Deluxe four CD + Blu-ray set. The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was much praised on first release, with Rolling Stone noting admiringly: “The originals simmer with eccentric, eclectic, folky energy, rocking ditties threaded through with Celtic stylings, jazzy undercurrents, Ian Anderson’s distinctive flute and wry humor.” “Some of the tracks are not necessarily Christmas songs; they’re more seasonal so that gives a broader window,” says Ian. “And then there are a couple of them that I quite often play in the middle of summer and say, ‘It’ll soon be Christmas – it’s in the diary. So let’s kick it off now.’ And that’s part of what I’ve done over the years since October of 1968 when I went into record ‘A Christmas Song. ‘So, yes – it goes back a long way.” – ‘A Christmas Song’ was joined on the album by reworkings of such pieces as Tull’s 1976 festive hit ‘Ring Out Solstice Bells’; ‘Weathercock,’ first heard on 1978’s Heavy Horses; and ‘Another Christmas Song,’ from 1989’s Rock Island. Also among the re-recordings was J.S. Bach’s ‘Bourrée”, another longtime live favourite, inimitably imagined by Ian. – “Part of the joy of redoing those things,” he says, “is that you can… not necessarily recreate, but you can keep all the essential elements of the song and maybe declutter it a little bit and give it a fresh look, but essentially still staying faithful to the original arrangements.” – The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was their last studio set to feature longtime guitarist Martin Barre, who composed it’s pretty closing instrumental ‘A Winter Snowscape.’