“Aqualung was Ian’s riff. The solo was all done on the fly. If I hadn’t got it in two takes then it would have been a flute solo. That’s when Jimmy Page came up to say hello”: Martin Barre on Jethro Tull, the Aqualung sessions – and supporting Hendrix

Martin Barre of Jethro Tull photographed at home in front of his bookshelf, with his pristine Gibson ES-330TD
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)

As Martin Barre reflects with a wry smile, the late ’60s were a glorious time to be a square peg. Formed in Blackpool as reluctant blues-boomers, under the de facto leadership of frontman Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull soon outgrew those roots, turning heads across London with their splice of classical, folk and chirruping flute.

Defying both the strictures of genre and the pleas of their record label, by 1971 the band had released Aqualung, the classic fourth album that stands as a monument to a time when artists, not their paymasters, held the creative reins.

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Jamie Dickson

Jamie Dickson is Editor-in-Chief of Guitarist magazine, Britain's best-selling and longest-running monthly for guitar players. He started his career at the Daily Telegraph in London, where his first assignment was interviewing blue-eyed soul legend Robert Palmer, going on to become a full-time author on music, writing for benchmark references such as 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Dorling Kindersley's How To Play Guitar Step By Step. He joined Guitarist in 2011 and since then it has been his privilege to interview everyone from B.B. King to St. Vincent for Guitarist's readers, while sharing insights into scores of historic guitars, from Rory Gallagher's '61 Strat to the first Martin D-28 ever made.

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