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Mick Abrahams, guitarist with Jethro Tull and Blodwyn Pig
He gave early Tull a grittier, bluesier feel than their subsequent work
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Mick Abrahams, guitarist with Jethro Tull and Blodwyn Pig
He gave early Tull a grittier, bluesier feel than their subsequent work31
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Mick Abrahams on stage with Blodwyn Pig at Bristol University in 1970 Credit: Tony Byers/Alamy
Telegraph Obituaries
24 December 2025 6:00am GMT
Mick Abrahams, who has died aged 82, was Jethro Tull’s first lead guitarist, playing on their debut album, This Was, before falling out with the band’s frontman Ian Anderson; he went on to assemble the bluesy rockers Blodwyn Pig, who had a brace of hit albums, but was then sacked from his own band.
Michael Timothy Abrahams was born on April 7 1943 in Luton, and joined what would become Jethro Tull in 1967. They dithered over their name for some time – Navy Blue, Ian Henderson’s Bag o’ Nails (following a poster misprint) and Candy Coloured Rain were among their earlier incarnations – before a promoter gave them the one that stuck, inspired by the agriculturist who revolutionised farming in the 17th and 18th century.
With Anderson and Abrahams joined by Clive Bunker on drums and Glenn Cornick on bass, they released a single written by Abrahams, Sunshine Day, in February 1968, and hit the big time a few months later at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Sunbury-on-Thames.
They had just recorded their debut album, This Was, which was released that October. Thanks in large part to Abrahams, it had a grittier, bluesier, jazzier feel than Tull’s subsequent, more prog-oriented, work. He wrote and performed the only track not to be sung by Anderson, Move On Alone, as well as co-writing Beggar’s Farm with him and arranging the traditional song Cat’s Squirrel.
But trouble soon brewed. “I got very pissed off with Ian, who saw Tull as his band, and he wasn’t prepared to let anyone else voice their opinion on what was going on,” Abrahams recalled, “so I left. But I told them I’d stay on until they found a replacement. A short while later, I was called to a meeting by Terry Ellis, the manager. He said: ‘Ian and the boys don’t want you in the band any more, so you’ve been fired.’ I replied: ‘How can you fire me when I quit three weeks ago? Go f--- yourself!’ ”
Abrahams put together his own band, Blodwyn Pig, recruiting Jack Lancaster (saxophone and flute), Andy Pyle (bass), and Ron Berg (drums); the name was reportedly coined by a stoned friend, riffing on a Welsh word meaning “white flower”. Their 1969 debut album Ahead Rings Out reached No 9 in the UK – “Hooting, grunting blues mingled with snorts of jazz adds up to an excellent debut,” said New Musical Express.
They played the Isle of Wight and Reading festivals, alongside the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac and King Crimson.
Abrahams, left with Jethro Tull and a US label executive in New York in 1968 Credit: PoPsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
“Some called us blues while there were those who insisted we were progressive,” Abrahams recalled. “And when we did Top of the Pops we were introduced as ‘avant-garde’. It would have been closer to the point to call us ‘’aven’t a f-----g clue’.”
They had another Top 10 album with Getting to This, but in September 1970, Abrahams, who had a fear of flying, was sacked. “We were preparing for an American tour and I called Andy to ask what was going on with rehearsals,” he recalled. “Andy said: ‘We’re going to rehearse, but without you. We don’t want you involved because you hate flying, and to tour over there properly you have to fly.’ That was it.”
He was replaced by Peter Banks, Yes’s first guitarist, but Blodwyn Pig soon broke up. While they were hardly the highest-profile of bands around the turn of the 1970s, they did have an impact: Aerosmith cited them as an inspiration, while Joey Ramone covered See My Way, from Ahead Rings Out, and Dear Jill from that album featured in the 2000 Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous.
Abraham’s 1971 album Credit: Vinyls/Alamy
“That took me by surprise,” said Abrahams, “but it’s meant there’s been some money coming in. We also get a name check in the British film Still Crazy [1998]. It’s about a fictitious band called Strange Fruit; one member says Strange Fruit will not go onstage following Blodwyn Pig! I loved that!” He went on to tour and record with the Mick Abrahams Band.
In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Bedford. There were several Blodwyn Pig reunions, and Abrahams enjoyed a rapprochement with Ian Anderson in later years. In 2009 he had two heart attacks and a stroke, and suffered from Ménière’s disease, but he was able to put out the solo album Revived! in 2015.
Mick Abrahams, born April 7 1943, died December 19 2025
