Jethro Tull: Ian Anderson on Hendrix, the Stones, and getting back on the road again  

Jethro Tull are about to embark on tour across Europe and the UK  

 Ian Anderson is hitting the road again with Jethro Tull, (Picture: FRED TANNEAU/AFP/Getty Images)

For almost six decades, Ian Anderson has remained one of the most distinctive figures in British rock. As the flautist, singer, and principal songwriter behind Jethro Tull, the Scottish musician has helped shape a sound that blended blues, folk, classical, psychedelia and rock into something completely its own.

From the early grit of Stand Up (1969) and Aqualung (1971) to the ambition of Thick as a Brick (1972), his work has always carried an idiosyncratic voice in rock’s gene pool.