1- Teacher was written about Terry Ellis
2- Tony Iommi of Sabbath fame played guitar on their appearance on Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and almost joined as lead guitar before Martin Barre was brought in permanently
3- After Mick Abrahams left Tull, Steve Howe was one of the guitarists that Martin beat out for that position
4- Ian and Martin first met on 31st August 1968 when Martin’s band Gethsemane supported Tull on the opening night of the Van Dike Club in Plymouth, UK. On 14th September 2018 Martin headlined again at a gig to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Van Dike Club. He was supported by local band The Trees, 2 of whose members ( Alex and Becca ) are in Martin’s band for his ” Celebrates 50 Years of Jethro Tull ” dates.
5- When Jeffrey Hammond joined he said he would stay 5 years but no more. And that’s what he did.
6- Ian Anderson played the flute “wrong”, until his daughter told him.
7- Sunshine Day” is the debut single from British progressive rock group Jethro Tull. It was produced by Derek Lawrence and released in 1968 by MGM Records. On the single label, the band is credited as Jethro Toe.
8- In the early days of the band, to get new gigs at the same venues, the band would play under different names. They had just played under the name Jethro Tull, which one of the band members or perhaps the manager, had espied on the binding of a book (written by Jethro Tull on agriculture) and used that name. As it happened, that concert was covered by some rock publications and received great press and publicity, so essentially, they were stuck with the name.
9- Baker St. Muse was so hard to play that they hired ELP to play posing as JT
10- In the lyrics for heavy horses there is reference to a Suffolk what is A Suffolk; a sheep
11- They refused to attend the Grammy ceremony where they (ridiculously) won Best Heavy Metal.
12- He invented the seed drill
13- Ian loves Maiden and Bruce Dickinson loves Jethro Tull
14- Jethro adopted the standing on 1 leg technique from a 15th Century flutist named Ian Anderson
15- The mechanised farming methods developed by Jethro Tull are thought to be largely responsible for the creation of the dustbowls in North America…
16- The War Child album was issued with two different sleeves : one with a negative photograph (the well known one) and one in positive (with an ocher background and no buildings behind Ian).
17- Ian played in a wheelchair, when I saw them at the Tupperware convention center in Orlando Florida, 1996. It seems Ian had hurt his knee a few days before in South America, I decided to do a show in a wheelchair rather than cancel! From the ninth row I felt like I was looking in on a psych ward, and I was totally sober!
18- In the 80’s I ran the second largest place importing British beer. We bought salmon from a salmon farm Ian Anderson owned
19- A commemorative plaque on a church wall in Blackpool, unveiled by Ian in 2010
20- Barriemore Barlow was their best drummer
21- Jethro Tull was in that century I thought and Ian Anderson is now not 15th century but he did copy the leg perch.