A year ago this week, my biography on Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson, A Passion Play; The story of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, was released in North America and sold out before Christmas and was restocked in time to sell through the holiday period. I dont know the numbers actually sold, I deal with a publisher in the UK and a sub-contracted publisher - its complicated - so how many thousand I dont know. However, the book was never written with the intent of getting rich and certainly in this day and age of internet gluttony and illegal downloading - I found a site downloading the book the first week it was out, so who knows how many were just zipped off the net without payment - it certainly would not sell in numbers substantial enough to have anybody living on any easy street except the one you see each morning. It was more an hommage to a band and creative genius that grabbed my attention one late fall day in 1970 when a friend came by with new copies of Benefit and Frank Zappas Hot Rats. I immediately fell in love with this music which had a style and quality I hadnt experienced before. Zappa was already a mainstay in my record collection from being discovered for albums like Absolutely Free and Were only in it for the money, so it was no surprise that Hot Rats was a brilliant move for Zappa into jazz and fusion with a huge inclusion of woodwind magic by player, Ian Underwood. That landmark experience ended with me handing a fresh 5 dollar bill to my buddy for the two albums and a life-long love for the music of Jethro Tull and, of course, Frank Zappa who I was lucky enough to become friendly with before his passing 21 years ago. Because the books initial draft was written quite some time ago and took a while to make it to print, many of the band members interviewed probably thought it would never see the light of day. Most of them have been reached with 4 yet to be found and copies promised back then are wrapped and ready to be sent off to them with thanks, but I am going to offer them thanks here because maybe some names have gone unheard for some years so it is with a hearty Thanks to them all that I say I appreciated the time then and now that went into the making of a book that has received reviews from Excellent and Great to Stolen interview, LMFAO, which obviously must have been pretty long to have covered 225 pages - magic at work, you see. So To Ian Anderson, and wife Shona, Anne Leighton, Mick Abrahams, the,sadly, recently passed, Glenn Cornick, Clive Bunker, Jeffrey Hammond, John Evans, Martin Barre, Doane Perry, Andy Giddings, Eddie Jobson, Maartin Alcock, Tony Williams, Chris Rielly, Dave Pegg, Peter-John Vettesse, Cindy Redmond and Chris Wright as well as the late Mark Craney - Many thanks, and a Merry Christmas to you all and a prosperous and happy 2015.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:56:04 +0000
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