[1] The group's founder, bandleader, principal composer, lead vocalist, and only constant member is Ian Anderson, a multi-instrumentalist who mainly plays flute and acoustic guitar.

[19] In November 1967 the band moved from the north of England to Luton, Bedfordshire, 30 miles (48 km) from central London, and signed a management deal with Terry Ellis and Chris Wright.

They changed their name frequently to continue playing the London club circuit, using aliases such as Navy Blue, Ian Henderson's Bag o' Nails, and Candy Coloured Rain.

[34]The group got their first major break at the National Jazz and Blues Festival at Sunbury-on-Thames in August 1968, where they drew a rapturous reception and positive reviews in the music press.

[36] In addition to original material, the album included the 1961 Doctor Ross blues "Cat's Squirrel", which highlighted Abrahams's blues-rock style; and the Rahsaan Roland Kirk-penned jazz piece "Serenade to a Cuckoo", which gave Anderson a showcase for his growing talents on the flute.

[74] Influenced by the style of Monty Python, he wrote a suite that combined complex musical ideas with offbeat humour and made fun of the band, its audience and its critics.

[79] Living in the Past was also released in 1972; it is a double-album compilation of remixed singles, B-sides and outtakes, including the entirety of the Life Is a Long Song EP, which closed the album.

They returned to England where in early 1973 they recorded and released A Passion Play, another single-track concept album, with allegorical lyrics focusing on the afterlife and, like Thick as a Brick, containing unusual instrumentation.

It also included a short acoustic song with satirical lyrics, "Only Solitaire", which was believed to have been aimed at L.A. Times rock music critic Robert Hilburn, who had written a harsh review of A Passion Play concerts at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

[citation needed] In 1975 the band released Minstrel in the Gallery, an album in the style of 1971's Aqualung, which contrasted softer, acoustic guitar-based pieces with lengthier, more bombastic works reinforced by Barre's electric guitar.

[citation needed] By this point in their career, Jethro Tull had been awarded five RIAA gold records for sales of Stand Up (1969), Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972), Living in the Past (1972), A Passion Play (1973), and would earn a sixth for Minstrel in the Gallery (1975).

During the US leg of this tour in 1979, John Glascock suffered health problems and was replaced by Anderson's friend and former Stealers Wheel bassist, Tony Williams.

After the release of Stormwatch, Fairport Convention bassist Dave Pegg was hired for the ensuing tour, during which Glascock died from heart complications at his home in England.

Anderson retained Barre on electric guitar and Pegg on bass and added Mark Craney on drums, plus special guest keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson (ex–Roxy Music, Frank Zappa, Curved Air, and UK, the last of which had opened several shows on Tull's Stormwatch tour).

London's Hammersmith Odeon was used for exterior scenes, but the main concert footage came from an American performance at the Los Angeles Sports Arena (as heard on the Magic Piper ROIO), filmed in November 1980.

The ensuing concert tour was well attended and the shows featured one of the group's last indulgences in theatricality, in which the stage was built to resemble a Viking longship and the band performed in medieval costume.

Keyboard player Don Airey (ex-Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Schenker Group, Gary Moore, Colosseum II) joined the band for the Crest of a Knave tour.

[94] In 1992, when Metallica did win the Grammy in the hard rock/metal category, their drummer Lars Ulrich joked, "First thing we're going to do is thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year".

The opening track, "Kissing Willie", featured bawdy, double-entendre lyrics and over-the-top heavy metal riffing that seemed to make fun of the group's Grammy award win.

Notable tracks included "Rocks on the Road", which featured acoustic guitar and lyrics about urban life; and "Still Loving You Tonight", a bluesy, low-key ballad.

Dave Pegg, Tull's bass player for fifteen years, made the decision to leave the band during the recording of 1995's Roots to Branches album to concentrate on his work with Fairport Convention.

Doane Perry, returning as the band's full-time drummer, recruited his friend and respected session bass player Steve Bailey to replace Pegg.

These two albums reflected Anderson's feelings about being an old rocker, with songs such as the pensive "Another Harry's Bar", "Wicked Windows" (a meditation on reading glasses), and the gruff "Wounded, Old and Treacherous".

Bassist Jon Noyce left the band in March 2006, and keyboard player Andrew Giddings quit in July 2006 citing constant touring and not enough time for family.

The band's line-up on the album and on the ensuing tour included two former Jethro Tull members, bassist David Goodier and keyboard player John O'Hara, plus guitarist Florian Opahle, drummer Scott Hammond and additional vocalist Ryan O'Donnell.

Homo Erraticus was a prog-rock concept album which, according to Anderson, "chronicles the weird imaginings of one Ernest T. Parritt, as recaptured by the now middle-aged Gerald Bostock after a trip to Mathew Bunter's Old Library Bookshop in Linwell village.

Shhhh; keep it a secret..."[107] On 1 June 2018, Parlophone Records released a 50-track collection featuring all 21 Tull albums, named 50 for 50, to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary.

In November 2019, "Ian Anderson and the Jethro Tull band" announced[108] The Prog Years Tour, with eleven dates across the UK scheduled for September and October 2020.

In April 2021, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of 1971's Aqualung, the official music video for the song, an animation directed by Iranian animator/director Sam Chegini, was premiered on Rolling Stone.

's Blackie Lawless, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder,[120] Dream Theater's John Myung,[121] Blind Guardian's Marcus Siepen,[122] Joe Bonamassa, the Decemberists' Jenny Conlee,[123] and folk doom metal band Blood Ceremony.