Singer/songwriter, classical, jazz and rock flute virtuoso and Member of the British Empire Ian Anderson, also co-founder and leader of legendary Grammy-winning British rock group Jethro Tull, takes the stage at the intimate Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles tonight.

It's the only local stop on the colorful, cinematic performer's "Ian Anderson Performs the Acoustic Jethro Tull" 20-date jaunt across America, which debuted Oct. 6 in Milwaukee and wraps Nov. 15 in Spokane.

"This tour is a combination of classic Jethro Tull songs stripped down to the original acoustic guitar, as it might have been written in a hotel room somewhere in the Midwest on an early tour - songs like ‘Locomotive Breath,'" Anderson told The Signal, referring to a classic rocker from Tull's epochal triple-platinum 1971 "Aqualung" album.

It was the fourth of the band's nearly two dozen studio albums following their 1968 U.K. debut, "This Was," released in the States in February '69.

The Wiltern set list "is also part original acoustic songs that people know that way (from the Jethro Tull records), and we do our best to recreate those," Anderson continued. "Then there are about four new pieces L.A. audiences haven't yet heard."

Beyond that, Anderson said, "I'll leave it to the audience's imagination. But I don't do jukebox - I do music with the broadest and greatest appeal to me, the band and the audience, but it's impossible to please everyone. I do spend a lot of time working on set lists."

Anderson, who also plays guitar, mandolin and many other stringed instruments, gets backing on this tour from veteran Jethro Tull collaborators David Goodier (six-string acoustic/electric bass) and John O'Hara (keyboards, accordion), along with noted young European jazz musicians Mark Mondasir (drums) and Florian Opahle (acoustic guitar), and Persian-American classical-jazz violinist Nina Basson on viola.

"It's an eclectic mix of people -- classical, jazz and rock," Anderson said.

The unplugged tour stop at the Wiltern brings Anderson back to L.A. four decades after Jethro Tull's first U.S. tour.

Formed in February 1968 with a blues bent, the band quickly worked its way up the London club circuit using different names to get more gigs. Anderson's flute playing and material became central to the group's evolving sound. The group created a major buzz with their frequent appearances at London's career-launching Marquee Club (Rolling Stones, The Who).

Eventually sticking with the name of an 18th century British agriculturalist, Jethro Tull landed a record deal with Chrysalis, cut its "This Was" U.K. debut album, toured Britain then played its first U.S. engagement at the Fillmore East in New York on Jan. 24-25, 1969.

Less than two months later, on March 31, Tull made its California debut at the storied Aquarius Theatre (before that, the Hullaballoo, and the Moulin Rouge even before that) on Sunset Boulevard in nearby Hollywood.

It was "Dark Monday," one of the series of industry showcases of new talent put on by a record companies on Monday's, when the theatre, home to the rock musical "Hair," was otherwise closed.

Sharing the Aquarius bill with Jethro Tull that day: hungry funksters Rufus (not yet featuring Chaka Khan), avant-rocker/emerging cult hero Captain Beefheart, and already notorious Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.

It cost just a buck or two to get in for the two dozen or so people in the audience that Monday, including this writer as a high school senior taking a ditch day with a few like-minded friends.

We saw quite a spectacle when Tull hit the stage: a wild-eyed, longhaired, colorfully dressed character wearing leather boots, aggressively wailing and vocalizing through his flute with one foot perched over his other knee as a red-hot jazz-rock-blues unit comprised of keyboardist Glenn Cornick, drummer Clive Bunker and new guitarist Martin Barre blazed behind him.

From the stage between songs, Anderson mentioned Tull's first U.K. album, "This Was," was already old stuff, but launched into the album's jazz-rock jam "My Sunday Feeling." The set also included a preview of tracks from JT's breakthrough "Stand Up" album, out a few months later in fall '69.

The Aquarius performance was remarkable, blending classical, jazz, rock and folk with dramatic rock theater in a single set, all things highly valued by my British- and prog-rock-loving peers. On the way home to the unhip San Fernando Valley from too-hip Hollywood, we correctly doubted Jethro Tull would be playing to near-empty theaters much longer.

We weren't so sure about Captain Beefheart, but that's another movie.

Since then, of course, Anderson and Jethro Tull indeed emerged as progressive rock pioneers. They've sold more than 60 million albums -- including 1972's "Thick as a Brick" and "A Passion Play" the following year, both No. 1 in the U.S. -- and toured the far corners of the globe several times over.

Eleven Jethro Tull albums scored gold (half a million) and five of them went on to platinum (one million) and beyond, acconrding to All Music Guide.

Anderson was as surprised as everyone else when Grammy voters awarded Tull the "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" trophy for the band's "Crest of a Knave" in 1988, beating out Metallica's "And Justice for All," the critical and popular favorite.

As a solo artist, Anderson has recorded four diverse albums in his career: "Walk into Light" (1983); the flute instrumental "Divinities" (1995), which reached No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart; and the more recent acoustic collections "The Secret Language of Birds" (2000) and "Rupi's Dance" (2003).

In 2006, the well-read, erudite Anderson was awarded a Doctorate in Literature from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh and Britain's prestigious Ivor Award for International Achievement in Music.

In 2008, marking his 40th year as a touring and recording musician, he was awarded an MBE for services to music.

Anderson and Tull were last seen in L.A. that August rocking the 5,800-seat Greek Theater. The more intimate 1,850 seat Wiltern is ideal for what Anderson has planned Friday night.

The acoustic set's new material includes updated versions of songs Anderson composed for a show in Mumbai, India in 2008 with Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Indian music legend and ambassador Ravi Shankar, on sitar.

"We've changed the arrangements and added vocals," Anderson said. "We won't have Anoushka in L.A. but we will have Nina Basson on viola," Anderson added, noting Basson is found playing venues such as Carnegie Hall more often than rock shows.

"And I do what I always do, whether it's a Jethro Tull or (solo) concert," Anderson said. "No matter the context, I'm essentially an unplugged musician."

Signal Intern Derek Sedam assisted with this story.