Al Stewart
Encyclopedia
Al Stewart is a Scottish
singer-songwriter
and folk-rock musician
.
Stewart came to stardom as part of the British
folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s
, and developed his own unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of the great characters and events from history.
He is best known for his hit 1976 single
"Year of the Cat
", the title song from the platinum album Year of the Cat
.
Though Year of the Cat and its 1978 platinum follow-up Time Passages
brought Stewart his biggest worldwide commercial successes, earlier albums such as Past, Present and Future
from 1973 are often seen as better examples of his intimate brand of historical folk-rock - a style to which he has returned in recent albums.
Stewart was a key figure in a fertile era in British music and he appears throughout the musical folklore
of the age. He played at the first ever Glastonbury Festival
in 1970, knew Yoko Ono
before she met John Lennon
, shared a London apartment with a young Paul Simon
, and hosted at the legendary Les Cousins
folk club in London
in the 1960s.
Stewart has released sixteen studio and three live albums since his debut album Bedsitter Images
in 1967, and continues to tour extensively around the US and Canada, Europe and the UK. His latest release, is Uncorked
, which was released on his independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.
He has worked with Peter White
, Alan Parsons
, Jimmy Page
, Richard Thompson, Rick Wakeman
, Tori Amos
and Tim Renwick
and recently has played with Dave Nachmanoff
and former Wings
lead-guitarist Laurence Juber
.
, Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne Minster
, Dorset
, England
after moving from Scotland
with his mother. He attended Wycliffe College
school in Stonehouse
, Gloucestershire
, as a boarder. After that, as he sings in the song "Post World War II Blues" (from Past, Present and Future
): "I came up to London when I was 19 with a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams."
Having bought his first guitar from future Police
guitarist Andy Summers
, Stewart traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic guitar when he was offered a weekly slot at Bunjies Coffee House
in London's Soho
in 1965. From there, he went on to compete at the Les Cousins
folk club on Greek Street
, where he played alongside Cat Stevens
, Bert Jansch
, Van Morrison
, Roy Harper
and Ralph McTell
.
It was at this time that Stewart also met Yoko Ono
, who persuaded him to part with the only £100 he had in the world to put towards her film entitled No 4, a compilation of naked bottoms.
of the Yardbirds' "Turn into Earth"), which was released in 1966 on Decca Records
, and included guitar work from Jimmy Page
(later of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin
), the first of many leading guitarists Stewart worked with, including Richard Thompson, Tim Renwick
and Peter White
. Stewart then signed to Columbia Records
(CBS in the UK), for whom he released six albums. Though the first four of these attracted relatively little commercial interest, Stewart's popularity and cult-following grew steadily through albums that contain some of Stewart's most incisive and introspective songwriting.
was released on LP in 1967 (though technically his first recording was 'The Elf', an extract from Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' set to music and released by Decca in 1966 - it sold 496 copies!). A revised version appeared in 1970 as The First Album (Bed-Sitter Images) with a few tracks changed, and the album was reissued on CD
in 2007 with all tracks from both versions.
Love Chronicles
(1969) was notable for the 18-minute title track, an anguished autobiographical tale of sexual encounters that was the first mainstream record release ever to include the word "fucking".
It was voted "Folk Album of the Year" by the UK music magazine Melody Maker
, and also features Jimmy Page
and Richard Thompson
on guitar.
His third album, Zero She Flies
followed in 1970 and included a number of shorter songs which ranged from acoustic ballads and instrumentals to songs that featured electric lead guitar. These first three albums (including The Elf) were later released as the two CD set To Whom it May Concern: 1966–70.
In 1970, Stewart jumped into a car with fellow musician Ian Anderson
and headed to the small town of Pilton, Somerset
. There, at Michael Eavis
's Worthy Farm, Stewart performed at the first ever Glastonbury festival
to a field of 1,000 hippies who had paid just £1 each to be there.
On the back of his growing success, Stewart released Orange
in 1972. It was written after a tumultuous break-up with his girlfriend and muse, Mandi, and was very much a transitional album, combining songs in Stewart's confessional style with more intimations of the historical themes that he would increasingly adopt (e.g. "The News from Spain", with its prog-rock overtones, including dramatic piano by Rick Wakeman
).
The fifth release, Past, Present and Future
(1973), was Stewart's first album to receive a proper release in the United States, via Janus Records
. It echoed a traditional historical storytelling style and contained the song "Nostradamus," a long (9:43) track in which Stewart tied into the re-discovery of the claimed seer
's writings by referring to selected possible predictions about twentieth century people and events. While too long for mainstream radio airplay
at that time, the song became a hit
on many U.S. college/university radio stations, which were flexible about running times.
Such airplay helped the album to reach #133 on the Billboard
album chart in the US. Other songs on Past, Present and Future
characterized by Stewart's 'history genre' mentioned American President Warren Harding, World War II, Ernst Röhm
, Christine Keeler
, Louis Mountbatten, and Joseph Stalin
's purges.
(1975), in which the songs were lighter on historical references and more of a return to the theme of short stories set to music. Significantly, though, it was the first of his albums to be produced by Alan Parsons
, and Allmusic regards it as his best. It produced his first hit single, "Carol", and received substantial airplay on album oriented stations and reached #30 in the US, some 30 years before Bob Dylan
would release an album of the same name
.
Stewart's contract with CBS Records
expired at this point and he signed to RCA Records
for the world outside North America. His first two albums for RCA, Year of the Cat
(released on Janus in the U.S., then reissued by Arista Records
after Janus folded) and Time Passages
(released in the U.S. on Arista), set the style for his later work, and have certainly been his biggest-selling recordings.
As Stewart told Kaya Burgess of The Times
: "When I finished Year of the Cat, I thought: ‘If this isn’t a hit, then I can’t make a hit.’ We finally got the formula exactly right."
The most amazing fact about this album is that Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he even had a title of any of the songs. He mentioned, in a Canadian radio interview, that he has done this for 6 of his albums, and he often writes 4 different sets of lyrics for each song. The hit single Year of the Cat was originally going to be about a British comic who had committed suicide, but this was vetoed by his record company.
Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with "Year of the Cat" peaking at #5 and "Time Passages" at #10, and both albums produced hit singles in the US ("Year of the Cat" #8, and "On the Border", #42; "Time Passages" #7 and "Song On the Radio", #29). Meanwhile "Year of the Cat" became Stewart's first chart single in Britain, where it peaked at #31. The overwhelming success of these songs, both of which still receive substantial radio airplay on classic-rock/pop format radio stations, has perhaps later overshadowed the depth and range of Stewart's body of songwriting. Stewart himself has frequently expressed disappointment with the quality of his recordings during this era, commercial success notwithstanding.
Live/Indian Summer
(#110 US 1981), which both featuring backing by Peter White
's band Shot in the Dark (who released their own unsuccessful album in 1981). While "24 Carrots" did produce a #24 single with "Midnight Rocks," the album sold less well than its two immediate predecessors.
After those releases, Stewart was dropped by Arista and his popularity declined. Despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he continued to tour the world, record albums, and maintain a loyal fanbase. There was a four-year gap between his next two albums, the highly political Russians and Americans
(1984) and the upbeat pop-oriented Last Days of the Century
(1988), which appeared on smaller labels and had lower sales than his previous works.
(1992), which featured only himself and Peter White
, and Famous Last Words (1993), which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood (who co-wrote "Year of the Cat"), who died the year of its release.
Stewart followed these up with a concept album, Between the Wars (1995), covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Versailles Treaty, Prohibition
, the Spanish Civil War
, and the Great Depression
.
In 1995, Stewart was invited to play at the 25th anniversary Glastonbury festival
, taking to the same stage he had graced in 1970 at the first ever festival.
, a concept album themed on wine. Stewart had begun a love-affair with wine in the 1970s when, he admitted, he had more money than he knew how to spend, and so turned to fine wines.
In 2005 he released A Beach Full of Shells
, which was set in exotic places from First World War England
to the 1950s rock'n'roll
scene that influenced him.
In 2008, he released Sparks of Ancient Light
produced, like his most recent albums, by Laurence Juber
. Here he weaves tales of William McKinley
, Lord Salisbury and Hanno the Navigator
.
Stewart and guitarist Dave Nachmanoff
released a live album, Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)
on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings, in 2009.
Stewart and Nachmanoff played the Glastonbury Festival 40th anniversary in June 2010 on the Acoustic stage.
Stewart sang a duet with Albert Hammond
of Hammond's "It Never Rains in Southern California
" on Hammond's 2010 album "Legend."
In 2011, Stewart sang a duet with his guitarist and opening act Dave Nachmanoff
on Nachmanoff's album "Step Up". The song, "Sheila Won't Be Coming Home", was co-written by Stewart and Nachmanoff.
, raised in Dorset
and gaining fame in London
, Stewart moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. He married in the mid-1990s, and he, his wife and their two daughters moved to Marin County, California
.
's novel of the same title
.
On occasion, Stewart has set poems to music, such as "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" (lyrics by the poet Pete Morgan
) on the 1970 album Zero She Flies. During his 1999 UK tour, Stewart invited Morgan to read the lyrics as he performed this song in the Leeds City Varieties
Theatre show of 7 November 1999.
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and folk-rock musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
.
Stewart came to stardom as part of the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s
1970s in music
For music from a year in the 1970s, go to 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1970s....
, and developed his own unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of the great characters and events from history.
He is best known for his hit 1976 single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Year of the Cat
Year of the Cat (song)
"Year of the Cat" is the title track of the 1976 album Year of the Cat by singer-songwriter Al Stewart, which album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London in January 1976 by engineer Alan Parsons and released in July 1976. The "Year of the Cat" single reached #8 on the Hot 100 in Billboard in...
", the title song from the platinum album Year of the Cat
Year of the Cat
Year of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1976 and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece, its sales helped by the hit single "Year of the Cat," "one of those 'mysterious woman' songs," co-written by Peter Wood...
.
Though Year of the Cat and its 1978 platinum follow-up Time Passages
Time Passages
Time Passages is the eighth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1978. It is the follow-up to his 1976 album Year of the Cat. The album, like its predecessor, was produced by Alan Parsons...
brought Stewart his biggest worldwide commercial successes, earlier albums such as Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future is Al Stewart's fifth studio album, released in October 1973 in the UK and in May 1974 in the US. This album is considered Stewart's first "major album" and it reached #133 on the Billboard Rock Album chart in 1974. He had taken on a different approach from his previous,...
from 1973 are often seen as better examples of his intimate brand of historical folk-rock - a style to which he has returned in recent albums.
Stewart was a key figure in a fertile era in British music and he appears throughout the musical folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
of the age. He played at the first ever Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
in 1970, knew Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
before she met John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, shared a London apartment with a young Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
, and hosted at the legendary Les Cousins
Les Cousins (music club)
Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in the Soho district of London. It had its heyday during the British folk music revival of the mid-1960s and was notable as a venue in which musicians of that period met and learnt from each other...
folk club in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the 1960s.
Stewart has released sixteen studio and three live albums since his debut album Bedsitter Images
Bed-Sitter Images
Bed-Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris...
in 1967, and continues to tour extensively around the US and Canada, Europe and the UK. His latest release, is Uncorked
Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)
Uncorked is the third live album by singer-songwriter Al Stewart, and features guitarist and harmony vocalist Dave Nachmanoff. It was released on September 29, 2009 and was produced by Dave Nachmanoff and released independently on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.-Track listing:#"Last...
, which was released on his independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.
He has worked with Peter White
Peter White (musician)
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano. His brother, Danny White, was one of the original members who formed the UK based band Matt Bianco.-Career:...
, Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons is a British audio engineer, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several significant albums, including The Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be, as well as Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor...
, Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
, Richard Thompson, Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
, Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
and Tim Renwick
Tim Renwick
Timothy John Pearson 'Tim' Renwick is an English guitarist.-Career:Renwick started playing guitar in the 1960s. He performed with many bands, including Little Women, Wages of Sin, Junior's Eyes, The Hype, Quiver and Lazy Racer...
and recently has played with Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff is an award-winning American folk singer-songwriter and the sideman to Al Stewart . He has been profiled with feature articles in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Davis Enterprise, and the San Francisco Chronicle, with mentions in the Washington Post and New York Times...
and former Wings
Wings (band)
Wings were a British-American rock group formed in 1971 by Paul McCartney, Denny Laine and Linda McCartney that remained active until 1981....
lead-guitarist Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber is an English-born guitarist who currently lives in California. Born 12 November 1952 in Stepney, East London, he was raised and went to school in North London...
.
Early life
Though born in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne Minster
Wimborne Minster
Wimborne Minster is a market town in the East Dorset district of Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town...
, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
after moving from Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
with his mother. He attended Wycliffe College
Wycliffe College (Gloucestershire)
Wycliffe College is a co-educational independent school located in the town of Stonehouse in Gloucestershire, in the West of England. The school was founded in 1882 by GW Sibly, and comprises a Nursery School for ages 2 – 4, a Preparatory School for ages 4 – 13, and a Senior School catering for...
school in Stonehouse
Stonehouse, Gloucestershire
Stonehouse, Gloucestershire is an urban area within the Stroud District, in the UK. It is home to a number of factories, such as Dairy Crest and Schlumberger. The town is close to the M5 motorway. Stonehouse railway station has a regular train service to London...
, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, as a boarder. After that, as he sings in the song "Post World War II Blues" (from Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future is Al Stewart's fifth studio album, released in October 1973 in the UK and in May 1974 in the US. This album is considered Stewart's first "major album" and it reached #133 on the Billboard Rock Album chart in 1974. He had taken on a different approach from his previous,...
): "I came up to London when I was 19 with a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams."
Having bought his first guitar from future Police
The Police
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland...
guitarist Andy Summers
Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...
, Stewart traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic guitar when he was offered a weekly slot at Bunjies Coffee House
Bunjies
Opened in 1953 or 1954, and one of the original folk cafés of the 1950s/1960s, Bunjies Coffee House & Folk Cellar was situated at 27 Litchfield Street , London WC2. Below the café, in a 400 years old wine cellar, was an influential music venue which changed little until its closure in 1999...
in London's Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
in 1965. From there, he went on to compete at the Les Cousins
Les Cousins (music club)
Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in the Soho district of London. It had its heyday during the British folk music revival of the mid-1960s and was notable as a venue in which musicians of that period met and learnt from each other...
folk club on Greek Street
Greek Street
Greek Street is a street in Soho, London, leading south from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The street is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature.-History:...
, where he played alongside Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
, Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, Roy Harper
Roy Harper
Roy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...
and Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s....
.
It was at this time that Stewart also met Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, who persuaded him to part with the only £100 he had in the world to put towards her film entitled No 4, a compilation of naked bottoms.
Career
Stewart's first record was the single "The Elf" (backed with a versionCover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of the Yardbirds' "Turn into Earth"), which was released in 1966 on Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, and included guitar work from Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
(later of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
), the first of many leading guitarists Stewart worked with, including Richard Thompson, Tim Renwick
Tim Renwick
Timothy John Pearson 'Tim' Renwick is an English guitarist.-Career:Renwick started playing guitar in the 1960s. He performed with many bands, including Little Women, Wages of Sin, Junior's Eyes, The Hype, Quiver and Lazy Racer...
and Peter White
Peter White (musician)
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano. His brother, Danny White, was one of the original members who formed the UK based band Matt Bianco.-Career:...
. Stewart then signed to Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
(CBS in the UK), for whom he released six albums. Though the first four of these attracted relatively little commercial interest, Stewart's popularity and cult-following grew steadily through albums that contain some of Stewart's most incisive and introspective songwriting.
Early albums
Stewart's debut album Bed-Sitter ImagesBed-Sitter Images
Bed-Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris...
was released on LP in 1967 (though technically his first recording was 'The Elf', an extract from Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' set to music and released by Decca in 1966 - it sold 496 copies!). A revised version appeared in 1970 as The First Album (Bed-Sitter Images) with a few tracks changed, and the album was reissued on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
in 2007 with all tracks from both versions.
Love Chronicles
Love Chronicles
Love Chronicles is the second studio album of Scottish folk artist Al Stewart, released in September 1969. It was also his first album to be released in the US...
(1969) was notable for the 18-minute title track, an anguished autobiographical tale of sexual encounters that was the first mainstream record release ever to include the word "fucking".
It was voted "Folk Album of the Year" by the UK music magazine Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, and also features Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
and Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson
Richard John Thompson OBE is a British songwriter, guitarist and recording and performing musician. Highly regarded for his guitar techniques, Thompson was awarded the Orville H. Gibson award for best acoustic guitar player in 1991...
on guitar.
His third album, Zero She Flies
Zero She Flies
Zero She Flies is the third studio album by folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1970. It is notable for being the first of his albums to include a song with historical references, namely "Manuscript" which refers to the events which led to the outbreak of World War I, including the Assassination of...
followed in 1970 and included a number of shorter songs which ranged from acoustic ballads and instrumentals to songs that featured electric lead guitar. These first three albums (including The Elf) were later released as the two CD set To Whom it May Concern: 1966–70.
In 1970, Stewart jumped into a car with fellow musician Ian Anderson
Ian A. Anderson
Ian A. Anderson is an English magazine editor, folk musician and broadcaster.-Country blues and The Village Thing:...
and headed to the small town of Pilton, Somerset
Pilton, Somerset
Pilton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated on the A361 road in the Mendip district, 3 miles south-west of Shepton Mallet and 6 miles east of Glastonbury. The village has a population of 935...
. There, at Michael Eavis
Michael Eavis
Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis, CBE , is an English dairy farmer and the founder of the Glastonbury Festival, which takes place on his farm.-Personal life:...
's Worthy Farm, Stewart performed at the first ever Glastonbury festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
to a field of 1,000 hippies who had paid just £1 each to be there.
On the back of his growing success, Stewart released Orange
Orange (Al Stewart album)
Orange is Al Stewart's fourth studio album originally released in 1972, and re-released in 1996 and 2007 on CD. Generally regarded as a 'transitional album' between the confessional folk sounds of his first three albums, and the historically-themed albums of his more successful mid-1970s period...
in 1972. It was written after a tumultuous break-up with his girlfriend and muse, Mandi, and was very much a transitional album, combining songs in Stewart's confessional style with more intimations of the historical themes that he would increasingly adopt (e.g. "The News from Spain", with its prog-rock overtones, including dramatic piano by Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
).
The fifth release, Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future is Al Stewart's fifth studio album, released in October 1973 in the UK and in May 1974 in the US. This album is considered Stewart's first "major album" and it reached #133 on the Billboard Rock Album chart in 1974. He had taken on a different approach from his previous,...
(1973), was Stewart's first album to receive a proper release in the United States, via Janus Records
Janus Records
Janus Records was a record label owned by GRT Records, also known as General Recorded Tape. Artists who had hits on Janus included Mungo Jerry, The Whispers, Cymande, Charlie, Al Stewart, Ian Thomas, and Ray Stevens. Chess Records was administered as a division of Janus in the early 1970s...
. It echoed a traditional historical storytelling style and contained the song "Nostradamus," a long (9:43) track in which Stewart tied into the re-discovery of the claimed seer
Nostradamus
Michel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties , the first edition of which appeared in 1555...
's writings by referring to selected possible predictions about twentieth century people and events. While too long for mainstream radio airplay
Airplay (song)
Airplay is a term used in the radio broadcasting industry to state how frequently a song is being played on over-the-air radio stations. For example, a song which is being played several times every day would be classed as receiving a large amount of airplay...
at that time, the song became a hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
on many U.S. college/university radio stations, which were flexible about running times.
Such airplay helped the album to reach #133 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
album chart in the US. Other songs on Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future
Past, Present and Future is Al Stewart's fifth studio album, released in October 1973 in the UK and in May 1974 in the US. This album is considered Stewart's first "major album" and it reached #133 on the Billboard Rock Album chart in 1974. He had taken on a different approach from his previous,...
characterized by Stewart's 'history genre' mentioned American President Warren Harding, World War II, Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
, Christine Keeler
Christine Keeler
Christine Margaret Keeler is an English former model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair....
, Louis Mountbatten, and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's purges.
Alan Parsons years
Stewart followed Past, Present and Future with Modern TimesModern Times (Al Stewart album)
Modern Times is Al Stewart's sixth studio album, released in 1975. The album has been re-released in 2007 with bonus tracks.-1975 Original LP edition:Side 1#"Carol" – 4:24#"Sirens of Titan" – 2:50#"What's Going On?" – 3:34#"Not the One" – 4:34...
(1975), in which the songs were lighter on historical references and more of a return to the theme of short stories set to music. Significantly, though, it was the first of his albums to be produced by Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons is a British audio engineer, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several significant albums, including The Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be, as well as Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor...
, and Allmusic regards it as his best. It produced his first hit single, "Carol", and received substantial airplay on album oriented stations and reached #30 in the US, some 30 years before Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
would release an album of the same name
Modern Times (Bob Dylan album)
Modern Times is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 32nd studio album, released by Columbia Records in August 2006. The album was Dylan's third straight to be met with nearly universal praise from fans and critics...
.
Stewart's contract with CBS Records
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
expired at this point and he signed to RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
for the world outside North America. His first two albums for RCA, Year of the Cat
Year of the Cat
Year of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1976 and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece, its sales helped by the hit single "Year of the Cat," "one of those 'mysterious woman' songs," co-written by Peter Wood...
(released on Janus in the U.S., then reissued by Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
after Janus folded) and Time Passages
Time Passages
Time Passages is the eighth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1978. It is the follow-up to his 1976 album Year of the Cat. The album, like its predecessor, was produced by Alan Parsons...
(released in the U.S. on Arista), set the style for his later work, and have certainly been his biggest-selling recordings.
As Stewart told Kaya Burgess of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
: "When I finished Year of the Cat, I thought: ‘If this isn’t a hit, then I can’t make a hit.’ We finally got the formula exactly right."
The most amazing fact about this album is that Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he even had a title of any of the songs. He mentioned, in a Canadian radio interview, that he has done this for 6 of his albums, and he often writes 4 different sets of lyrics for each song. The hit single Year of the Cat was originally going to be about a British comic who had committed suicide, but this was vetoed by his record company.
Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with "Year of the Cat" peaking at #5 and "Time Passages" at #10, and both albums produced hit singles in the US ("Year of the Cat" #8, and "On the Border", #42; "Time Passages" #7 and "Song On the Radio", #29). Meanwhile "Year of the Cat" became Stewart's first chart single in Britain, where it peaked at #31. The overwhelming success of these songs, both of which still receive substantial radio airplay on classic-rock/pop format radio stations, has perhaps later overshadowed the depth and range of Stewart's body of songwriting. Stewart himself has frequently expressed disappointment with the quality of his recordings during this era, commercial success notwithstanding.
1980s
Stewart then released 24 Carrots (#37 US 1980) and his first live albumLive album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
Live/Indian Summer
Live/Indian Summer
Live/Indian Summer is the first live album by Al Stewart, released in 1981. It was originally released as a double LP, with sides 2, 3 & 4 featuring live material while side 1 featured five new studio recordings...
(#110 US 1981), which both featuring backing by Peter White
Peter White (musician)
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano. His brother, Danny White, was one of the original members who formed the UK based band Matt Bianco.-Career:...
's band Shot in the Dark (who released their own unsuccessful album in 1981). While "24 Carrots" did produce a #24 single with "Midnight Rocks," the album sold less well than its two immediate predecessors.
After those releases, Stewart was dropped by Arista and his popularity declined. Despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he continued to tour the world, record albums, and maintain a loyal fanbase. There was a four-year gap between his next two albums, the highly political Russians and Americans
Russians and Americans
Russians and Americans is the tenth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1984. It was released on LP and then CD in both the United Kingdom and the United States...
(1984) and the upbeat pop-oriented Last Days of the Century
Last Days of the Century
Last Days of the Century is the eleventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in August 1988. It was re-released in 2007 with bonus tracks.Original LP ReleaseSide 1#"Last Days of the Century"...
(1988), which appeared on smaller labels and had lower sales than his previous works.
1990s
Stewart followed up with his second live album, the acoustic Rhymes in RoomsRhymes in Rooms
Rhymes in Rooms is the second live album by Al Stewart, released in 1992. It is an acoustic concert recorded on 25 February, 1992.-Track listing:#"Flying Sorcery" – 4:32#"Soho " – 3:53#"Time Passages" – 5:40#"Josephine Baker" – 4:04...
(1992), which featured only himself and Peter White
Peter White (musician)
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano. His brother, Danny White, was one of the original members who formed the UK based band Matt Bianco.-Career:...
, and Famous Last Words (1993), which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood (who co-wrote "Year of the Cat"), who died the year of its release.
Stewart followed these up with a concept album, Between the Wars (1995), covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Versailles Treaty, Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
, the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
In 1995, Stewart was invited to play at the 25th anniversary Glastonbury festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
, taking to the same stage he had graced in 1970 at the first ever festival.
21st century
In 2000, Stewart released Down in the CellarDown in the Cellar
Down in the Cellar is the fourteenth studio album by Al Stewart. Released in 2000 in Europe by EMI, it was to have been issued in the United States through the independent label, Miramar, but shortly after making the deal for distribution, Miramar filed for bankruptcy putting the album in legal...
, a concept album themed on wine. Stewart had begun a love-affair with wine in the 1970s when, he admitted, he had more money than he knew how to spend, and so turned to fine wines.
In 2005 he released A Beach Full of Shells
A Beach Full of Shells
A Beach Full of Shells is the fifteenth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 2005. Like most of Stewart's later works, much of the content of the CD alludes to people or moments in history.- Historical references :...
, which was set in exotic places from First World War England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to the 1950s rock'n'roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
scene that influenced him.
In 2008, he released Sparks of Ancient Light
Sparks of Ancient Light
Sparks of Ancient Light is the sixteenth studio album by Al Stewart, released on September 15, 2008. Like many of Stewart's works, the album's songs deal with historical figures, including British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, deposed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and 34th U.S. President...
produced, like his most recent albums, by Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber is an English-born guitarist who currently lives in California. Born 12 November 1952 in Stepney, East London, he was raised and went to school in North London...
. Here he weaves tales of William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
, Lord Salisbury and Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator
Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian explorer c. 500 BC, best known for his naval exploration of the African coast...
.
Stewart and guitarist Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff is an award-winning American folk singer-songwriter and the sideman to Al Stewart . He has been profiled with feature articles in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Davis Enterprise, and the San Francisco Chronicle, with mentions in the Washington Post and New York Times...
released a live album, Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)
Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)
Uncorked is the third live album by singer-songwriter Al Stewart, and features guitarist and harmony vocalist Dave Nachmanoff. It was released on September 29, 2009 and was produced by Dave Nachmanoff and released independently on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.-Track listing:#"Last...
on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings, in 2009.
Stewart and Nachmanoff played the Glastonbury Festival 40th anniversary in June 2010 on the Acoustic stage.
Stewart sang a duet with Albert Hammond
Albert Hammond
Albert Hammond OBE is a British singer, songwriter and record producer from Gibraltar.-Birth and early success:Hammond was born in London, England, where his family had been evacuated to from Gibraltar during World War II. His family returned to Gibraltar shortly after his birth, and there he grew...
of Hammond's "It Never Rains in Southern California
It Never Rains in Southern California
"It Never Rains in Southern California", written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, is the title of a song first released by Hammond, a British born singer-songwriter, in 1972. Hammond's version peaked at number five on the U.S...
" on Hammond's 2010 album "Legend."
In 2011, Stewart sang a duet with his guitarist and opening act Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff
Dave Nachmanoff is an award-winning American folk singer-songwriter and the sideman to Al Stewart . He has been profiled with feature articles in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Davis Enterprise, and the San Francisco Chronicle, with mentions in the Washington Post and New York Times...
on Nachmanoff's album "Step Up". The song, "Sheila Won't Be Coming Home", was co-written by Stewart and Nachmanoff.
Residence
Born in ScotlandScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, raised in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
and gaining fame in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Stewart moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. He married in the mid-1990s, and he, his wife and their two daughters moved to Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
.
Historical references
Stewart's historical work includes such subjects as:- World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
pilots - "Fields of France", from the album Last Days of the Century - The career of Admiral Sir John Fisher of the World War I Royal NavyRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
inspired "Old Admirals", from Past, Present, and Future - The Wehrmacht's invasion of the Soviet UnionOperation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
in World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
is the focus of "Roads to Moscow", from Past, Present, and Future. There are references to both Wehrmacht General Heinz GuderianHeinz GuderianHeinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II. He was a pioneer in the development of armored warfare, and was the leading proponent of tanks and mechanization in the Wehrmacht . Germany's panzer forces were raised and organized under his direction as Chief of Mobile Forces...
and also to the German Tiger tankTiger ITiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of...
and to the brutal treatment of returning Russian soldiers, which is drawn from the Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
book The Gulag ArchipelagoThe Gulag ArchipelagoThe Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp...
. - Both the Basque separatistsBasque nationalismBasque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...
in Spain and the crisis in the former republic of RhodesiaRhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
are referenced in "On the Border", from Year of the Cat - The Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
is the focus of "In Red Square", from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. - The English sailor Sir Richard GrenvilleRichard GrenvilleSir Richard Grenville was an English sailor, sea captain and explorer. He took part in the early English attempts to settle the New World, and also participated in the fight against the Spanish Armada...
is profiled in "Lord Grenville", from Year of the Cat. - The French RevolutionFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
is addressed in the song "The Palace of Versailles", from Time Passages. - Henry VIII of England (misidentified by Stewart as Henry Plantagenet (Henry II)) and Thomas MoreThomas MoreSir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
(Henry VIII's chancellor) are referenced in "A Man for All Seasons" from Time Passages. - The assassin of Jean-Paul MaratJean-Paul MaratJean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
is the subject of "Charlotte CordayCharlotte CordayMarie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont , known to history as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed under the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible, through his role as a politician and...
", from Famous Last Words. - The subject of Nazi war criminals hiding in South AmericaSouth AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
is featured in "Running Man" from 24 Carrots. - The scandals of the foreshortened Warren Harding administration are the subject of "Warren Harding" from Past, Present and Future.
- Ernst RöhmErnst RöhmErnst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
, leader of the Nazi SA, is the subject of "The Last Day of June, 1934" from "Past, Present and Future."
Literary sources
"Sirens of Titan", from Modern Times is a musical precis of Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
's novel of the same title
The Sirens of Titan
The Sirens of Titan is a Hugo Award-nominated novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history...
.
On occasion, Stewart has set poems to music, such as "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" (lyrics by the poet Pete Morgan
Pete Morgan
Colin Peter Morgan was a British poet, lyricist and television documentary author and presenter.Morgan's career as a poet began in the mid-1950s when he was 16 and living alone in London. He entered the British Army and rose to the rank of infantry platoon commander while serving in West Germany...
) on the 1970 album Zero She Flies. During his 1999 UK tour, Stewart invited Morgan to read the lyrics as he performed this song in the Leeds City Varieties
Leeds City Varieties
The Leeds City Varieties is a Grade II* listed music hall in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.It was built in 1865 as an adjunct to the White Swan Inn in Swan Street and the original interior is largely unaltered. Along with Hoxton Hall and Wilton's Music Hall , it is a rare surviving example of the...
Theatre show of 7 November 1999.
Studio albums
- Bed-Sitter ImagesBed-Sitter ImagesBed-Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris...
(1967) - Love ChroniclesLove ChroniclesLove Chronicles is the second studio album of Scottish folk artist Al Stewart, released in September 1969. It was also his first album to be released in the US...
(1969) - Zero She FliesZero She FliesZero She Flies is the third studio album by folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1970. It is notable for being the first of his albums to include a song with historical references, namely "Manuscript" which refers to the events which led to the outbreak of World War I, including the Assassination of...
(1970) #40 UK - OrangeOrange (Al Stewart album)Orange is Al Stewart's fourth studio album originally released in 1972, and re-released in 1996 and 2007 on CD. Generally regarded as a 'transitional album' between the confessional folk sounds of his first three albums, and the historically-themed albums of his more successful mid-1970s period...
(1972) - Past, Present and FuturePast, Present and FuturePast, Present and Future is Al Stewart's fifth studio album, released in October 1973 in the UK and in May 1974 in the US. This album is considered Stewart's first "major album" and it reached #133 on the Billboard Rock Album chart in 1974. He had taken on a different approach from his previous,...
(1973) #133 US - Modern TimesModern Times (Al Stewart album)Modern Times is Al Stewart's sixth studio album, released in 1975. The album has been re-released in 2007 with bonus tracks.-1975 Original LP edition:Side 1#"Carol" – 4:24#"Sirens of Titan" – 2:50#"What's Going On?" – 3:34#"Not the One" – 4:34...
(1975) #30 US - Year of the CatYear of the CatYear of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1976 and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece, its sales helped by the hit single "Year of the Cat," "one of those 'mysterious woman' songs," co-written by Peter Wood...
(1976) #5 US (RIAA: Platinum) (BPI: Gold) #38 UK - Time PassagesTime PassagesTime Passages is the eighth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1978. It is the follow-up to his 1976 album Year of the Cat. The album, like its predecessor, was produced by Alan Parsons...
(1978) #10 US (RIAA: Platinum) (BPI: Silver) #39 UK - 24 Carrots (1980) (with Shot In The Dark) #37 US #55 UK
- Russians and AmericansRussians and AmericansRussians and Americans is the tenth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1984. It was released on LP and then CD in both the United Kingdom and the United States...
(1984) #83 UK - Last Days of the CenturyLast Days of the CenturyLast Days of the Century is the eleventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in August 1988. It was re-released in 2007 with bonus tracks.Original LP ReleaseSide 1#"Last Days of the Century"...
(1988) - Famous Last Words (1993)
- Between the Wars (1995) (with Laurence JuberLaurence JuberLaurence Juber is an English-born guitarist who currently lives in California. Born 12 November 1952 in Stepney, East London, he was raised and went to school in North London...
) - Down in the CellarDown in the CellarDown in the Cellar is the fourteenth studio album by Al Stewart. Released in 2000 in Europe by EMI, it was to have been issued in the United States through the independent label, Miramar, but shortly after making the deal for distribution, Miramar filed for bankruptcy putting the album in legal...
(2000) - A Beach Full of ShellsA Beach Full of ShellsA Beach Full of Shells is the fifteenth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 2005. Like most of Stewart's later works, much of the content of the CD alludes to people or moments in history.- Historical references :...
(2005) - Sparks of Ancient LightSparks of Ancient LightSparks of Ancient Light is the sixteenth studio album by Al Stewart, released on September 15, 2008. Like many of Stewart's works, the album's songs deal with historical figures, including British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, deposed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and 34th U.S. President...
(2008)
Live albums
- Live/Indian SummerLive/Indian SummerLive/Indian Summer is the first live album by Al Stewart, released in 1981. It was originally released as a double LP, with sides 2, 3 & 4 featuring live material while side 1 featured five new studio recordings...
(1981) #110 US - Rhymes in RoomsRhymes in RoomsRhymes in Rooms is the second live album by Al Stewart, released in 1992. It is an acoustic concert recorded on 25 February, 1992.-Track listing:#"Flying Sorcery" – 4:32#"Soho " – 3:53#"Time Passages" – 5:40#"Josephine Baker" – 4:04...
(1992) (with Peter WhitePeter WhitePeter White, PC was a Canadian parliamentarian.White was born into a family that had established its homestead at the junction of the Muskrat and Ottawa Rivers where the town of Pembroke, Ontario was soon established...
) - UncorkedUncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)Uncorked is the third live album by singer-songwriter Al Stewart, and features guitarist and harmony vocalist Dave Nachmanoff. It was released on September 29, 2009 and was produced by Dave Nachmanoff and released independently on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.-Track listing:#"Last...
(2009) (with Dave NachmanoffDave NachmanoffDave Nachmanoff is an award-winning American folk singer-songwriter and the sideman to Al Stewart . He has been profiled with feature articles in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Davis Enterprise, and the San Francisco Chronicle, with mentions in the Washington Post and New York Times...
)
Compilations
- The Early Years (1977)
- The Best of Al Stewart - Songs From the Radio (1985)
- Chronicles... The Best of Al Stewart (1991)
- To Whom it May Concern 1966-1970 (1993)
- Premium Gold Collection (1996)
- Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1996) (limited distribution of B-sides and rarities)
- On the Border (1998)
- Singer Songwriter (2001)
- The Very Best Al Stewart Album Ever (2002)
- The Essential Al Stewart (2003)
- Introducing... Al Stewart - Running Man (2003)
- Greatest Hits (2004)
- Just Yesterday (2005)
- A Piece of Yesterday - The Anthology (2006)
- The Definitive Pop Collection (2006)
Charted Singles
- Year of the CatYear of the Cat (song)"Year of the Cat" is the title track of the 1976 album Year of the Cat by singer-songwriter Al Stewart, which album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London in January 1976 by engineer Alan Parsons and released in July 1976. The "Year of the Cat" single reached #8 on the Hot 100 in Billboard in...
(1976 #8 US, #31 UK) - On the Border (1977 #42 US)
- Time PassagesTime Passages (song)"Time Passages" is the title of a 1978 Top Ten hit by singer Al Stewart which was the title track for Stewart's 1978 album release, produced by Alan Parsons. Reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1978, "Time Passages" also spent ten weeks at #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening...
(1978 #7 US, #1 US Adult Contemporary) - Song on the Radio (1979 #29 US)
- Midnight Rocks (1980 #24 US)