This Was [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Jethro Tull
Engineer: Victor Gamm
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Jethro Tull: Ian Anderson (vocals, flute, clag horn, mouth organ, piano); Mick Abrahams (guitar, background vocals); Glenn Cornick (bass); Clive Bunker (drums). Producers: Terry Ellis, Jethro Tull. Reissue producers: Jo Brooks, Nigel Reeve. Recorded at Sound Techniques Studio, London, England between June 13 and August 23, 1968. Includes liner notes by Ian Anderson. All tracks have been digitally remastered. Jethro Tull's first album, THIS WAS, recorded and released in 1968, shows a band that is a far cry from their better-known incarnation as a prog rock outfit in the late 1970s. Instead, Tull come across here as a solid and talented blues band with elements of jazz, folk, and psychedelia thrown in. The band's sound was heavily influenced by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Mick Abrahams, whose bluesy singing and leads distinguish this disc in Tull's discography. Frontman Ian Anderson also shines with tunes like "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine for You" and the excellent cover of Rashaan Roland Kirk's "Serenade to a Cuckoo." A collector's edition, released in 2008, features a new stereo mix of the album and four early singles added as bonus tracks.

Q (7/99, p.140) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...It's a band escaping from its bedroom blues, experimenting with the free progressive vibe, dipping into some officially crazy jazz structures and coming up with a sound that's unique....THIS WAS caught [TULL] at the peak of their unbridled creativity." Mojo (Publisher) (p.124) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "The band's jazz and blues passions, which made them ideal Marquee residents, are virtually transparent here....Best of al are the instrumental workouts..." Record Collector (magazine) (p.90) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[D]irect, unfussy and predominately blues-based....[With] some inspired ensemble playing, not least from frontman, multi-instrumentalist and principal songwriter Ian Anderson."

Led by the charismatic, flute-wielding Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull began as a somewhat Led Zeppelin-like, bluesy hard-rock band. Before long the balance tipped to courtly, Elizabethan-sounding progressive rock tinged with folk and marked by tricky time changes and long suites. Though they were masters of the concept album (THICK AS A BRICK, AQUALUNG), Tull was able to churn out hook-laden hard-rock riffs that guaranteed them a permanent place on classic-rock playlists the world over.

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