You know there's something funny going on if Jethro Tull is not even on the nominee list after all these years they must've pissed somebody off
Ian Anderson, the front man of Jethro Tull, addressed this in an interview:
He told
USA Today, “I think it’s quite wrong for us to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when so many great American acts are being ignored and will be for all time, because I suppose they haven’t sold enough records or aren’t that popular to impress the founding fathers of the Rock Hall… Tull isn’t an example of Americana, and Americana is what the Rock Hall should be about. It’s celebrating American music in an American institution, and I don’t really feel Tull really qualifies in that sense.”
In a more recent interview, he
added, “So far, it’s a sense of relief that I haven’t had to face the embarrassing prospect of being invited into the Hall of Fame, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I’ve maintained the position that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is an American institution about American-inspired music… There is a certain sort of American styling, and certainly, the Rolling Stones for example would fit that perfectly. Because they owe everything to American music, whereas I guess Jethro Tull, apart from the first album, I would say, not a lot of Americana in the musical styles that I tend to work with. So I don’t think we are appropriate as inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”
