Martin Barre has performed, composed and rocked countless world stages in a five-decade career as a guitarist for world-renown Jethro Tull, solo artist and frontman for his self-titled band.

On Friday night, Barre and his bandmates promise to bring a unique take to ageless music when they take the stage at Penn's Peak."It'll be a set of classic Tull songs rearranged. We will do Government Mule songs and blues songs, it's a real mixture. At the end of the night we hope they're really pleasantly surprised," he said.Along with the re-imagined songs, Martin and his trio will play songs from his newly released "Back to Steel" album.The 2015 record is colored with "bluesesque" notes and precise vocals.The title track makes it easy to hear Barre's musical expertise. His voice is clear and each chord strummed, picked or plucked rings through with proficiency and clarity.Barre leads backup vocalist and bouzouki player Dan Crisp, percussionist George Lindsay and Alan Thomson on bass.The quartet has been touring East Coast America since early in August and won't slow down until the end of October."It's been great, a lot of hard work and a crazy amount of miles but the band is better every time we play. Every night's a challenge to play better. It makes all the travel and rubbish you go through worth it," said Barre.Born in 1946 in Birmingham, England, Barre bought his first guitar and immediately received copies of Barney Kessel, Jim Smith and Wes Montgomery albums from his father."He was hoping to broaden my horizons," he said.Barre recalls Tull's reputations preceding them before he ever saw a single performance."I had heard stories of Jethro Tull, with the flute player that looked like a tramp and a great bluesy guitar player."Eventually, Barre saw Tull in the summer of 1968, at the Sudbury Blues and Jazz Festival."We met when my then band Gethsemane supported JT in Plymouth at a Blues Club called the Van Dyke. Four months later, while we were playing in London and about to split-up from lack of money, Terry Ellis sent his card up from the audience asking me to audition for Jethro Tull. After a second attempt, I got the gig," he said.Barre has been voted 25th best solo ever in the U.S. and 20th best solo ever in the UK for his playing on "Aqualung." His playing on the album 'Crest of a Knave' earned him a Grammy award in 1988.After years of touring, Barre turned his attentions to his own ideas of composing and preforming music. His first solo album, "A Summer Band," was released in 1992. He has since released over a dozen recordings of solo and Barre Band albums.According to Barre, the influence of different genres and instruments has expanded the way he plays songs."I listen to a lot of different things. I always try to be open mined with music. I think you can learn from everything."Barre says it's not just the sounds but the silence and space between the chords that add impact to compositions."It's as important as the notes themselves," he said. "Music has no end, no horizon. There's not a musician on the planet who's played everything."Barre has stepped into the role of frontman for his band in every sense, from composing the lyrics and music to leading the performances on large and intimate stages."We don't take ourselves too seriously, We like to have a bit of a laugh and include the audience," he said of time spent on stage entertaining. "It's not enough to stand and play music with nothing going on between the audience."The band says the night's set list will be created by the audience's influence."America is so much more receptive in live venues," he said. "We feed off the audience, and America really shows its emotions. It keeps you on your feet."Barre said the audience can expect an off-the-cuff show, saying, "Certain songs work really well with different audiences. I don't ever keep the show the same. It's really challenging."The only criteria set for the show is the time frame of two one-hour segments."Sometimes I chat away or add an extra song," he said.The Martin Barre Band show begins at 8 p.m.Tickets are available online at

www.pennspeak.com/events or at the box office.