By Michelle Dumas
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Ian Scott Anderson MBE (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician best known for his work as the singer, flautist, acoustic guitarist, primary songwriter, and sole continuous member of the rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays harmonica, keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with Walk into Light in 1983; since then he has released another five albums, including the sequel to the 1972 Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick, titled TaaB 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? (2012).
In late 1967, Anderson was still holding down a day job, namely cleaning the Ritz Cinema in Luton, at this time Anderson abandoned his ambition to play electric guitar, allegedly because he felt he would never be “as good as Eric Clapton“. As he himself tells it in the introduction to the video Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, he traded his electric guitar in for a flute which, after some weeks of practice, he found he could play fairly well in a rock and blues style. According to the sleeve notes for the first Tull album, This Was (1968), he had been playing the flute only a few months when the album was recorded. His guitar practice did not go to waste either, as he continued to play acoustic guitar, using it as a melodic and rhythmic instrument. As his career progressed, he added soprano saxophone, mandolin, keyboards and other instruments to his arsenal.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
When told by Roman officials to surrender the church’s valuables, St. Lawrence brought the city’s poor and sick. “Here is the church’s treasure,” he said. Rome didn’t find this amusing, and legend says he was put to death in A.D. 258 by being roasted on a grate, although some scholars say he was more likely beheaded. In either case, folks in southern Europe still mark this day. It is customary there to eat only cold meat in recognition of the reputed manner of his death. Fair weather on St. Lawrence’s Day presages a fair autumn.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- James Wilson Morrice (artist) –
- Herbert Hoover (31st U.S. president) –
- Wolfgang Paul (physicist) –
- Jimmy Dean (actor, singer, & businessman) –
- Bobby Hatfield (one of the Righteous Brothers) –
- Betsy Johnson (designer) –
- Ian Anderson (musician) –
- Rosanna Arquette (actress) –
- Antonio Banderas (actor) –
- Angie Harmon (actress) –
Died
- Otto Lilienthal (German aviator whose work made a significant contribution to the success of the Wright Brothers) –
- Robert Goddard (rocket scientist) –
- Isaac Hayes (singer & songwriter) –
Events
- Missouri, the second state to be created from the Louisiana Purchase, was admitted to the Union as the 24th state–
- The Smithsonian Institution was established at the bequest of James Smithson; the reason for the bequest remains unknown–
- Alexander Graham Bell received the first long-distance phone call in Brantford, Ontario, from his father who was 8 miles away in Paris, Ontario–
- The Canadian Bill of Rights was enacted–
- President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988–
- Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the 107th justice of the US Supreme Court–
- First Earth/Space wedding. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, aboard the International Space Station (ISS), married Ekaterina Dmitriev, on Earth–
- For the first time in Canada, a court ordered a man to give his ex-wife monthly support payments for their dog. The man was told to pay $200 a month in alimony towards the upkeep of the couples’ St. Bernard–
Weather
- A tornado hit Coney Island, New York, causing extensive damage–
- Frost was reported in Iowa and Chicago–
- 101.3 degrees F in Kent, England–
- -136 degrees F (-93.2 degrees C) recorded at the East Antarctic Plateau in Antarctica, making it the coldest temperature on Earth on record at the time–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
