patronize you--I'd wager that you are. Singing rock and roll is ideally a younger man's game--although there are a few singers who do get better with age....to a point. Most don't.

 

Because if he ever stops singing for more than 100 hours, the bomb implanted in his colon will explode.

 

It's as good a response as the question deserves.

 

Thanks, I believe this to be true. When I saw this thread my first reaction was, "Because it's what he - Ian - does." just as it's because it's what I do. Teaching has ben my life; singing has been Ian's life. Take away that could really do some serious personal damage. I'll know when I'm ready to be put out to pasture. This thread just made me think of one senior citizen to another. And,yes, one's voice is much different than what I do, and I'm well aware that Ian and many others that I still listen to no longer can do what they once did. We have the choice of whether or not we want to see them live or buy their music. I was looking more towards the psychology in all this rather than a man's stage ability at his age.

 

I think there are trade-offs as a voice ages. A singer will lose much of the flexibility and tone they had in their youth but that might be compensated by gains in acquired knowledge of phrasing and nuance that comes from working within their new limitations.

Joni Mitchell's nicotine-ravaged voice singing Both Sides Now as she stares 70 in the face is a good example.

Billie Holliday's voice was supposedly 'a wreck' by the end of her life but I love her vocals on Lady In Satin.

Robert Plant has made good out of his vocal 'decline' to become a different type of singer with a different type of repertoire.

I suppose the honest thing for I.A. to do would be to concentrate on the new material to which his voice can do justice: but as he is widely (if unfairly) perceived as an oldies' act, that would effectively halve (at least) his audience.

 

So the kid isn't going to be on the tour anymore?

 

I can't view the video.

 

Limited audience for two hours of breathy flute solos

 

The last time I saw Tull live was probably about 10 years ago, but I had no problem with his voice up to that point.

 

Yeah, Plant has handled it perfectly in my opinion.

 

Ok.
Why is Ian Anderson not so "crazy" about the flute?

 

Placido Domingo's voice is nowhere near what it was, either.

He keeps working, though, to stay alive. 'If I rest, I rust.'

 

There better not be. I'm just about to launch my James Galway tribute act.

 

In the mid-70s he used to complain that he found it tedious and much preferred the saxophone. Then much later, he said that having to play flute loud from the monitors on stage hurt his ears.

 

Elton John uses that trick too

 

But the music is as dull as dish water. With that being said, I can see it being appealing to a certain age group who's got hard rock/heavy metal in their rear view mirror.

 

Has anyone mentioned that Ian suffered a throat injury that destroyed his singing voice?

 

I still find the "common knowledge" that '84 was the break point for Ian's voice curious. While his voice lost a lot of body through the '80s, by Catfish Rising, there were some pretty bold vocals. Granted, it didn't stick around for Roots to Branches, but it's simply not true that his voice left and never returned.

When it comes to IA's voice as things stand now, there are a couple of points I'd make.

First, I want to know why more steps aren't taken to actually MAKE HIM AUDIBLE OVER THE BAND! Seriously, when I've seen Tull or IA (granted, my first Tull show was in 2000...), you can barely hear him over the band. What you can hear, sounds weak, certainly, but at least he's in key. Why not use modern amplification to actually make him properly audible? At that point, the weakness in the voice is forgivable because you're not straining to hear him in louder passages. Is it the same as hearing '70s IA? Of course not. Still, it'd make for a better show.

Second, if he's going to actually involve someone else to help with the vocals, stop with the half-measures. The guy he had when I saw him last (circa 2014 probably) sounded like a post-'84 IA and he only traded lines. If you're going to have someone cover the bases, have someone who not only actually covers the bases, but does it WELL. Get someone who can actually sing with the strength and conviction of '70s IA and let him sing the bloody songs, with a few mellow numbers reserved for IA himself. That ensures the audience is getting a great show but there's still some authenticity there.

Finally, I want to know why IA is now, with Tull disbanded, so obsessed with writing full-band electric material when his last truly classic album, The Secret Language of Birds was largely an "unplugged" affair that suited his voice far better. If memory serves, he also made a big deal at the time of its release of the fact that he felt he couldn't present acoustic material to Tull anymore because he didn't want band members to lose out on recording royalties. In light of his decisions afterward, it's a little hard to swallow that explanation.

I respect the man infinitely, but his creative and performance choices are perplexing. It's not about the money because he's already hired someone to help with the vocals. Just hire someone better suited to the material and let him sing everything OR choose material that works without the need for reinforcement.

 

It was the turning point in that he had a vocal cord injury and his doctors specifically told him not to go on the road. He didn't take that advice which (along with the emphysema) caused the problems later on. As you note though, his voice did rally on the next few tours and only got really bad around the time Tull stopped recording.

 

Well, I don't know whether it really happened in 1984 - never heard a show from late in that tour - but what I am certain of is that by the recording of Crest Of A Knave, his voice had morphed into something quite radically different! IA didn't sound like Popeye prior to that... Later on it kept deteriorating. By Roots To Branches, he didn't sound like Popeye anymore, but the voice just kept weakening...

I have no problem either with him signing his contemporary material live on stage, BTW.

Also, I now doubt it will ever happened, but can you imagine a re-arrangement of the old songs with a new lead singer so that they could do them in the original keys? What a jolt it would be to finally get "Aqualung" in concert back up in G!

 

I don't argue that the '84 tour was the straw that broke the camel's back, but the camel made progress in physical therapy and seemed on the road to recovery for a while.

Likewise, the nature of the problem leading into '84 (his voice was sounding pretty rough starting with Heavy Horses) seems very different from the way it degraded from Catfish Rising to Roots to Branches and then to Dot.com. For the second of those three albums, it just seemed like he was writing material that was less demanding and, by the third, it sounded like he couldn't get the wind up to push much of anything. That didn't become a problem, even with his vocal injury, until the late '90s.

 

Yeah, but what I don't understand is he still has a such a nice, deep talking voice! And he keeps giving audio interviews at length, and you know how prolix he is...

 

I hear you there. I'm also trying to figure out how he's got the lung capacity to play flute, but can't seem to push enough air to sing effectively. It's pretty hard to draw a line between all these dots.