Released this week: Ian Anderson / Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick 2...

Ian Anderson / Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick 2 (EMI)
In 1972, Ian Anderson wrote and recorded the Jethro Tull Progressive Rock classic album Thick As A Brick. The lyrics were credited at the time to the fictitious child character, Gerald Bostock, whose parents supposedly lied about his age. The record instantly became a number one Billboard Chart album and enjoyed considerable success in many countries of the world.

So, forty years on, what would Gerald Bostock – aged fifty in 2012 – be doing today? What might have befallen him? The anniversary “part two” album will examine the possible different paths that the precocious young schoolboy, Gerald Bostock, might have taken later in life through alter-ego characters with song-section identities illustrating the hugely varied potential twists and turns of fate and opportunity. Not just for Gerald but to echo how our own lives develop, change direction and ultimately conclude through chance encounters and interventions, however tiny and insignificant they might seem at the time.