Professional Flutist Reacts to Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath 

It's a Strong and Powerful Song and This is the Weakest Version I've Heard. You shud Have Listen to a Good Version, that is as Strong as the Original. Still Love the Show, from this Canadian Fan.

Yes it is really sad that he and has lost his voice.

Ian is now 71, no wonder.

Last time I saw Jethro Tull at The Greek Theater (Los Angeles) June of 2018, great show but I noticed he was using a few stage tricks to cover for a minor lack of endurance. Though I hope when I'm that age I'm still plugging away as well as he was that night.

@@delxlup But compare the Home Free covers featuring the original artists, Lee Greenwood on God Bless the USA and Don McLean on American Pie, respectively 79 and 74 (or close to those ages) when the Home Free videos were made. They both had not lost a step vocally. Unfortunately Ian's singing style and vocalizations during flute solos along with things like smoke machines took their toll on his voice. Nonetheless he remains very expressive within his more limited range shown in this video.

Really is sad how bad Ian Anderson’s voice has gone. Saw him on my birthday at an outdoor concert once, awesome time, everyone chill and just loved their music.

He’d apparently had this since his twenties according to an interview I read. He just kept it very quiet. The loss off power in his voice was due to him damaging his vocal chords on the Under Wraps tour. They took a year out for him to recover but from Crest Of A Knave onwards his voice has been notably different and a lot of his songs since are written in such a way as to adapt to his problem, which worked well for a while. But his voice has gotten progressively worse in a live environment since the 90s and every time I’ve seen them live he is barely audible except for more recent songs written to take his vocal limitations into account.

Thanks for pointing out the mug. I really didn't register that. Good that you did. And that Heline apparently is a DW fan.

I saw Dream Theater playing with a full orchestra. I died of laughter the obo players were hot as can be and head banging to the music. It was epic.

Ian Anderson suffers from chronic obstructive lung disease. He announced it in the autumn of 2020, I think it was.

The COPD is something he’s had since his 20s but he kept quiet about it until very recently. He said in 2020 that that was the first time since he was in his twenties that he’d gone 14 months without it causing a problem (he usually ended up with some sort of bad bronchial infection at least once a year). The loss of voice was due to him straining and damaging his vocal chords on the Under Wraps tour during 1985. Many, including Martin Barre and Ian himself, have said that he sung better on that tour than ever before, but he ended up paying the price. Tull then took a year out, only playing one festival gig in Germany, so he could rest his voice. But when Tull returned for Crest Of A Knave his voice was noticeably different with a sort of gravelly Mark Knopfler tinge to it. He wrote a lot of new songs in specific keys that he could manage better and he still sounded really good, albeit different. But by the time I first saw them live in the late 90s his voice was getting worse. I’ve seen them live 5 times and he has been audible on only one gig that I’ve been to - and even then he still struggled with some songs. I saw Tull on the 40th Anniversary tour when things were so bad he enlisted the help of the lead singer of Tull tribute band Sossity to stand in on a few songs. When I saw them live in October he was only properly audible on Zealot Gene and Hunt By Numbers, which were both written after his voice got bad and was therefore written in a way that he could cope. Aqualung was mostly done as an instrumental and on some songs he shared vocals with guitarist Joe Parrish. He still writes great songs, has an excellent stage manner and is an extraordinarily good musician. If he feels the drive to still play live, I sort of wish he’d just form a band and do new songs with a new vocalist, or perhaps an instrumental set, maybe just saving his own voice for a few of the old crowd pleasers. Tull are far and away my favourite band. But if I wanted to introduce someone to their music who had never heard of them before I wouldn’t take them to a live show. With Ian’s voice gone and without Martin Barre it doesn’t even feel like Tull anymore.

I think the phrasing is because of his health issues. Someone above mentioned COPD, so i'm guessing he can't sing a long phrase. Has no range either. Kinda sad to hear how he sounds now, compared to back in the day.... or even 20 years ago when I saw them.