Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Jethro Tull
Label: EMI Records
Released: 1992
Rating: 4/5
Since the release of the excellent “Bursting Out” (1978), Jethro Tull’s first live album, quite a few years passed before its follow-up arrived. In that time the band went through many ups and downs, constant sonic changes, swapped out plenty of members and made a string of more or less interesting and well-received albums. After the, by Tull standards, rather lukewarm blues experiment that was “Catfish Rising” (1991), Tull hit the road on a semi-acoustic tour that also took in a few countries that were still pretty exotic for touring bands at the time (the Czech Republic, Turkey and Israel were certainly among them). For the tour Ian made a fairly unusual but really interesting move, deciding the band would play as a four-piece, without a keyboardist, and with Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention) on drums. Mattacks ended up in the band on the recommendation of his Fairport Convention buddy, bassist Dave Pegg, who was earning his bread in both bands at the time. Mattacks’ folk-rock-minded, noticeably more gallant approach to drumming, especially compared to regular Tull drummer Doane Perry, turned out to be a really fitting choice for this semi-acoustic tour. On top of that, Mattacks could now and then play a bit of keyboards too, so the band’s sound was nicely split between Ian on flute, acoustic guitar and mandolin, Martin Barre on electric and acoustic guitar, and Pegg on bass and mandolin. For a band that had had a keyboardist in its ranks since the early 70s, and two of them by the end of the decade, this was surely an interesting throwback to the days of the original four-piece lineup. Accordingly, they noticeably simplified most of the arrangements or added some new ones (acoustic in nature, of course) and returned to the band’s original guitar-and-flute concept.
For the tour they used a really interesting and unusual selection of songs from every period of their history, mostly the more acoustic-leaning tunes, while the ones with a punchier rock undertone had their arrangements noticeably toned down and were mostly dressed up in little acoustic shirts. On “A Little Light Music” the band successfully mixes the quiet with the loud, the fast with the slow, and puts together a really varied set of songs, each one recorded at a different venue. Some of them, like “Life Is a Long Song”, “Nursie”, “One White Duck”, “Look Into The Sun” and “From a Dead Beat To An Old Greaser”, had never been played live before, which is surely one of the main attractions of this live album. Overall there are plenty of songs on it that are usually played very rarely, or never, on stage. From the then-current “Catfish Rising” there are, luckily, only the solid mid-tempo hard rockers “Rocks On the Road” and “This Is Not Love”, which are also the punchiest moments of all the tracks on the album. The surprises keep coming one after another, though. The first is definitely the rerun of their ancient blues rock anthem “Someday The Sun Won’t Shine For You”, the opening track of the debut album “This Was” (1968), where of course it’s not complete without Ian’s wonderfully witty huffing and puffing on the harmonica.
Another pleasant surprise is the acoustic instrumental “Under Wraps”, in my opinion the only track worth mentioning from the electronic catastrophe of the same name (“Under Wraps“, 1984). Two more songs the band rarely returns to are the endearing Ian innuendo “Nursie” (“Living In the Past“, 1972) and the acoustic ballad “One White Duck” from “Minstrel In the Gallery” (1975), an excellent prog album that, for reasons unknown, they’ve rarely remembered at their shows in recent years. Another sizable surprise is the very good take on the English traditional folk song “John Barleycorn” (which Fairport Convention and Traffic have covered, among others). They played it at the urging of Greek music star George Dalaras (he also takes part in the performance, and his vocals appear on the Italian and Greek editions of the album). Tull connoisseurs will also get a kick out of the excellent version of the long-forgotten bluesy hard rocker “Look Into The Sun” (“Stand Up“, 1969), one of their first singles, enriched here with extra bluesy arrangements, the anthemic “Christmas Song” (which Ian sarcastically introduces as “a magical time for the spiritual uplift of the individual, and a period when it’s not appropriate to get blind drunk, overeat and engage in the usual relations with three different animals…so, I’m warning you, David Pegg”) and “From a Dead Beat To an Old Greaser” (“Too Old To Rock ‘n’ Roll, Too Young To Die“, 1976), which they also dragged out of mothballs. Another very good experiment is the instrumental take on “Pussy Willow” (“The Broadsword and the Beast“, 1982), Ian’s best-known sexual innuendo, which I think is even better than the studio version, mostly thanks to the excellent baroque arrangements.
Of the established classics there’s only a handful, and even those come with noticeably changed arrangements and acoustic touches added in all the right places, like “Living In the Past”, “A New Day Yesterday”, “Bouree” and the obligatory “Locomotive Breath”. I also can’t forget the excellent reggae version of “Too Old To Rock ‘n’ Roll” with a tasty mandolin intro. At the end of it Ian tells one of the best of his colorful collection of sarcastic anecdotes: how “Martin took a trip, courtesy of the concert-goers’ money, to some island in the Caribbean, where this famous ladies’ man supposedly met a ton of attractive women. You see, Martin has a habit of hosting 200 women in his bed every night…sorry, 200 women in his mind”. It’s also interesting that this is one of the rare Tull recordings without their live staple “Aqualung” (“Aqualung“, 1971), which doesn’t bother me personally in the slightest, since the album was conceived mainly as a showcase for some of the stuff they don’t usually play. Apart from noticeably improved sound, the reissue brings nothing new, no bonus tracks for instance, but in a way that’s even better, since it preserves the authentic spirit of the original release.
For all its many virtues and quirks, chief among them the excellent performances of newly arranged classics and more obscure pieces, “A Little Light Music” can’t compare with the magnificent “Bursting Out”, one of the best live albums of the 70s. Still, it’s an exceptionally interesting and unusual live album, where Tull present some lesser-known songs and give familiar ones a new look. It’s also great to hear that Ian’s vocal performance is once again closer to his golden days than to some weird Mark Knopfler clone. Personally, I always find it interesting to hear certain Tull songs, usually already heard a million times, in a different light. Over the years Ian has taken so much of a liking to this that it became totally normal at their shows for some songs to get tweaked or given new arrangements. The man took the same approach to his own shows with an orchestra, too. “A Little Light Music” is a unique, thoroughly laid-back, acoustic-leaning live album that fits best with a summer afternoon on the terrace with a dessert and a cocktail, while still offering enough energetic moments for various leisure-time physical activities.
Lineup
Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, mandolin, harmonica, acoustic guitar, percussion
Martin Barre – electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin
Dave Mattacks – drums, cymbals, xylophone, percussion, keyboards
GUEST MUSICIAN:
George Dalaras – vocals on “John Barleycorn” for the Italian and Greek editions
Production
Ian Anderson
Track list
1. Someday The Sun Won’t Shine For You (3:59)
2. Living In The Past (5:08)
3. Life Is A Long Song (3:37)
4. Under Wraps (2:30)
5. Rocks On The Road (7:05)
6. Nursie (2:27)
7. Too Old To Rock: Roll Too Young To Die (4:44)
8. One White Duck (3:15)
9. A New Day Yesterday (7:34)
10. John Barleycorn (6:34)
11. Look Into The Sun (3:46)
12. A Christmas Song (3:46)
13. From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser (3:51)
14. This Is Not Love (3:53)
15. Bourée (6:06)
16. Pussy Willow (3:32)
17. Locomotive Breath (5:52)
Album length: 77:39
