The song is taken from The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, Fresh Snow at Christmas.
Jethro Tull’s association with Christmas extends back to the band’s inception. On December 6th, InsideOutMusic will release an enhanced and remixed edition of 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, renewing it for both new and old fans. The band’s 2024 holiday season begins with “Jack Frost and Hooded Crow.”
Under the title, The Jethro Tull Christmas Album: Fresh Snow. Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief) remixed the band’s 21st studio album from the original masters, and it was released around Christmas with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround sound. The rare deluxe 4-CD/Blu-ray book-set collection includes all-new artwork and live material.
CD one contains the original album mix. CD two has Soord’s 2024 remixes. The third CD is Soord’s new mix of Christmas Live at St. Bride’s 2008. Disc four features the previously recorded Ian Anderson Band Live at St. Bride’s 2006. The Blu-ray Disc includes Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround Sound and High-Resolution Stereo versions of The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, as well as Hi-Res Stereo mixes of both live recordings.
The album will be issued on vinyl for the first time, as a gatefold 180-gram two-LP collection includes the 2024 remixes.
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album featured new renditions of seven Tull tunes, including their first holiday-inspired song, 1968’s popular “A Christmas Song.” That Anderson piece, which began with words interpolated from “Once in Royal David’s City,” was the B-side to the band’s first UK chart single, “Love Story.”
“A Christmas Song” was accompanied on the album by reworkings of such works as Tull’s 1976 festive classic “Ring Out Solstice Bells,” “Weathercock,” which first appeared on 1978’s Heavy Horses, and “Another Christmas Song,” from 1989’s Rock Island.
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was their final studio album to feature long-time guitarist Martin Barre, who composed the lovely concluding piece “A Winter Snowscape.” The album also included keyboardist and accordion player Andrew Giddings, bassist Jonathan Noyce, and drummers Doane Perry and James Duncan. Anderson’s premiere works featured the opening “Birthday Card At Christmas” and “First Snow On Brooklyn,” while classic songs such as “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “We Five Kings” were performed alongside Fauré’s “Pavane.”