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It has been WAY too long. I only have one problem.it's more of the same.Will we EVER see another NEW Jethro Tull album. Please Ian. A great remaster of Tull's debut, with lots of extras added. Well worth pciking up.
Even as a life time (OK since 1973) fan of Jethro Tull, this double CD stands strong on the liner notes, extra material, and the revisted strength of this live recorded set.
It doesn't seem so long ago that the first three Jethro Tull albums were remastered and reissued with bonus tracks. To sum it up, there is an astounding amount of music provided for what is currently a very fair price.To me, My Sunday Feeling and Serenade To A Cuckoo are two of the early Tull pieces which, though utterly different in style, helped bring the band attention from a much wider range of listeners than it might have received if it were not so eclectic. Well, unless you are a huge fan of the earliest incarnation of Jethro Tull, there is no good reason to particularly if you already own the previous edition. Not only do you get the ten songs (in mono) from the original release, nine additional songs from a pair of John Peel sessions are tacked onto the first CD.
Indeed, overall the extras don't match the quality of the songs ultimately selected for inclusion on the original album.The double gatefold style presentation includes a small booklet containing pictures, commentary and album notes. They certainly got my attention and remain favorites to this day. Among the cuts from the Peel Sessions, I most enjoy My Sunday Feeling, Serenade to a Cuckoo and Beggar's Farm.On the bonus disc, I most enjoyed the stereo mixes of the ones I like best on the mono version as well as One For John Gee which is kind of a poor relation to Serenade To A Cuckoo. So to reiterate, if you are a Tull fan with no particular attachment to the early years then you might be better off buying the single-disc remaster of This Was issued several years ago. One I don't like is Sunshine Day which is very unTull-like. So why buy this Collector's Edition of This Was.
I also favor Beggar's Farm, Move On Alone, and It's Breaking Me Up. But if you are one like me who still thinks that the first few Tull albums are his best, then This Was (Collector's Edition) is a keeper that will give you pleasure for the rest of your life. But, if you began your Tull experience when This Was was originally released, then you certainly will want to add this to your collection.Admittedly, the This Was Collector's Edition is massive overkill. The second CD features the entire original album remixed in stereo, four remastered mono recordings of songs related to but not included on the original release, and stereo mixes of two of the bonus tracks.
Save your money for the next release, due out early 2009. I'm a big Tull fan, and was excited about the anniversary issue of their first album. Sadly, i had forgotten that I only liked three of the songs from this album, which are the same three featured on their various greatest hits collections.
The BBC recordings, mostly previously unreleased tracks, give a taste of the live band as well.Finally, it was a nice touch to include liner notes from each of the original band members instead of Anderson's alone. Therefore, this is a chance to explore the way engineers had to create a viable mix for only one speaker; the mono mix featured here is punchier than the stereo, with its wide channel separation, and while there are no real revelations, it's instructive to be able to compare the two. Beginning in 1980 with the "accidental" attribution to the band of the Anderson solo LP "A", Tull lost its roots; this began a long period of decline characterized by an endless search for a new identity amid a series of revolving sidemen. Altogether, this release shows the kind of care and attention to detail that is worthy of the designation "collector's edition". "This Was" features very distinctive guitar--Barre is a fine guitarist but changes styles to accommodate Anderson's latest phase--and it's the only Tull album to feature vocals by someone other than Anderson (I don't count the occasional monologs by Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond). This Lp represents the sole effort by the band which had only recently become Jethro Tull.
Though Anderson is among the most creative and innovative musicians working in this genre in the past 40 years, his stranglehold on the Jethro Tull brand name has artificially prolonged the life of a band that has passed its sell-by date. The bonus cuts are all familiar, but the mono mixes are again a historically accurate representation of the originals. At the time, it boasted two stars: vocalist/flautist/songwriter Ian Anderson and guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Mick Abrahams. Abrahams's "Move on Alone" is a clever blues-derived song fully the equal of the kind of songs Anderson was then writing; the two voices blended well, as demonstrated on "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine"; and as the bonus cut "Sunshine Day" proves, Abrahams could also write songs with commercial appeal, though the era of the hit single was soon to be eclipsed by album-based radio.With its mix of blues, pop and jazz, "This Was" was refreshingly different from both the standard British "Blooze" of Ten Years After, Fleetwood Mac and Cream, and from the left-over psychedelia that was soon to produce such bloated and pretentious "progressive" bands as Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson.The mono mix included in this 40th anniversary package may seem redundant or mere padding, but, for those too young to remember 40 years ago, this was a time when many of us were still in possession of mono record players, and though the record companies were beginning to release only stereo LPs, there were still a few like this one that were issued in both formats. I call it the only real Jethro Tull album because all of the subsequent recordings by the band known as Jethro Tull are actually recordings by the Ian Anderson Band (it's ironic that Abrahams' replacement, Martin Barre, is the only other permanent member of a band that periodically reinvents itself but remains firmly identified with Ian Anderson).
The final stroke should have fallen with the loss of Anderson's voice and the resultant vocal disaster of "Crest of a Knave" in 1987.Anderson needed the strong personality of Mick Abrahams to balance his own ego.
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