Ian Anderson
Ian Anderson
Ian Scott Anderson, MBEis a Scottish-born musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist and acoustic guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull. Anderson plays several other musical instruments, including keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone, harmonica, and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with the 1983 album Walk into Light, and since then he has released another five works, including the sequel of Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brickin...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionFlute Player
Date of Birth10 August 1947
CityDunfermline, Scotland
Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.
I was not a great guitarist, so I sold my 1960 Fender Stratocaster in exchange for a Shure Microphone, made in Chicago, and a flute.
Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim.
Question all as to their ways and learn the secrets that they hold
I'm really terrible with small children; they're small, noisy, irritating, damp and soggy.
I'm not one for Sudoku or crosswords - the thing that fires my little brain is doing tour budgets.
I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed when Eric Clapton came on the scene, and I decided I was never going to be in the same arena as a Clapton or a Peter Green.
Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.
If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim.
There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little.
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood A rein of polished leather A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky Brewing heavy weather.
I am not afraid to appear in Israel, although when I come to a place like Israel, I know it's not a picnic by the Thames. I am aware of the tension and it saddens me.
Walk the lines of nature's palm crossed with silver and with gold.
In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.