Talk:Catfish Rising

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CATFISH RISING (1991) may be one of the very few JT studio albums that tricked even Tull fans. For some reason, this could be seen as one of the ONLY JT albums that actually sounded better at first; and then has lost steam over the years. This is usually not the case for JT productions; you can tell right away what kind of mood and power the band was in during a session. It's either a clunker (Under Wraps, A) or a classic (Roots to Branches, Heavy Horses) from inital listening. But this album just hasn't aged well. As usual, many of the beloved Tull elements are there; first and foremost Ian Anderson's genius song composition ("White Innocence") and exciting flute work, secondly Martin Barre's mighty guitar riffs, thirdly strong drumming (Doane Perry) and clever and clean production. It's all there. Yet, hmmm, where's Ian's acoustic guitar thingie that we love? There's something about this CD that doesn't quite stand up as even a contender for the top ten. Two theories: 1) it was Tull's first CD of the 90s; and there was quite a 'back to basics' thing about then; Ian acquiesed and got into some roosty blues sounds. The mandolins were dusted off, the minor penatonic ressurected. This was a novel scene we'd only seen mentioned ocassionally in their previous 20 years. But truth is, Tull has never really worked as a blues scene. It's well known their Bag of Blues in the early days were their cutting ground; but Ian quickly moved the Tull sound away from the blues, and perhaps best so (though there's the rare odd bird who ONLY likes Tull's early sound). The second guess at why the power of Catfish Rising has fizzled: it seemed to be thematic. Tull's best work is always due to it's uncanny varience; one theme or style to the next with a seeming flick of the wrist. On CR, it seemed to sort of peter out "Black Jacket, Tie and Gold tipped Boots" goes on too long, "When Jesus Came to Play" same. The CDs best track "Rocks on the Road" would have been a suitable compilation of this theme. Four years later, Ian and Co would release the sublime "Roots to Branches," which at least promised to deliver the only thing US Tull fans really want: kitchen prose and gutter rhymes, broadswords awaving, heavy horses and a tumbling sky. Catfish Rising's somewhat cosmopolitan essence was a bit of a drudge for most seasoned Tull listeners, and Anderson has since incorporated more 'city-like' stories to successful melody in both his superb solo efforts and subsequent Tull offerings (his new Christmas Songs being an excellent example, as well as anything off of Rupi's Dance). Of Tull's three studio albums in the 90s, this is the weakest; but take a look at ANYTHING his contemporaries released during that decade. At least we can be assured of musical standard worthy of the Tull name for our cash; even on an odd outing as this.

Can anyone make sense of this and/or reword it into something useful? User:Luigi30 (Υσηρ ταλκ ΛυηγηΛ) 20:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The section on "Roll Yer Own" on the radio, and Ian Anderson being sent out of the studio

I cannot find anything in Google that references this, other than mirrors of Wikipedia. There are no online reliable sources on this as far as I can tell. I think it should be kept, though, because it's probably true, just not easily verifiable. Surely there are some offline sources on this? How does one go about obtaining offline sources? How are books verifiable if the reader of the Wikipedia page doesn't have the book to hand? --h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 21:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)