Jethro Tull‘s Ian Anderson has commented on the singing skills of Mick Jagger, Ozzy Osbourne, Phil Collins and Billy Joel.
In an interview with Now Spinning Magazine, the 77-year-old musician spoke about the challenges of singing and playing at his age. “It depends what you do,” he told the outlet. “You can be physically animated, but there’s a degree to which you can only do so much if you’re playing a flute.”
However, he then compared the performance requirements of the Rolling Stones frontman, saying: “If you are Mick Jagger and you’re just running around with sort of shout-out vocals, then yeah – no disrespect, but Mick Jagger didn’t set the bar very high in terms of vocal skills right from the very beginning”.
“He’s a shouter, and he doesn’t have to really hit the notes or necessarily be terribly great on intonation or phrasing or anything,” Anderson added. “He runs around in a very animated way, and that’s great for someone who’s — whatever — a couple of years older than me, or three years older than me. That’s fine. But it’s not that easy if you’re trying to play a flute … there is a limit to what you can do. And it tends to be that if I’m not playing the flute, I’m singing.”
Anderson also discussed performing with health issues; sharing he had been diagnosed with “incurable lung disease” COPD in 2020, interfering with his abilities to perform on stage.
He went on to compare his health with the some other legendary singers – including Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne (the interview took place before his death).
“Luckily, I’m not in a position of poor old Ozzy Osbourne or equally poor old Phil Collins, or Billy Joel or a whole bunch of other people whose performance has been essentially terminated forever because, although they’re still alive, they’re not physically capable of doing concerts,” he explained.
“And that’s hopefully a way off in my life. But you’ve gotta face reality. I’ll be 78 in a couple of weeks’ time. And that’s bringing with it a few issues.”
Since Anderson’s diagnosis, Jethro Tull have managed to tour plenty since – they’re currently midway through their ‘Seven Decades’ tour across Europe.
They’ll soon come to the UK next year to play three shows at Newcastle’s O2 City Hall (April 23), London’s Palladium (May 6) and Southampton’s Guildhall (May 9). You can find tickets to these shows here.
Elsewhere, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s streaming numbers have soared following the icon’s death.
