Glenn Cornick, who has died aged 67 after suffering from heart failure, can take much of the credit for the memorable music created by Jethro Tull on their first three albums, when they were a tightly knit band and not merely accompanists for the increasingly dominant singer/flautist/composer, Ian Anderson. Although the band achieved its biggest commercial breakthroughs after Cornick, the original bass player, left the group, with ambitious concept albums such as Aqualung (1971) and Thick As a Brick (1972), he and the drummer, Clive Bunker, were critical in forming the band's sound, which skipped deftly, and uniquely, between blues, folk and rock, with an added flavour of jazz.
Jethro Tull named themselves after the 18th-century agriculturist who invented the seed drill, and on the sleeve of their debut album This Was (1968), they appeared surrounded by dogs and dressed in quaint woodsmen's clothing, with Cornick in yellow waistcoat and orange bowler hat. However, their music was restless and forward-looking, and their first single, A Song for Jeffrey, was original enough to avoid easy pigeonholing. The album even made room for a version of Serenade to a Cuckoo, written by the jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
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