Jethro Tull - Crest of a Knave

[Richard]

One of the great things about returning to vinyl for me has been the chance to browse and buy albums with hindsight that I missed or couldn't afford to take a chance on the first time round.

After a chance good buy of Jethro Tull - Stand Up (1969) I read a discography about their heavy metal award in 1987 for Crest of a Knave and got one for less than a fiver inc postage off eBay.

(In 1987 I would have expected them to have sold loads on vinyl. I'm not a collector per se but was interested to see it has no stamped numbers, just hand writing in the laquer edge saying A1 and B1 sides, so maybe it's early or maybe they simply didn't sell many, pic for interest.)

Well, I can see what all the fuss was about, great album but hardly heavy metal! Dire Straits fans will love it. Could make a trilogy with Love over Gold and Brothers in Arms. My wife actually didn't believe me when I said "Tull" in response to her "Which Dire Straits is this?" If you're a DS fan get it!

The recording is excellent and comes over well on vinyl. It's fairly warm and so should be good on CD too.

[Haselsh1]

Mmm... I remember listening to 'Crest of a Knave' years ago during a friends Hi-Fi session and thinking how bloody awful it was for a 'Tull' album. I'm afraid my fondest memories of Jethro Tull were the 'Songs from the Wood' phase up to and including 'Broadsword and the Beastie'.

[Richard]

Ah, well you may have been expecting Jethro Tull and not DS . Not immediately impressive on a quick listen I agree but it does get better... Thanks for the pointers, I'll look them out

[kt66se]

Tis a great album but sadly after around 1984 tull in my view went down. Ian Anderson made tull what is was back in the 60's & 70's but after he had trouble with his vocal chords in the 80's, i've never really been able to get back into them. For me Tull provides a great way to test HiFi as Ian's voice, mixture of acoustic and electric instruments tests almost every aspect of components. CoaNave is a good one to get those cones moving

[Richard]

Yes, the albums are quite varied aren't they, not a bad thing though Got 7 now, still not got Songs from the Wood, Broadsword or Aqualung yet , but of the others the first 2 are my favourites, This Was and Stand Up. Thick as a Brick is great too. Interesting to be able to track back and see the progression from bluesy jazz. Wierd too how many of the early tracks from those late 60's schooldays come back, must have been embedded without me knowing it Side-tracked to Blodwyn Pig also, both albums are great and the first a particularly good recording