A debut album made for just 1200 pounds in a Chelsea studio, yet it climbed to number 10 in Britain and cracked the American Top 200. That surprising contrast belongs to This Was, the first record by the British band Jethro Tull, and the story behind it is a tug-of-war between two strong creative forces.
The album arrived on October 25, 1968, the day Jethro Tull's debut record first reached the public. It was recorded that summer at Sound Techniques in Chelsea, London, produced by Terry Ellis and the group itself. From the start, Jethro Tull was not one man's vision but a collision of instincts, and that collision gave the record its unusual flavour. The record had a split release history. In Britain it appeared on Island Records, while American listeners got it through Reprise, with the US edition following in February 1969. That transatlantic gap meant the album was already building a reputation at home before it crossed over.
Mick Abrahams as the second pole
Guitarist Mick Abrahams was the other pole. This Was remains the only Jethro Tull album with him, and his influence ran deep through the early songs. Ian Anderson shared writing credits with Abrahams on the record, and later described him as a second equal driving force in the band at that time.
That balance pushed the music toward rhythm and blues and jazz, far from the progressive rock the group would become known for. The clearest proof is Move on Alone, the only track on any Jethro Tull studio album where Anderson does not sing lead. Abrahams wrote it and sang it himself. The jazz side of the record also showed in the arrangements. Dee Palmer, who joined the band only after the sessions ended, wrote the horn parts for Move on Alone. Her work gave Abrahams's song a fuller, brassier texture than the rest of the album.
The clearest proof is Move on Alone, the only track on any Jethro Tull studio album where Anderson does not sing lead.
Anderson's flute obsession
Anderson had his own obsession. He heard the tune Serenade to a Cuckoo on a friend's copy of the record I Talk with the Spirits, and the melody stuck in his head until he convinced the band to record it. The piece became a concert showcase for Anderson's flute, a role that later passed to Bourée from the album Stand Up.
The split came fast. Abrahams left Jethro Tull after work on the album was finished, and the band moved on without the guitarist who had shaped so much of its first sound. A single, A Song for Jeffrey, had already appeared in September 1968, and the album earned generally favourable reviews and solid sales.
The chart numbers tell a quiet success story: This Was reached number 10 on the UK Albums Chart and number 62 on the US Billboard 200. For a debut that cost 1200 pounds and was built on a partnership that dissolved almost immediately, that was a strong start. The album's afterlife has been long. A 2001 CD reissue added three bonus tracks and detailed liner notes, and in 2018 a 50th-anniversary edition arrived with a stereo remix by Steven Wilson. That later set included six bonus tracks, four of them previously unreleased, and pushed the album back into charts in Belgium, Germany, Scotland, Spain and the UK rock and metal chart. The standard version of the album runs 38 minutes. A 2008 two-disc collector's edition for the 40th anniversary brought together the original mono mix, a stereo remix from the four-track tapes, single tracks, and BBC sessions recorded for John Peel's Top Gear.
Why does This Was matter 58 years on? Because it captures Jethro Tull before the flute-led progressive identity took over, when a blues-and-jazz guitarist still pulled the band toward earthier ground. The record is a snapshot of two musicians pulling in different directions and briefly making that tension work.