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doing blues covers, maybe not the obvious ones, but we wanted to have a certain style and feel and

that feel was a modern-day Chicago sound, so we actually went to Chicago. The whole band went
over there, and we actually managed to get up on stage and play with a couple of blues bands. We
did all the blues clubs, as well as touring the area and seeing the sights as you do. Yes, it was
fantastic, going to Buddy Guy’s Blues Legends Club, The Checkerboard Lounge and Kingston Mines
and saw some great artists there as well and had a great time. What we picked up, perhaps most of

all, maybe not so much myself, but certainly our bass player and our drummer, realised how the
rhythm section worked. How it sort of differs from a British style where maybe our rhythm sections
tend to be a bit more straight, rigid rock, they were more understated, swinging, almost jazz in the
way that they played. It made a noticeable difference to the music, so it was quite an educational
trip as well as a lot of fun.

BiTS: At what stage did you decide to become
Ian Anderson - Jethro Tull
a solo artist?

GW: That band was called No Money Down. We
played together for a few years—we did some
great gigs, some great festivals. It was when
that band just reached its natural end like a lot
of bands, but I’m still in contact with guys from

the band to this day, but at that stage, I thought
to go into another band, is it going to be more
of the same? I thought it’s maybe time I did
something different, so I thought I’ll go solo—
acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals and
writing my own songs. I sort of embarked on
that a few years back and I’ve been with it ever

since.

BiTS: I want to throw, Ged, a quote at you
from off your website, “Ged sees his role as a
curator for the arts. Having inherited the
music, he feels the need to nurture it before
passing it onto the next generation”. In what

sense do you see it as an art form?

GW: Well, I think it’s like most art forms. It’s
sort of like picking up on everyday life. The
here and now. What’s around us. The way we feel about things, just like we see great paintings or
great poems or great films, music has that power too and I think with blues music, in particular,
there’s a great heritage that we’ve picked up on where it’s actually come from, but of course, that

doesn’t apply to us in the modern-day. In other words, we don’t go round cotton fields [chuckles]
picking cotton, so we’ve got to relate it to the modern-day. And that was also part of the reasoning
behind the Chicago trip, to get an idea of how modern Chicago blues is played and how that’s moved
on. I guess that’s what I’m looking to do. I’m not one for actually replicating the music note for
note. I mean there’s some great guys on the blues circuit that can play like Robert Johnson or play

like Mississippi Fred McDowell, and sound really, really good. It’s never appealed to me to try and
replicate what I hear. It’s always in my mind that I need to throw something of myself in and
reinterpret it, so hopefully, something that comes out the other end is good [chuckles]. Some artists