Longtime Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre plays Ace’s

For 45 years, on all the albums but the very first one, Martin Barre was the guitarist for Jethro Tull. Only Ian Anderson was a member of the band longer.

“Ian did the interviews, which is fine because he was the guy out front,” Barre said in a recent phone interview. “It was definitely a band and then it became a brand rather than a band. The record company hooked onto that image of Ian standing on one foot with the flute. But musically, on stage and in the studio, Ian and I had our fingers on the button.”

Tull split some years back, and Barre has been recording and touring with his own band. They’ll be at Ace’s Live in Bradenton on Sunday.

Barre said the breakup of Tull was “messy.” He and Anderson haven’t spoken in years and aren’t likely to anytime soon.

“It was like a divorce, and all divorces are messy,” he said.

Still, Barre said he’s happy to keep the legacy of Jethro Tull alive, and his current show includes a healthy dose of Tull songs along with plenty of other material.

“We do a lot of the early stuff because it’s more guitar-based,” he said. “Sometimes we really mix them up and they’re a lot stronger. Sometimes they’re really powerful the way they were recorded and we play them almost note-for-note.”

A lot of the Tull songs Barre and his bandmates play are unusual ones that the audience knows but that Tull never played in concert, he said.

“They know the songs but they’ve never heard them played live before,” Barre said. “You can actually hear the gasps from the audience.”

But this isn’t a Jethro Tull nostalgia show. It’s a three-hour set, with a lot of blues, a lot of material from Barre’s solo albums and a lot of surprises, including mandolins, bazoukis and three Beatles songs.

This is Barre’s fourth American tour with his own band, and he said they pick up more fans on each tour. He’s not playing arenas and stadiums anymore as he once did with Jethro Tull. The arenas were great, but smaller venues suit him, too.

“I love playing clubs, I love playing small theaters,” he said. “I love the feel of clubs. I love the sound. I’m starting a new career. I’d like to have the budget to do bigger productions, add more musicians, but that’s the next step.”

The demise of Jethro Tull, he said, gave him the freedom to be his own man.

“I’m a happier man now than I was in the latter years of Tull, and I’m sure that’s true for Ian as well,” Barre said. “I love every minute of what I do.”

But he’ll never shy away from acknowledging his history

Barre is looking at putting together a show next year called “50 Years of Jethro Tull” with a couple of other former Tull members that will be a retrospective of the band’s career.

“The music of Jethro Tull deserves to live on,” he said. “And I’m honored to play a part in doing that.”

Details: 7 p.m. March 5, Ace’s Live, 4343 Palma Sola Blvd., Bradenton. $40 advance, $45 at the door. 941-795-3886, aceslivemusic.com.

This story was originally published March 1, 2017 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Longtime Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre plays Ace’s."