Chords for Jethro Tull - Ian Anderson Interview about the Moody Blues 2006

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_ _ I've always been a bit embarrassed as being _ thought of as the person who introduced the
flute to rock music and I'm always quick to point out that there were others doing it
before I got there.
_ Notably Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues, I think Chris Wood of Traffic.
_ _ Around the time I started there was a Dutch band called Focus who had a burst of flutey
_ _ favour in the charts. _
I mean I wasn't the only one, even Peter Gabriel of Genesis I
saw recently on some old bit of film footage, at _ least posing with a flute, not having actually
played the damn thing, certainly waving it around a bit.
_ [N] _ It was not unheard of, but I
knew a bit really more of the music in the context of folk music is what flute meant
to me and classical music and _ the idea of bringing it into a more rock music context
was _ really not so much _ _ as [E] having been influenced by the flute players in the world of pop and
rock music but really more by [F] being a failed [Bb] guitar player.
I mean [N] I took up the flute because
_ I realised very early on I was never going to be an Eric Clapton or the Eric Clapton because when I
heard Eric Clapton in probably late 66 early 77, I mean I was 67, that's when I knew that I mean he
was just so far ahead of everybody else it seemed that struggling along trying to play the bluesy
guitar stuff I was doing it just seemed better to find something else to play.
So I mean I said about
it really because Eric Clapton didn't play the flute and then quickly I realised neither did
Jimmy Hendrix or Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck and I was kind of out there on my own using the flute in
that more aggressive surrogate guitar way.
[Bb] I don't think there [D] was a problem for me playing, _ it's
always been a difficult instrument to integrate into [N] rock music because it's an acoustic instrument
it's not easy to amplify and you just basically have to play it as loudly as you can into a
microphone and I you know developed the singing technique that it's an age-old _ _ _ _ appendage to
players of jazz music, blues music, scat singing you know as a guitar player when I was 15 or 16 I
used to play solos and _ sing along with them and you know Moe's Alice kind _ of just mumbling _
_ tunelessly along with his piano playing it's as old as the hills that scat singing thing and
obviously Roland Kirk brought it to a level of prominence with the flute but it was a no option
[Gm] for me because in order to match up with a guitar I had to reinforce the [N] flute notes with that
vocalising that was you know gave it the aggressive quality that the pure flute tone doesn't but I was
always a great admirer of people who could play nicely because I couldn't I [Eb] could only play the
way I played and sort of [N] monophonic riffs and aggressive solos I couldn't really play very
nicely and so I mean I've always I've always rather envied the flute solo in Nights in White
Saturn. _ _ _ _ _ _
Well I'm a little disappointed that there have been in pop and rock music that the flute
has been used quite a lot in the 60s and into the 70s and obviously not just by me but _ _ whilst it's
occasionally just sort of slipped in you know as a little bit of a buzzy noise or a little decorative
thing or a crossover people like James Galway and Annie Song and that sort of stuff it's not really
been taken up as an instrument by as a lead instrument as a really forthright main part of
a group really by anybody I wouldn't say anybody at all but anybody that I've come across and I
it is really really surprising it is a difficult instrument to fit [Bb] in but there must be a lot of
people out there who think [N] you know Ian Anderson must have made a pilot dosh playing the flute
you know maybe give that a try you know for perhaps not dissimilar reasons to why I started
playing but they weren't very good guitar players or keyboard players or they they couldn't work out
the shiny new Apple Mac and the computer programs to do sort of dinky-dunky music they might think
so I'll give it a go it's not difficult instrument to play _
[D] difficult there to integrate [Gb] it and give
it a meaningful [F] role in [B]
contemporary rock music but you know it would it would work beautifully
well in in Coldplay's music you know I mean I could it's a perfect [Db] sort of choice for so many
[N] bands but but _ _ and I guess if Coldplay had a flute player they would stand out from the crowds in
_ a bigger way than they already do it's a great instrument to sort of make you a little different
to everybody else but _ surprising no one's come along and and with Ray Thomas you know just being
from the moodies at any rate then _ there's one less of us than they [B] used to be it's gonna leave me and
not too many others that anybody's ever heard of and _ nice nice to be a big fish in a small pool
but but sometimes you know you can swimming around can get a little lonely when you don't
feel as a young [Ebm] pretender coming along to make you you know make you work a bit [Ab] harder or teach
you teach you some new tricks _ _ [G] _ _ _
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_ _ [D] I _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _
think the case of moody blues it's having a bunch of really good
songs that people people _ don't necessarily know that they know until they hear that then they
think oh I remember that one too I bought a you know kind of double album best of the moody blues
kind of thing [Db] _
and [F] _ I thought I knew one or two songs but then when I listened to it I kept hearing
these other ones that I remember that one as well it all adds up to this sort of body of work which
is what I think is behind the _ _ weight and authority that bands like the moody blues have in _ popular
opinion to this day _ _ _ _ _ _ because when you're replacing a flute [G] player in it where do you find a rock and
moral flute player there's one _ which probably going to be on this series isn't there that
everybody knows [F] and funnily enough I did meet Ian Anderson only recently I've known him for years
but we met again recently in Germany last year I think it [Db] was was it 50 years of rock and roll
big big TV [C] show in Germany kind of three-hour special covering the whole the whole deal from
Bill [Eb] Haley and the Comets to the Rasmus or whatever was current at the time and on the show
and I discovered the moody blues [E] were on and _ and I knew that Ray Thomas [Eb] flute player had left [D] so I
thought this is my big chance out you know [F] if I asked nicely maybe they'll let me play [Gb] you know
I'll get to play flute in nights and nights and white sasson because I figured that's [D] the one
that would do which of course they did [G] but my heart fell when I [E] saw that standing [Eb] next to Justin
Hayward there was [E] a rather attractive young lady flute player who had been enlisted after the demise
[D] of Ray Thomas so [G] _ I have still no chance he came up [Eb] to me in the corridor this thing he says why
didn't you ask me when Ray left I said well it's just the solo you know I've always wanted to do
that solo _ so whether he meant it