Al Stewart: Where Did You Come in?

That would be excellent.

I vaguely remember him being disillusioned with the whole idea of recording in the age of streaming so I'd be delighted if he's changed his mind.

 

Started listening to him when Year of the Cat was released. I’m not an obsessive fan, but I like him well enough to have six or seven of his albums.
A side story about Al Stewart. I have a friend who attends a guitar camp in California every year, and one of the attendees/teachers is Al’s lead guitarist Dave Nachmanov. Al and his band were coming through our area so my friend and another of his guitar camp buddies approached Dave about playing a house concert with them. We were invited and I thought it would be cool to see my friend playing with a professional musician. Well then one of the wives got involved (this is why they are known as the better half) and suggested that they ask Al Stewart if he’d play. For the right price he would! So my wife and I were able to see an hour and a half Al Stewart concert in the comfort of a beautiful home surrounded by 60 or 70 of our new closest friends. It was amazing.

 

Being raised on Philadelphia radio, I came in between Past Present and Modern Times. He could not walk down the streets in Philadelphia without being mobbed. I am a huge fan of Modern Times and Past Present is right behind it.
Lots of kids in HS drove to the Tower to see the double bill of Al and Renaissance in the mid 70's (sadly, I didn't).
In the interim between Modern Times and Cat, I bought a few of the import lps from JEM. Liked each one a little bit except Orange which never hooked me.
I bought Cat sight unseen of course. It was at once a betrayal of the sound I Liked so much and a collection of wonderful songs done in totally different style.
Year of the Cat (song) never sounded old to me, despite massive radio overplay at the time.
My college gf left for England during the song's reign and it was kind of a song I associated with her. When we said goodbye on that cold and sniffly night, I punched the radio dials when I got back in the car. It had to be out there. Yep, third button was Year of the Cat.

 

Past,present and future

I heard Roads to Moscow and was hooked straight away.
Last day of June 1934 is my favourite track on the album. He really paints pictures with words and captures the time between the wars in England and Germany.

 

Indeed. A prime example of my "no one can successfully imitate an Al Stewart song."

This leads me to a rather bold and contradictory statement.

Al might be the greatest talent ever to come out of the rock'n'roll era. Among those with a lengthy career might also be the one who had the least impact on it. He has been just too good to be influential. Why try when it would be absolutely fruitless to create in his style?

 

Yeah. I tried and all I managed was a small fruitless song.

 

I had a friend in 1976 that introduced me to a lot of music I might not have ever given a chance otherwise.
Al Stewart was one of them. Year of the Cat was new at the time. The only two albums I have are that one
and Time Passages. I like them both.

 

I would have liked to have seen that one.

 

Past, Present and Future

I heard Nostradamus on KSHE 95 in St. Louis and it clicked with me instantly. I remember the Year of the Cat album being really popular when I was in college and I bought the album. It seemed every track on that album got played on FM stations at one time or another. Great album.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's really enjoying this thread. It's very refreshing!

 

I started with the Year Of The Cat album and listened to it endlessly while revising for all my school exams in the 70s.

Then explored his earlier work, liked it all, then bought all the later albums as they were released. He remains one of my top 3 favourite artists.

I've seen him in concert twice, playing acoustic sets in smallish venues - wonderful.

 

We got Live/Indian Summer as a cutout, I think, based on liking Year of the Cat and Time Passages. Great album that I listened to a lot in the mid-80's.

 

I just want to put a shout out for End of the Day, a magnificent song that will always invoke Mallick's Days of Heaven. IMO, nothing on the album matches it. I felt Time Passages was so unashamedly commercial, I eventually sold it. But I kept the live "Blue Album", mainly for the live Pink Panther and the killer version of Life in Dark Water.

 

Like many, if not most, I started with Year of the Cat and bought Time Passages when it was released. I enjoyed both for many years, but I lost interest and he's basically been off my radar screen since. There was just other stuff that captured my interests, but that is in no way a reflection of the talent I think AS is.

 

He's touring the UK with his band The Empty Pockets in October.

Nearest he's getting to Formby is Manchester on the 11th.

 

Love Al! Talk about a career full of gems. Since a few people mentioned King of Portugal, it's also one of the few Al songs to receive a dance remix. Incidentally, he & Alan Parsons are still close. In December, Alan turned 70 and Al performed at his birthday. Also, both men were guests on Justin Hayward's cruise just last month. I wish Alan & Al would collaborate again!

 

Is that The Live Radio Concert Album issued in '79? It's my favorite Al.
Your mention of the Tower brought back some fond memories. I saw Van Morrison and Procol Harum there on road trips up from Wilmington. IIRC, Val Shively's record store was right down the street. And a White Castle. Good times!

 

I like the few songs I have heard from him, but that's not many.

"Love Chronicles" was supposedly the first mainstream recording ever to contain the F-word.

 

Like so many here, Nostradamus got me on board the train, but Road To Moscow is the one that sold all the studio albums to me. Between The Wars is highly underrated (and getting hard to find).

 

Ah, my intro into Al Stewart at Team Electronics, where I bought my first my first MFSL vinyl..Al Stewart... Year of the Cat. This was followed shortly by an MFSL of ...Time Passages. Those were the good old days of high end audio shops where you could get those MFSL's ($20 each). I have all of Al Stewarts stuff. He's in my all time Top 5.

 

Like most people, this was my introduction to Al. They used to play the title track on AM radio and we always heard it riding around in cars during the spring of 77.
Then I heard "On The Border" on FM radio a lot and liked it too. Sometimes you'd also hear "Apple Cider Reconstitution" on FM here and I thought it was a track from "Year Of The Cast" for the longest time.
A friend told me about a song called "Nostradamus" that he used to hear on late night FM radio that he loved.
So, eventually I heard "Past, Present & Future" along with "Modern Times" and became a fan.
"Time Passages" was huge here in Toronto in 1978.
I remember getting "24 Carrots" when it came out in the summer of 1980 and it was an album I played a lot back then and really liked.

I met Al here in Toronto in 1985 after he played a show at a club called "The Spectrum", which is no longer there (however, I now live across the street from where it was which is kind of funny...)
We went backstage after Al's show as we were members of "The Al Stewart Appreciation Society" and we met and hung out with Al and his crew and had a lot of free drinks and we all got a bit drunk together.
One funny moment I remember is how mad Al got at the mention of Paul Simon and he went on a rant about how Simon was ungrateful and stole some ideas from him and never acknowledeged all the things that Al had done for him in England during the mid 60's. You couldn't make this stuff up, so I tend to think there's a certain amount of truth in what he was saying.
We sure had a laugh that night overall and although Al was sad that his career had somewhat stalled (his last 2 albums incl. the newly released "Russians And Americans" were not played or big sellers then), he was a nice and humble guy and we all had a great night out!

I saw him again a few years ago at the Rose Theatre in Brampton and said Hello to him after the gig as he signed some CD's; he didn't remember that night back in '85, but when I reminded him of all the drinking involved, he said at that time he was doing more of that than he should have been. Weren't we all...

I still love Al's music and still often play his stuff. "Modern Times" is a real favourite and my CD copy from BGO has a few great bonus cuts on it that I never knew before (Elvaston Place and Swallow Wind)

Truly one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.

 

yes, do you know it's been issued on CD with one more song (Sirens of Titan)? It does not look at all the same.
Very good sound on it, but graphics are cheap. Be careful when looking--there's also a version without the extra song.

 

also had a guest appearance by that Page guy on gee-tar

 

Orange was my first. I still think it's a great album, and have never totally gon e off AS. He must be doing something right.

 

It can be spotty, agreed. The production is very lackluster, amazing considering it was Parsons at the control. But Al has said, and I very much agree, that the low end is really missing on this recording. I don't think there's room for both a Time Passages and a Song on the Radio on one Al Stewart record. Both brush up uncomfortably close to bland, particularly the latter. And A Man for All Seasons in my judgment is his weakest epic. Valentina Way is out of character, but good at what it attempts and probably necessary for him to get a straight-ahead rocker on record at this point in his career, when the touring venues would be less intimate. What remains on the record after that, however, is extremely strong material.