Al Stewart
| Al Stewart | |
|---|---|
 Stewart performing in Santa Monica, California on 13 February 2010 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Alastair Ian Stewart |
| Born | 5 September 1945 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Origin | Wimborne, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupations | |
| Instruments | Guitar, bass guitar, piano, drums, harmonica |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Website | www.alstewart.com |
Al Stewart (born Alastair Ian Stewart, 5 September 1945) is a Scottish[1] singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who came to stardom as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history.[2]
Stewart is best known for his 1976 hit single "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.[3]
Stewart was a key figure in British music and he appears throughout the musical folklore of the revivalist era. 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 Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s.[4]
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.[5]
Stewart 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.
Contents |
Early life[edit]
Though born in Glasgow, Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England after moving from Scotland with his mother, Joan Underwood. His father, Alastair MacKichan Stewart, who served as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve, died in a plane crash during a 1945 training exercise before Al was born.[6] 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 compere at the Les Cousins folk club on Greek Street, where he played alongside Cat Stevens, Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, Roy Harper and Ralph McTell.[4]
Career[edit]
Stewart's first record was the single "The Elf" (backed with a 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, 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.
Early albums (1967–1973)[edit]
Stewart's debut album Bedsitter Images was released on LP in 1967 (though technically his first recording was 'The Elf', released by Decca in 1966, which sold an estimated 496 copies). A revised version appeared in 1970 as The First Album (Bedsitter Images) with a few tracks changed, and the album was reissued on 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, 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".[7] 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 A. 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 20th 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.
Alan Parsons years (1975–1978)[edit]
Stewart followed Past, Present and Future with 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.
In a highly positive retrospective review of Modern Times, Allmusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "exquisite". Erlewine wrote that the album "establishes Stewart's classic sound of folky narratives and Lennonesque melodies, all wrapped up in a lush, layered production from Alan Parsons. The production gives epics like the title track a real sense of grandeur that makes their sentiments resonate strongly."[8]
Modern Times produced Stewart's first hit single, "Carol". The album reached #30 in the US and it received substantial airplay on album oriented stations, 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 Records 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.[9]
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."[4]
The most remarkable fact about this album is that Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he even had a title for any of the songs. He mentioned, in a Canadian radio interview, that he has done this for six of his albums, and he often writes four different sets of lyrics for each song.[10]
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. It was a huge success at London's Capital Radio, reaching number 2 on their Capital Countdown chart. The overwhelming success of these songs on the two albums, 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.[11]
1980s[edit]
Stewart then released 24 Carrots (#37 US 1980) and his first live album Live/Indian Summer (#110 US 1981), with 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.
1990s[edit]
Stewart followed up with his second live album, the acoustic Rhymes in Rooms (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.
21st century[edit]
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,[12] 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.[13]
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[edit]
Born in Scotland, raised in Dorset and gaining fame in London, Stewart moved to Los Angeles shortly after the release of Year of the Cat.
Use of historical and literary sources[edit]
Historical references[edit]
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 Sir John Fisher of the World War I Royal Navy inspired "Old Admirals", from Past, Present, and Future
- The Wehrmacht's invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II is the focus of "Roads to Moscow", from Past, Present, and Future.[14] There are references to both Wehrmacht General Heinz Guderian and also to the German Tiger tank[14] and to the brutal treatment of returning Russian soldiers, which is drawn from the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The Gulag Archipelago.
- Both the 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.
- Amy Johnson inspired the song "Flying Sorcery", from Time Passages.
- Henry VIII of England (misidentified by Stewart as Henry Plantagenet (Henry II))[15] 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[edit]
"Sirens of Titan", from Modern Times is a musical precis of Kurt Vonnegut'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.
Discography[edit]
Studio albums[edit]
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions | Certifications | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | UK | |||
| 1967 | Bedsitter Images
|
- | - | |
| 1969 | Love Chronicles
|
- | - | |
| 1970 | Zero She Flies
|
- | 40 | |
| 1972 | Orange
|
- | - | |
| 1973 | Past, Present and Future
|
133 | - | |
| 1975 | Modern Times
|
30 | - | |
| 1976 | Year of the Cat
|
5 | 38 | |
| 1978 | Time Passages
|
10 | 39 |
|
| 1980 | 24 Carrots (with Shot in the Dark)
|
37 | 55 | |
| 1984 | Russians and Americans
|
- | 83 | |
| 1988 | Last Days of the Century
|
- | - | |
| 1993 | Famous Last Words
|
- | - | |
| 1995 | Between the Wars (with Laurence Juber)
|
- | - | |
| 2000 | Down in the Cellar
|
- | - | |
| 2005 | A Beach Full of Shells
|
- | - | |
| 2008 | Sparks of Ancient Light
|
- | - | |
Live albums[edit]
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US | |||
| 1981 | Live/Indian Summer
|
110 | |
| 1992 | Rhymes in Rooms (with Peter White)
|
- | |
| 2009 | Uncorked (with Dave Nachmanoff)
|
- | |
Singles[edit]
| Year | Song | Peak chart positions | Album | B/W | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US AC | UK | ||||
| 1966 | "The Elf" | - | - | - | non-album single | "Turn Into Earth" |
| 1967 | "Bedsitter Images" | - | - | - | Bedsitter Images | "Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres" |
| 1970 | "Electric Los Angeles Sunset" | - | - | - | Zero She Flies | "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" |
| 1970 | "The News From Spain" | - | - | - | Orange | "Elvaston Place" |
| 1972 | "Amsterdam" | - | - | - | "Songs Out Of Clay" | |
| 1972 | "You Don't Even Know Me" | - | - | - | "I'm Falling" | |
| 1973 | "Terminal Eyes (UK Release)" | - | - | - | Past, Present and Future | "The Last Day Of June 1934" |
| 1974 | "Nostradamus (US Release)" | - | - | - | "Terminal Eyes" | |
| 1975 | "Carol (UK Release)" | - | - | - | Modern Times | "Next Time" |
| 1975 | "Carol (US Release)" | - | - | - | "Sirens of Titan" | |
| 1976 | "Year of the Cat" | 8 | 8 | 31 | Year of the Cat | "Broadway Hotel" |
| 1977 | "On the Border" | 42 | 23 | - | "Flying Sorcery" | |
| 1978 | "Time Passages" | 7 | 1 | - | Time Passages | "Almost Lucy" |
| 1979 | "Song on the Radio" | 29 | 10 | - | "A Man For All Seasons" | |
| 1980 | "Midnight Rocks" | 24 | 13 | - | 24 Carrots | "Constantinople" |
| 1980 | "Mondo Sinistro" | - | - | - | "Merlin's Time" | |
| 1980 | "Paint By Numbers" | - | - | - | "Optical Illusion" | |
| 1984 | "Lori, Don't Go Right Now" | - | - | - | Russians and Americans | "Accident on 3rd Street" |
| 1988 | "King of Portugal" | - | - | - | Last Days of the Century | "King Of Portugal (Rock Mix)" |
| 1993 | "Don't Forget Me" | - | - | - | Famous Last Words | "Trains/Charlotte Corday" |
| 2005 | "Class of '58" | - | - | - | A Beach Full of Shells | - |
Compilation albums[edit]
- 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)[16]
- 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)
References[edit]
- ^ "Al Stewart Bio | Al Stewart Career | MTV". Vh1.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^ Brocken, Michael (2003). The British Folk Revival, 1944–2002. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-7546-3282-5. OCLC 51389150.
- ^ Brown, Joe (18 February 2009). "Al Stewart: Heady concert to engage history in singer’s lyrics". Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas). Retrieved 19 February 2009. "...Stewart says on the phone from his home in Los Angeles."
- ^ a b c Kaya Burgess (2009-05-12). "Al Stewart, the return of the cat". The Times (London). Retrieved 2009-05-12.
- ^ "Appleseedrec.com". Appleseedrec.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^ "Alastair MacKichan Stewart". The University of Glasgow Story. University of Glasgow. Retrieved 24 January 2013.
- ^ Gelder, Ken; Thornton, Sarah (1997). The Subcultures Reader. London: Routledge. p. 413. ISBN 978-0-415-12727-1. OCLC 34513133.
- ^ Thomas, Stephen. "Modern Times - Al Stewart : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^ "Al Stewart's passing time very well after 'Time Passages'", St. Petersburg Times, 11 January 1979, retrieved from Google News Archive
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ David Dudley (1995-10-12). "Living in the Past - Page 1 - Music - Miami". Miami New Times. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^ Liner notes, Down In The Cellar
- ^ Breaking news from Dave Nachmanoff and Al Stewart, 23 July 2009 . Retrieved 24 July 2009.
- ^ a b Nichols, Thomas M. (Spring, 2001). "Soldiers and War: A Top Ten List". International Journal (Canadian International Council) 56 (2): 312, 316–317. JSTOR 40203558.
- ^ Nichols, Thomas M. (Spring, 2001). "Soldiers and War: A Top Ten List". International Journal (Canadian International Council) 56 (2): 312–323, 317 n.1. JSTOR 40203558. "In a 1980 interview, Stewart lamented his reference in the song about More to Henry Plantagenet when he meant Henry Tudor. How many of his fans caught the error is unknown."
- ^ [2][dead link]
External links[edit]
- Official website
- Al Stewart at Allmusic
- Dutch Fan Page
- German Fan Page
- German Fan Page (alternative link)
- Comprehensive discography
- Al Stewart Friends
- The Al Stewart Mailing List
- Blogcritics.org Al Stewart Collection: Interviews, Discography, more
- Al Stewart and Awaken evenings
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- Scottish folk singers
- Scottish male singers
- Scottish rock singers
- Scottish pop singers
- Scottish singer-songwriters
- People from Glasgow
- People from Wimborne Minster
- Scottish agnostics
- British soft rock musicians
- British expatriates in the United States
- 1945 births
- Living people
- People educated at Wycliffe College (Gloucestershire)
