Jethro Tull – Radio Transmissions

This three-disc box set is targeted at fans, containing more than its share of album tracks, rarities, live cuts, and interview segments…

Where the first Jethro Tull box five years earlier, 20 Years of Jethro Tull, mostly traded on radio broadcast performances and rarities, a few outtakes, and a remastered collection of key songs, 25th Anniversary Boxed Set benefits from a more thorough raid on the vaults that has yielded up one essential addition to any Jethro Tull collection. Disc two is the centerpiece of the set, containing an additional hour of the group's November 4, 1970 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York (two pieces were previously issued on Living in the Past). Preserved on a 16-track master tape, this benefit show for the drug rehabilitation program Phoenix House was the group's most prominent American gig up to that time. It's a good representation of what the band sounded like in its second incarnation, when they were still establishing themselves outside of England…

Jethro Tull’s 1970 classic Benefit will be celebrated in a brand-new 4CD/2DVD set, featuring remixes by Steven Wilson, an abundance of previously unreleased material, packaged within a deluxe hardback book, containing 100 pages of commentary from numerous contributors alongside hordes of images of the band creating and performing their first million-selling album. Benefit (The 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition) will be out on 5th November. Following the successes This Was (1968) and Stand Up (1969), Jethro Tull returned in 1970 with their third studio album in as many years. Benefit (The 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition) contains a copious amount of expanded material, building upon the 2013 Steven Wilson remixes. CD3 contains a previously unreleased Steven Wilson remix of Jethro Tull performing at Tanglewood in 1970. Further to that, CD4 contains a newly remastered version of a concert at The Aragon Ballroom in 1970 in mono.

A 21-track distillation of the three-disc Jethro Tull box set 20 Years of Jethro Tull, this collection has a few rarities, yet its focus is on the songs every casual fan knows – album rock hits and rarities, all assembled on one hits compilation…

M.U. falls into the classic example of a compilation that is bound to irritate the dedicated yet will satisfy the needs of less devoted listeners. Since Jethro Tull is a prog rock band that made cohesive concept albums, there will always be an audience that will believe it is impossible to assemble a coherent anthology, but the fact of the matter is, the group had a lot of songs that were staples on album rock radio and M.U. simply compiles those tracks for listeners who don't want to invest in a series of concept records…

The group's second album, with Anderson (vocals, flute, acoustic guitars, keyboards, balalaika), Martin Barre (electric guitar, flute), Clive Bunker (drums), and Glen Cornick (bass), solidified the group's sound. There is still an element of blues, but except for "A New Day Yesterday," it is far more muted than on their first album, as Mick Abrahams' blues stylings are largely absent from Martin Barre's playing…

Following the end of the Stormwatch tour in early 1980, Jethro Tull would undergo its largest line-up shuffle to date, resulting in Barriemore Barlow, John Evan and Dee Palmer all leaving the band. Jethro Tull was left with Anderson (the only original member), Martin Barre and Dave Pegg.