Stormwatch (album)


Stormwatch is the twelfth studio album by the progressive rock group Jethro Tull, released September 1979. It is considered the last in the trilogy of folk-rock albums by Jethro Tull. Among other subject-matters, the album touches heavily on the problems relating to the environment, oil and money.
Stormwatch was notably the last Tull album to feature the "classic" line-up of the 1970s, as drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboardists John Evan and Dee Palmer all left the band in the months after the Stormwatch tour concluded in April 1980, while bassist John Glascock had died from heart complications in November 1979 during the tour.
In 2004, a remastered version of Stormwatch was released with four bonus tracks. The album was reissued in October 2019 in an expanded six-disc edition with a new stereo remix by Steven Wilson, several unreleased tracks, and a full concert recorded in the Netherlands in March 1980.

Production

Bassist John Glascock, suffering at this point from the effects of a cardiac infection that eventually led to his death, is only featured on three tracks. Ian Anderson played bass elsewhere on the album while Dave Pegg played on the subsequent tour.
The instrumental piece "Elegy" was written by Dee Palmer.

Content

is the historic site of an Iron Age fort on the Isle of Skye, which served as the original seat of the Clan MacKinnon. Anderson once owned and lived in nearby Kilmarie House, until he sold the estate in 1994. A sporran is a type of pouch traditionally worn with a kilt. Other tracks allude to the constellation of Orion and the legend of the Flying Dutchman.
Elegy is an elegy to Dee Palmer's father.

Track listing

Bonus tracks

Personnel

Jethro Tull

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