Al Stewart

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Biography

Al Stewart (born Alastair Ian Stewart , 5 September 1945) is a Scottish people|Scottish http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/stewart_al/bio.jhtml singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician .

Stewart came to stardom as part of the United Kingdom|British folk revival in the Sixties#Music|1960s and 1970s in music|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 1976 hit single (music)|single " Year of the Cat (song)|Year of the Cat ", the title song from the platinum album of the same name.

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 (music club)|Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s.

Stewart has released sixteen studio and three live albums since his debut album Bed-Sitter Images|Bedsitter Images in 1967, and continues to tour extensively around the US and Canada, Europe and the UK. His latest release, is Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)|Uncorked , which was released on his independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings. at Appleseed Recordings

He has worked with Peter White (musician)|Peter White , Alan Parsons , Jimmy Page , Richard Thompson (musician)|Richard Thompson , Rick Wakeman , Tori Amos and Tim Renwick and recently has played with Dave Nachmanoff and former Wings (band)|Wings lead-guitarist Laurence Juber .

Early life

Though born in Glasgow , Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne Minster , Dorset , England after moving from Scotland with his mother. He attended Wycliffe College (Gloucestershire)|Wycliffe College school in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire|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 The Police|Police guitarist Andy Summers , Stewart traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic guitar when he was offered a weekly slot at Bunjies|Bunjies Coffee House in London's Soho in 1965. From there, he went on to compete at the Les Cousins (music club)|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.

Career

Stewart's first record was the single "The Elf" (backed with a cover version|version 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 (musician)|Richard Thompson , Tim Renwick and Peter White (musician)|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 .

Early albums

Stewart's debut album Bed-Sitter Images 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 Compact disc|CD in 2007 with all tracks from both versions. His first recording of any kind appears on Jackson C. Frank s first album, 1965's Jackson C. Frank (album)|Jackson C. Frank playing guitar on "Yellow Walls".

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 (musician)|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 A. Anderson|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 (Al Stewart album)|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 Nostradamus|claimed seer 's writings by referring to selected possible predictions about twentieth century people and events. While too long for mainstream radio airplay (song)|airplay at that time, the song became a hit record|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 (magazine)|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.

Alan Parsons years

Stewart followed Past, Present and Future with Modern Times (Al Stewart album)|Modern Times (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 Modern Times (Bob Dylan album)|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."Al Stewart's passing time very well after 'Time Passages'", St. Petersburg Times, January 11, 1979, retrieved from

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. CIUT’s Barry Livingston’s interview with legendary UK singer/songwriter AL STEWART, Thursday June 16th, 2011 at 7am 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., Miami New Times, October 12, 1995 On tour in 2008, Stewart commented that he wished his fans would "never again listen to anything I recorded prior to 1988."

1980s

Stewart then released 24 Carrots (#37 US 1980) and his first live album Live/Indian Summer (#110 US 1981), which both featuring backing by Peter White (musician)|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.

1990s

Stewart followed up with his second live album, the acoustic Rhymes in Rooms (1992), which featured only himself and Peter White (musician)|Peter White , and Famous Last Words (Al Stewart album)|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 (Al Stewart 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.

21st century

In 2000, Stewart released Down in the Cellar , 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,Liner notes, Down In The Cellar 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 and roll|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., July 23, 2009 . Retrieved July 24, 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.

Residence

Born in Scotland , 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 .

Use of historical and literary sources

Historical references

Stewart's historical work includes such subjects as:

World War I pilots - "Fields of France", from the album Last Days of the Century

The career of Admiral John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher|Sir John Fisher of the World War I Royal Navy inspired "Old Admirals", from Past, Present, and Future

The Wehrmacht's Operation Barbarossa|invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II is the focus of "Roads to Moscow", from Past, Present, and Future . There are references to both Wehrmacht General Heinz Guderian and also to the German Tiger I|Tiger tank and to the brutal treatment of returning Russian soldiers, which is drawn from the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The Gulag Archipelago .

Both the Basque nationalism|Basque separatists in Spain and the crisis in the former republic of Rhodesia are referenced in "On the Border", from Year of the Cat

The Soviet Union is the focus of "In Red Square", from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time .

The English sailor Sir Richard Grenville is profiled in "Lord Grenville", from Year of the Cat .

The French Revolution 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 More (Henry VIII's chancellor) are referenced in "A Man for All Seasons" from Time Passages .

The assassin of Jean-Paul Marat is the subject of " Charlotte Corday ", from Famous Last Words .

The subject of Nazi war criminals hiding in South America 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 Röhm , 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 Vonnegut 's The Sirens of Titan|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.

Discography

Studio albums

Bed-Sitter Images (1967)

Love Chronicles (1969)

Zero She Flies (1970) #40 UK

Orange (Al Stewart album)|Orange (1972)

Past, Present and Future (1973) #133 US

Modern Times (Al Stewart album)|Modern Times (1975) #30 US

Year of the Cat (1976) #5 US (RIAA: Platinum) (BPI: Gold) #38 UK

Time Passages (1978) #10 US (RIAA: Platinum) (BPI: Silver) #39 UK

24 Carrots (1980) (with Shot In The Dark) #37 US #55 UK

Russians and Americans (1984) #83 UK

Last Days of the Century (1988)

Famous Last Words (Al Stewart album)|Famous Last Words (1993)

Between the Wars (Al Stewart album)|Between the Wars (1995) (with Laurence Juber )

Down in the Cellar (2000)

A Beach Full of Shells (2005)

Sparks of Ancient Light (2008)

Live albums

Live/Indian Summer (1981) #110 US

Rhymes in Rooms (1992) (with Peter White )

Uncorked (Live with Dave Nachmanoff)|Uncorked (2009) (with Dave Nachmanoff )

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 Cat (song)|Year of the Cat (1976 #8 US, #31 UK)

On the Border (1977 #42 US)

Time Passages (song)|Time Passages (1978 #7 US, #1 US Adult Contemporary)

Song on the Radio (1979 #29 US)

Midnight Rocks (1980 #24 US)

Copyright Citations

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