In 1968 Jethro Tull recorded their first LP, This Was, an album firmly rooted in American blues and jazz but sparkled with occasional bizarre but intriguing classical flourishes. The album gathered minimal attention.

To prepare for a follow-up release, leader and songwriter Ian Anderson started looking more heavily to Celtic, folk and ethnic music for new sources of inspiration. Making every effort to divorce Tull from any association with the British blues boom, Anderson deemed original Tull guitarist Mick Abraham's blues-based style as too "limited" for his new songs. Departing to form the psychedelic blues-rock behemoth Blodwyn Pig, Abrahams was briefly replaced by future Black Sabbath riffmeister Tony Iommi as well as Davy O'List, guitarist with Keith Emerson's Nice. Neither guitarist met Anderson's criteria and were quickly dismissed.

It wasn't until auditioning a pudgy, Les Paul-playing architectural student named Martin Barre that Anderson found the perfect conduit for his new ideas. Given Tull's complex British folk inspired melodies and classically tinged rhythms and the era and area from which the group sprang, one could safely categorize Tull's sound as a sort of "rock music for Middle Earth." However, while Anderson might be seen as a flute-wielding Gandalf in search of a Fellowship of dutiful musical hobbits, in Barre he had found his Aragorn. (The guitarist only looked like Sam Gamgee.)

In early 1969, Jethro Tull entered London's Morgan Jethro to record their second album, Stand Up.. The final result was, indeed, more musically varied and complex than its predecessor, from the swing-tinged classical piece "Bouree" to the balalaika-driven neo-raga "Fat Man." On the electric waltz "We Used to Know," nervous newcomer Barre proved his worth with some speaker-slicing lead guitar breaks. Stand Up was a splendid and imaginative release, rising to No. 1 on the UK charts.

However, Jethro Tull still hadn't quite shaken free of its blues and jazz roots. Following a grueling American tour in support of blues-based rock acts like Led Zeppelin, MC5 and Blood, Sweat & Tears, Anderson renewed his plans to write music that was "distinctly un-American sounding compared to many other UK acts who often emulated their American musical heroes."

It wasn't until Tull's third album, Benefit, that the band's meandering musical wanderings finally brought them to higher ground. While Ian Anderson's gifts as a writer, musician and bandleader are undisputed, he has often shown a tendency to downplay the contributions of the group's other members to the Jethro Tull sound. On Benefit, the contributions of his bandmates' to the early Tull sound is clearly evident (although, perhaps tellingly, the album is one of Anderson's least favorite Tull releases).

With his early studio jitters chased away by weeks of relentless touring, Barre's guitar work gives weight and substance to the songwriter's anti-Colonial musical visions. One of the era's most criminally overlooked bassists, Glenn Cornick's playing lends Anderson's songs new levels of musical complexity and rhythmic counterpoint. Rather than providing the typical Brit-blues bass, snare and hi-hat backbeat, Clive Bunker's drumming supports every nuance of melody within the songs. The playing of classically-trained pianist John Evan (who had been Anderson and Cornick's boss in a pre-Tull blues outfit) gives the music grounding and elegance. It is the combined labors of Anderson and this team made Benefit one of the most engaging and aurally textural recordings in the entire Brit-rock catalogue although, with only a few exceptions, the flute is featured less as a solo instrument, serving a more melodic role and sharing the limelight with muti-tracked layers electric guitars.

As anticipated, the sonic improvements of the 24-bit remastered Benefit make the album's strengths all the more apparent.

Unfortunately, it should be noted that the new Benefit follows the original UK track mix. This can be disconcerting to stateside Tull fans who grew up with the U.S. version. One of the more memorable tracks on the original American LP and CD releases, "Teacher," is relegated to bonus track status. Added to the mix for American listeners is the UK track "Alive and Well and Living In," as well as three tracks that were recorded during the same period.

As on the original U.S. version, Benefit kicks off with the song "With You There to Help Me," setting the stage for the madness and mystery to follow. Gentle piano and acoustic guitar chords blend with Anderson's Echoplex-processed flute playing and demented, asthmatic chortling. Anderson soon sublimates his psychedelic antics long enough for the song to mutate from melancholy pseudo-Elizabethan ballad into rock guitar cadenza. For a climax, Barre's Les Paul duels with Anderson's flute -- an event underscored by maniacal laughter and flamenco palmas handclaps. The strange journey that is Benefit has begun.

Next, Anderson delivers an uncharacteristically flute-free "Nothing to Say," allowing a showcase for Barre and Evan. Barre's diverse palette of generously layered guitar tones are particularly lucious throughout.

As mentioned, absent in the original U.S. release, the aforementioned "Alive and Well and Living In" now occupies the prominent No. 3 spot on the track listing. To these jaded American ears the track sounds quite out of place in the final mix -- like some sort of errant Stand Up outtake. The song would have served the album eminently better in the lowly bonus track section.

Thankfully, the next four selections follow the same order as the original U.S. mix. "Son" is Anderson's carefully wrought tale of the eternal war of values between fathers and sons. Here, the music defines the roles of the players: The initial driving beat propels the father's dialogue like slaps upside the lad's non-conforming head. Next, represented by sensitively plucked guitar and plaintive Elizabethan piano, the misunderstood boy states his case. Dad returns for the last word, imploring junior to "join with the past as soon as you can."

The intense melodramatics of "Son" are followed by the pastoral "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me," an acoustic anthem penned by Anderson as a tribute to friends from his club band days (the "Jeffrey" of the title being Jeffrey Hammond, who would replace Cornick as Tull's bassist). Though surprisingly again flute-free, the song is a template for arrangements that would resurface a year later on Aqualung.

Songs about the rigors of the road are required in the repertoire of any touring rock band. "To Cry You a Song" is one of the few worthy selections in that oft-abused canon. The song is Barre's showpiece, from the jolly "march of the trolls" guitar riff that frames the tale (eerily similar to the dual guitar harmonies of Blind Faith's "Had to Cry Today") to his emotive Leslie cabinet-driven solo spots.

Medieval minstrel overtones return for "Time For Everything," a medium-tempo electric madrigal featuring Anderson's flute and Barre's cello-like guitar harmonizing. Cornick is allowed instrumental center stage in "From the Inside," which borrows a few folk lyrics ("Can she cook, can she sew/Well I don't want to know") with Barre's mandocello-like 12-string guitar and Bunker's busy percussion playing a supporting role to the bassist's jaunty riffs and Anderson's melodic flute playing.

Next comes "Play in Time," wherein a cacophony of triple-speed elfin squeals and backwards guitar and piano simulate the disturbed and disturbing warbles of creatures from some mead-soaked realm. The song is a masterfully controlled burst of classically tinged psychedelia. Things are brought back to earth with the splendid "Sossity, You're a Woman," with the band again delighting in their role as acoustic minstrels.

The bonus tracks, "Singing All Day," "Witches Promise" and "Just Trying to Be," will be familiar to Tull fans as tracks from 1972's Living in the Past, a collection of EP cuts, singles, B-sides and outtakes. (Other cuts from that compilation can be found on the This Was and Stand Up remasters.) Recorded weeks prior to Benefit's primary tracks, "Singing All Day" betrays the jazzier leanings that Anderson was trying so desperately to eradicate and as such is a fairly undistinguished bit of Brit blues. More in keeping with Anderson's visions are the wonderfully medieval "Witches Promise" and "Just Trying to Be." Both of these acoustic pieces explore the Gaelic state of mind that the band would continue to refine.

Finally, while "Teacher" has been added as the closing bonus track on the remastered edition of the CD, it was one of the strongest centerpieces on the original U.S. release. With its driving beat and calculated guitar/bass interplay, the song is perhaps the best evidence that Jethro Tull had harnessed their earlier jazz leanings to their advantage, providing a lesson in instrumental unison playing that groups like Irish rockers Horselips would turn to for much of their later output.

By the time the band booked a studio to record their next release, Aqualung, bassist Cornick had been asked to leave, his Guinness-hefting attitude deemed incompatible with the teetotaling, in-bed-by-10 edict that Anderson had imposed upon the band. Not soon after, drummer Bunker also left. Over the years, their places have been filled by a revolving cast of distinguished musicians. However, like other revered classic rock aggregations such as Deep Purple's "Mach 2" and the Abraxas-era Santana, there was a charm, power and honesty at work in the early Tull chemistry that would never be recaptured. Benefit was a culmination of talents and influences that most fans agree is one the group's most masterful and engaging releases.

Perhaps if Ian Anderson had given a longer listen to the U.S. version of the album, he might think so, too.

- Rambles
written by Timothy Truman
published 18 January 2003

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