“We didn’t know if people were going to like it. Jethro Tull was a blues band, and they were like, ‘What’s happened to you?’” Martin Barre on the making of the Jethro Tull album that signaled their shift to prog – even if critics called it “lame and dumb”

Jethro Tull perform at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 13th October 1970.

Jethro Tull’s first album, 1968’s This Was, featured guitarist Mick Abrahams and leaned in a decidedly bluesy direction. That approach didn’t work out for the British soon-to-be-prog rockers, and neither did Abrahams, leading to a short spell during which some guy named Tony Iommi took up six-string duties in Tull before bandleader Ian Anderson found his long-time running mate in Martin Barre.

Barre’s first album with Tull, 1969’s Stand Up, was a harbinger of things to come, meaning less blues, more flute from Anderson and undertones of prog. But there was heaviness, too; the record featured riffs that stood up to anything Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore or Jimmy Page were doing.