Jennie Franks

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Jennie Franks Jennie Franks.jpg
Jennie Franks

Jennie Franks is an English playwright and filmmaker. She was the first wife of Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, and wrote some of the lyrics for the Jethro Tull song "Aqualung" (1971).

Contents

Career

Franks co-wrote and directed an educational film about the effects of AIDS in rural Colorado titled Soft Smoke, AIDS in the Rural West. [1] [2] She wrote and acted in the play Stuck!, about "one woman's courageous struggle to get out of a locked basement bathroom at a coffee house and reclaim control of her stalled life", which debuted in New York in 2008. [3] She filmed The Ballad of Arthur Muldoon with Terry Jones. [4]

Franks founded SPARKy Productions in 1998, a group dedicated to highlighting social justice issues via creative performance, and acts as its artistic director. [5] The organization produced the annual Telluride Playwrights Festival. [5] The film festival culminated in 2016 with Franks' production of The Hispanic Women's Project. [6]

Life

Franks was the first wife of Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, from 1970 to 1974. She wrote some of the lyrics for the Jethro Tull song "Aqualung" (1971). Ian Anderson, the principal songwriter for Jethro Tull, has said, "[she] in fact was responsible for lyrics in the first couple of verses ... I suppose in total probably about half of the lyrics were words or word associations that she had come up with," based on pictures of homeless men Franks had taken as a photography student. [7] "And so she wrote some words and we fashioned that into lyrics. Some of the lines were definitely not lines I would have written. Like, “Snot is running down his nose” was not one of mine [laughs], it was one of hers." [8]

Franks later[ when? ] moved to Los Angeles and married screenwriter and novelist Jeffrey Price. They relocated to Telluride, Colorado in 1993. [1] Franks and her second husband have two daughters.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

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Jethro Tull are a British progressive rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially playing blues rock and jazz fusion, the band soon incorporated elements of English folk music, hard rock and classical music, forging a signature progressive rock sound. The group's lead vocalist, bandleader, founder, principal composer and only constant member is Ian Anderson, who also plays flute and acoustic guitar. The group has featured a succession of musicians throughout the decades, including significant contributors such as guitarists Mick Abrahams and Martin Barre ; bassists Glenn Cornick, Jeffrey Hammond, John Glascock, Dave Pegg, Jonathan Noyce and David Goodier; drummers Clive Bunker, Barrie "Barriemore" Barlow and Doane Perry; and keyboardists John Evan, Dee Palmer, Peter-John Vettese, Andrew Giddings and John O'Hara.

<i>Thick as a Brick</i> 1972 studio album by Jethro Tull

Thick as a Brick is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released on 3 March 1972. The album contains one continuous piece of music, split over two sides of an LP record, and is intended as a parody of the concept album genre. The original packaging, designed as a 12-page newspaper, claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by fictional eight-year-old genius Gerald Bostock, though the lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.

<i>Aqualung</i> (album) 1971 studio album by Jethro Tull

Aqualung, released in March 1971 by Chrysalis Records, is the fourth studio album by the rock band Jethro Tull. Though it is generally regarded as a concept album, featuring a central theme of "the distinction between religion and God", the band have said there was no intention to make a concept album, and that only a few songs have a unifying theme. Aqualung's success signalled a turning point in the career of the band, which went on to become a major radio and touring act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Anderson</span> Scottish musician, leader of Jethro Tull

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Jeffrey Hammond, often known by his former stage name Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, is an English artist and former musician best known for being the bassist of progressive rock band Jethro Tull from 1971 to 1975. 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).

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References

  1. 1 2 Denver Rocky Mountain News. Denver, Colorado: 8 November 1999. p. 7.A
  2. HIV Plus. Here Publishing. p. 12. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  3. Broadway World Retrieved on 7 March 2008.
  4. "3rd annual Telluride Playwrighting Festival opens with reading July 1". Telluride Inside... and Out. 29 June 2009. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Mountain Confidential: Jennie Franks". The Watch. Telluride Daily Planet. 23 July 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  6. "The Hispanic Women's Project: Inspired, Inspiring, GO!". Telluride Inside... and Out. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  7. Who is Jennie Anderson, the person credited on the Aqualung album as the author of the title track? Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine , Jethro Tull FAQ. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
  8. "Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson: My Life in 10 Songs". Rolling Stone . 27 June 2018.