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Jeffrey Hammond

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For those of a similar name, see Jeffery Hammond and Jeff Hammond (disambiguation).
Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond
Jeffrey Hammond in concert with Jethro Tull, 1973
Jeffrey Hammond in concert with Jethro Tull, 1973
Background information
Birth nameJeffrey Hammond
Born (1946-07-30) 30 July 1946 (age 78)
Blackpool, Lancashire, England
OriginBlackpool, England
GenresProgressive rock, Folk rock, Hard rock
OccupationMusician
InstrumentBass guitar
Years active1971–75

Jeffrey Hammond (born 30 July 1946), often known by his former stage name Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, is an artist and retired musician best known for being the bassist of progressive rock band Jethro Tull from 1971 to 1975.[1] With Jethro Tull, Hammond played on some of the band's most successful and well-known albums, including Aqualung (1971) and Thick as a Brick (1972).

Hammond adopted the name "Hammond-Hammond" as a joke, since both his father's surname and mother's maiden name were the same.[2] He also joked in interviews that his mother defiantly chose to keep her maiden name, just like Eleanor Roosevelt.[3]

Musician with Jethro Tull

Hammond met Ian Anderson in grammar school and formed a band with him and future Jethro Tull members John Evan and Barriemore Barlow. After school, he gave up music he went to study painting. Meanwhile, Anderson formed Jethro Tull and wrote several songs about his friend's idiosyncrasies, such as "A Song for Jeffrey" (on the album This Was), "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square" (Stand Up) and "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me" (Benefit). Hammond is also mentioned in the lyrics of the Benefit track "Inside". In January 1971, when Glenn Cornick left the band, Anderson talked Hammond into joining Jethro Tull.[3]

According to Anderson, it was Hammond who came up with a name for the "claghorn", a hybrid instrument Anderson made by attaching the mouthpiece from a saxophone and the bell of a toy trumpet to the body of a bamboo flute. The instrument can be heard on the track "Dharma for One" on the album This Was. According to Anderson, "clag" was a term Hammond used for feces, "so 'claghorn' presumably because it sounded shit!"[4]

In addition to playing bass, he narrated the surreal piece "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" on the album A Passion Play. He also received credit, along with Anderson and Evan, for writing the piece.

During his time in Jethro Tull, Hammond used to wear a black-and-white-striped suit and played a matching bass guitar; Hammond burned the suit in December 1975 upon his departure from the band.[5] According to Ian Anderson's sleevenotes for the 2002 reissue of Tull's Minstrel in the Gallery, Hammond "returned to his first love, painting, and put down his bass guitar, never to play again."[3] His replacement as bass player was John Glascock, a professional musician from the band Carmen.

Later appearances

Hammond made one attempt to rejoin Jethro Tull in the mid-1980s, as told by Ian Anderson during Alan Freeman's Friday Rock Show in March 1988, while providing comments for the broadcast of Tull's show at Hammersmith Odeon which Capital Radio was airing. According to Anderson, "Jeffrey was almost about to re-join the band", but despite one audition being made with the band, the bass player declared himself unable to play the rather difficult music of Jethro Tull and decided to give up.

Hammond attended Jethro Tull's 25th anniversary reunion party in 1994. He participated in an interview, along with Ian Anderson and Martin Barre, that was featured as a bonus track on the 1997 reissue of Thick as a Brick.[3]

Discography

References

  1. ^ Nollen, Scott Allen (2002). Jethro Tull: A history of the band, 1968–2001. McFarland. pp. 82–. ISBN 978-0-7864-1101-6. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
  2. ^ Rees, David. Minstrels in the Gallery, 1998, ISBN 0-946719-22-5, p. 40.
  3. ^ a b c d "Jeffrey Hammond". jethrotull.com. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  4. ^ Webb, Martin (2018). "That Was Jethro Tull". This Was: The 50th Anniversary Edition. Chrysalis Records.
  5. ^ Rees, p. 70.
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