Ian Anderson

Ian Scott Anderson MBE (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician best known as the lead vocalist, flautist, and acoustic guitarist of the British rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he has been the only constant member since the band's founding in 1967. A multi-instrumentalist, Anderson also plays harmonica, mandolin, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone and a variety of whistles.

Born in Dunfermline, Scotland to a Scottish father and English mother, Anderson was raised in Edinburgh before moving to Blackpool, England with his family at age 12. Anderson formed The Blades in 1963 while still in school, a soul and blues band that eventually evolved into Jethro Tull by 1967. Anderson initially played electric guitar, however soon abandoned the instrument in favour of the flute, which would become his signature instrument and a defining component of Jethro Tull's sound. Anderson developed an energetic stage presence, wearing a large overcoat during the band's early years and adopting a signature pose in which he plays the flute while standing on one leg. Beginning with Jethro Tull's second studio album, Stand Up (1969), Anderson assumed increasing creative control, becoming the band's primary songwriter and guiding it through a series of stylistic shifts throughout its history, including into the progressive rock that the band would become known for.

Anderson began a solo career in 1983 with Walk Into Light and later released several follow-up albums, including Divinities: Twelve Dances with God (1995), The Secret Language of Birds (2000), Rupi's Dance (2003), Thick as a Brick 2 (2012) and Homo Erraticus (2014). Outside music, Anderson owned several salmon farms from the 1980s to the early 2000s. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2008 for services to music.

Ian Anderson was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the youngest of three brothers, to an English mother and a Scottish father. Anderson said, "I'm a Brit. I see myself as a product of that union." His father, James Anderson, ran the RSA Boiler Fluid Company in East Port, Dunfermline. Anderson's family moved to Edinburgh when he was three. He was influenced by his father's big band and jazz records and the emergence of rock music, but was disenchanted with the "showbiz" style of early American rock and roll stars like Elvis Presley.

Anderson's family moved in 1959 to Blackpool, England, where he was educated at Blackpool Grammar School. In a 2011 interview, Anderson said he was asked to leave grammar school for refusing to submit to corporal punishment (permitted at that time). He studied fine art at Blackpool College of Art from 1964 to 1966 while living in Lytham St Annes.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.