TO CRY YOU A SONG: A COLLECTION OF TULL TALES (JETHRO TULL TRIBUTE)

My only major complaint about this tribute is that it is weighted far too heavily on the first few albums. In fact, except for Minstrel In The Gallery and One Brown Mouse, everything is from This Was, Stand Up, Benefit, Aqualung and Living In The Past. A minor complaint is that most of the songs stay too close to the originals. But this is a tribute album, not a reimagining of the songs, so I can live with that.

A Tull Tale makes a nice opening. It's an original piece that uses musical quotes from assorted Tull songs. Aqualung, played by Magellan ramps up the metal aspect of the song, but a weak bass line by Wayne Gardner is distracting. Roy Harper's Up The Pool is a treat, as is Nothing Is Easy with John Wetton (sounding amazingly un-mooselike), Ian McDonald, Phil Manzanera and Robert Berry, playing with three original Tull members (Abrahams, Bunker & Cornick).

Lief Sorbye, solo on Mother Goose and with Tempest on Locomotive Breath does a fine job arranging the songs, but his nasal voice weakens the tracks. Robert Berry's Minstrel In The Gallery is not bad, and I really wish Echolyn had made One Brown Mouse into a song of their style. Cat's Squirrel is much better than the original (not that that was hard to do), even with most of the original Tull on the track. To Cry You A Song and A New Day Yesterday are both tasty, with Robbie Steinhardt of Kansas adding nice violin on the latter.

Teacher, with members of Wolfstone, along with Derek Sherinian and original Tull members, is done folkier than usual, and works well. And Keith Emerson (again with the original Tull trio) doesn't take Living In The Past far from it's original arrangement until he jazzes it up with a nice solo. And Life's A Long Song is nice, but Dave Pegg's voice, like Sorbye's is too nasal for my tastes.

To sum it up, it's nice to hear different artists' takes on these songs, but I wouldn't call it essential.