Al Stewart: Where Did You Come in?

Don't think you'd be disappointed if you do. Even his (relatively!) weaker albums are full of gems.

 

Year of the Cat. Then I worked forward and backward from there.

 

Love Chronicles, which I first heard at a December 1969 New Year’s Eve party, and acquired shortly after. And I’ve bought every release since.

My favorite of Al’s albums is 1995’s Between The Wars.

 

P P & F for me. Roads to Moscow was the first song on FM radio.

 

Past Present And Future, circa 1974. A friend used Roads To Moscow to show off his new Yamaha separates & NS 1000 speakers. I was immediately hooked and bought everything by him I could get my hands on for years after.

 

Past, Present And Future upon release was my entry point. As so many times happens with me the first album experience of an artist remains my favorite.

 

Of all things, indeed. Very probably my least favorite Al song. You know when an artist relies on the "ation" rhymes, he has no fresh ideas for the song.

 

Oddly enough, your post follows the one about Midnight Rocks that I commented on. Oddly, because when I asked Al what his least favorite song is he went with Lori Don't Go. In other news, I'm delighted to hear of him touring with a full band again. What a treat for those who have never had the pleasure.

 

Oh, good gracious, you should. Even if the lyrical thrust he puts forth isn't your bag, the ability to evoke a mood through his composing very much should be. And good call on the uniqueness of YOTC. I remember coming to a similar conclusion about him during my college years when I baited a friend who didn't get him to try and name another artist that could succeed in writing an Al Stewart song. He was properly speechless.

 

I wonder if the show you didn't like was in L.A. I read in his biography that sometime in the late 70s he left the stage early because he was drunk. So out of character, but, hey, he was a rock star back then.

 

"Dark magic." Very, very good. He's very adept at slipping in a lyric on topics he feels ambiguous about that really cut to the rotten core of an individual or event.

 

It is truly a career-defining work, in spite of being completely ignored. But that's Al. Never deterred from pouring everything into what he has to know on some level -- namely, the commercial one -- is a lost cause. Rather like Pickett's Charge, you might say.

 

Year of the cat is all I have.

 

Modern Times........love that album!

 

What does Al know? He only wrote them.

I recall an interview where he was asked why he thought Year Of The Cat hit the zeitgeist in the way it did and he seemed baffled describing it as "a song I quite like but not in my top thousand."

Whether he was in a playful mood or that's his genuine opinion, I'm not sure.

 

Year Of The Cat.

 

Ooooh...... don't you think that during the second half of the 70's he rather did it the Alan Parsons way? I mean "Year Of The Cat" and "Time Passages" have Alan's fingerprints all over it.

I'm also not sure why Sinatra is being bashed here. He's one of the most influential artists of the 20 century. Could you say the same about Al?

For the record: I'm familiar with Stewart's output and think that he made many decent albums. With or without Parsons. But we've gotta be realistic here.

 

Can't compare the two really. Apple & oranges and all that.

From my own point of view, I can certainly say that Al has been hugely influential in his own quiet way. He was at the vanguard of the singer-songwriter explosion in the mid-Sixties and, even without massive success, showed the way with his personal & literate lyrics and complex yet melodic tunes.

Not sure about how influential Sinatra was. He may well have been but his music doesn't push my buttons so I live in blissful ignorance about him.

 

Past, Present and Future

 

Year of the Cat, followed by Time Passages and ending with Last Days of the Century.

 

His later albums are some of my favourites. Definitely worth a listen if you haven't heard them.

 

"King of Portugal", from Last Days of the Century, is a hidden, overlooked gem of a track.

 

Excellent song.

 

Borrowed Love Chronicles from the library when I was seventeen. I'd heard he was Dylan-influenced and one of the song titles was a Dylan quotation. At that stage, though, all I'd heard was Year Of The Cat.

A Beachful Of Shells is an astonishingly strong album for anyone at that stage of their career to turn out. Arguably his best, I'd say, from a sheer quality point of view.

 

Came in with Oraange and have loved him ever since. Talk now, dare I say, of a NEW album.