Minstrel in the Gallery
Encyclopedia
Minstrel in the Gallery (1975) is the eighth studio album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 by British band Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...

, released in September 1975.

Ian Anderson's lyrics and subject matter show an introspective and cynical air, possibly the byproduct of Anderson's recent divorce from first wife Jennie Franks
Jennie Franks
Jennie Franks is an English photographer, actress, and playwright. She may be best known as Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson's first wife, from 1970 to 1974. She is a lyricist and wrote the lyrics to the Jethro Tull song "Aqualung"....

 and the pressures of touring, coupled with the frustrations of writing for and recording the album in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

. The title refers to the use of a minstrel's gallery in the great hall
Great hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...

 of castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s or manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

s.
Stylistically the album is varied. The songs "Minstrel In The Gallery", "Black Satin Dancer" are hard-rock, although "Minstrel", like another track, "Cold Wind to Valhalla", starts with several acoustic verses that are basically identical in structure to the main, hard rock section of the song, then break into the heavier version after an instrumental break.

Five of the seven songs on the album feature intros, consisting of either speech or count-offs (the exceptions being "Black Satin Dancer" and "Grace").

This album was remaster
Remaster
Remaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...

ed with five additional bonus tracks
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...

 in November 2002, including incomplete live-in-the-studio renditions of "Minstrel in the Gallery" and "Cold Wind to Valhalla", some tracks that appeared only on maxi-singles ("Pan Dance", "March The Mad Scientist") and "Summerday Sands" which was the B-side of the "Minstrel In The Gallery" single.

Track listing

All songs written by Ian Anderson, except "Minstrel in the Gallery" by Ian Anderson and Martin Barre.

Side one

  1. "Minstrel in the Gallery" – 8:13
  2. "Cold Wind to Valhalla" – 4:19
  3. "Black Satin Dancer" – 6:52
  4. "Requiem" – 3:45

Side two

  1. "One White Duck / 010 = Nothing At All" – 4:37
  2. "Baker St. Muse" – 16:39
    1. "Baker Street Muse"
    2. "Pig Me and the Whore"
    3. "Nice Little Tune"
    4. "Crash Barrier Waltzer"
    5. "Mother England Reverie"
  3. "Grace" – 0:37

Bonus tracks

The remastered CD added bonus tracks (which had been on the 20 Years of Jethro Tull
20 Years of Jethro Tull
-Disc two:Flawed Gems and Other Sides Of Tull-Disc three:The Essential Tull-LP Track listing:The track numbers shown below are for the five LP set...

box-set) and extensive liner notes:
  1. "Summerday Sands" – 3:44
  2. "March the Mad Scientist" – 1:48
  3. "Pan Dance" – 3:25
  4. "Minstrel in the Gallery — Live" – 2:11
  5. "Cold Wind to Valhalla — Live" – 1:32

Personnel

  • Ian Anderson - flute
    Flute
    The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

    , acoustic guitar, vocals
  • Barriemore Barlow
    Barriemore Barlow
    Barrie "Barriemore" Barlow is an English musician, best known as the drummer and percussionist for the rock band Jethro Tull, from May 1971 to June 1980....

     - drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

    , percussion
    Percussion instrument
    A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

  • Martin Barre
    Martin Barre
    Martin Lancelot Barre is an English rock musician.Barre has been the guitarist for rock band Jethro Tull since 1969. He has appeared on every Jethro Tull album except their debut This Was...

     - electric guitar
    Electric guitar
    An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

    s
  • John Evan
    John Evan
    John Evan , played keyboards for Jethro Tull from April 1970 to June 1980. He was educated at King's College London....

     - keyboards
    Keyboard instrument
    A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

  • Jeffrey Hammond
    Jeffrey Hammond
    Jeffrey Hammond sometimes credited as Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, is a former bass guitar player for the progressive rock band Jethro Tull....

     - bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

  • David Palmer
    Dee Palmer
    Dee Palmer is an English composer arranger and keyboardist best known for having been a member of the rock group Jethro Tull.Palmer studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Richard Rodney Bennet,winning the Eric Coates Prize and The Boosey and Hawkes Prize...

     - orchestral arrangements

External links

(bonus tracks
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...

)
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