fbpx
Wikipedia

Al Stewart

Alastair Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish born[1][2] singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence 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.[3]

Al Stewart
Stewart performing at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California on 13 February 2010
Background information
Birth nameAlastair Ian Stewart
Born (1945-09-05) 5 September 1945 (age 77)
Greenock, Scotland
OriginWimborne, England
Genres
Occupation(s)Musician, songwriter
Instrument(s)
  • Guitar
  • piano
  • vocals
Years active1966–present
Labels
Websitewww.alstewart.com

Stewart is best known for his 1976 hit single "Year of the Cat", 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 returned in later albums.[4]

Stewart is 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, and shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon who was collaborating with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. Stewart hosted at the Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s.[5]

Stewart has released 16 studio and three live albums since his debut album Bed-Sitter Images in 1967, and continues to tour extensively in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. His most recent release, Uncorked, was released on Stewart's independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings, in 2009.[6]

Stewart has worked with Peter White, Alan Parsons, Jimmy Page, Richard Thompson, Rick Wakeman, Francis Monkman, Tori Amos, and Tim Renwick, and more recently has played with Dave Nachmanoff and former Wings lead-guitarist Laurence Juber.

Early life

Although born in Glasgow,[7] Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne, 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 Stewart was born.[8] Stewart attended Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire as a boarder. After that, according to 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 fourth 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 serve as master of ceremonies at the Les Cousins folk club on Greek Street, where he played alongside Cat Stevens, Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, Roy Harper, Ralph McTell and Paul Simon, with whom he shared a flat in Dellow Street, Stepney, London.[5]

Career

Stewart's first recording was on Jackson C. Frank's debut album, 1965's Jackson C. Frank, playing guitar on "Yellow Walls". His 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). 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)

Stewart's debut album, Bedsitter Images, was released in 1967. 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.

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".[9] It was voted "Folk Album of the Year" by the UK music magazine Melody Maker and 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 and fellow musician Ian A. Anderson 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 breakup 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 progressive 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 rediscovery 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 US college/university radio stations, which were flexible about running times.

Such airplay helped the album to reach No. 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 G. Harding, World War II, Ernst Röhm, Christine Keeler, Louis Mountbatten, and Joseph Stalin's purges.

Alan Parsons years (1975–1978)

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."[10]

Modern Times produced Stewart's first hit single, "Carol". The album reached No. 30 in the US and 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 US, 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 been his biggest-selling recordings.[11]

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."[5]

Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he 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.[12]

Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with Year of the Cat peaking at No. 5 and Time Passages at No. 10, and both albums produced hit singles in the US ("Year of the Cat" No. 8, and "On the Border", #42; "Time Passages" No. 7 and "Song on the Radio", #29). Meanwhile, "Year of the Cat" became Stewart's first chart single in Britain, where it peaked at No. 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.[13]

1980s

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 album in 1981). While "24 Carrots" did produce a No. 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 Stewart and Peter White, and Famous Last Words (1993), which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood (co-writer of "Year of the Cat"), who died the year of its release.

After parting ways with his longtime collaborator of almost 20 years, Peter White (who was credited on every studio and live album between Year of the Cat and Famous Last Words and also served as his regular songwriting partner), Stewart joined with former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber to record a concept album, Between the Wars (1995), covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Treaty of Versailles, Prohibition, the Spanish Civil War, and the Great Depression. Juber produced the album, and went on to produce Stewart's subsequent studio albums.

In 1995, Stewart was invited to play at the 25th anniversary Glastonbury 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,[14] and so turned to fine wines.

In 2005, he released A Beach Full of Shells, which was set in places varying 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. On this album he weaves tales of William McKinley, Lord Salisbury, and Hanno the Navigator. A video for the song "Elvis at the Wheel" was released in December 2013.[15]

Stewart and guitarist Dave Nachmanoff released a live album, Uncorked, on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings, in 2009.[16] They 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.

In May 2015, Stewart performed the albums Past, Present and Future and Year of the Cat in their entirety at the Royal Albert Hall with a band that included Tim Renwick, Peter White and Stuart Elliott, who had appeared on the original recordings.

In April 2017, Stewart was given a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, presented by Tony Blackburn, with whom he had once played in a band in Dorset.[17]

In October 2022 he toured in the UK supported by The Empty Pockets (who opened with their own set before backing Stewart).

Personal life

Born in Scotland, raised in Dorset, and gaining fame in London, Stewart moved to Los Angeles[4] shortly after the release of Year of the Cat. He was married to Kristine from 1993-2005. He subsequently married Jill on 12 September 2020.[18]

Use of historical and literary sources

Historical references

Stewart's historical work includes such subjects as:

Literary sources

"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. Stewart also invited Morgan to read the poem at the Beverly gig on the same tour, whilst Stewart took a short break, and Morgan subsequently read another poem from his works as well.

Songwriting

In a 23 June 2012 telephone interview with Bob Reid and Blair Packham on NewsTalk 1010 AM in Toronto, Ontario[21] (partially transcribed below), Al Stewart provided these insights into his songwriting "process":

I don't like repetition. For example, there have been nine songs in the Top Ten, I think, called "Hold On" (Including, I think, once there were two called "Hold On" simultaneously in the Top Ten). OK, if you're really cynical, and you've written a new song, you'll probably want to call it "Hold On" because it gives you an extra edge. But at the same time it shows so little interest in originality that I can't actually listen to anything called "Hold On" at this point in my life. I mean, it just seems crazy. So, if I have two little rules and guiding principles, they would be:

(a) Don't use words that other people use. Very few people would put the word, oh, I don't know, "pterodactyl" into a song. So that's fine. No "Oh"'s. No "Baby"'s. No "I miss you so"'s. And no "you done me wrong". No "bad"'s or "sad"'s.

(b) And the other thing is, write about subjects that no one else writes about. Basically 90% of all songs seem to be either "Baby, I love you so", or "Baby, you've done me wrong". Now, when people look at songs, when I play anybody on the planet this song, and I say "What is this?", they will say, "Oh, that's Reggae", or "Oh, that's Heavy Metal", or "That's Country & Western", or "Oh, that's Opera", you know what I mean? But that's not what I asked. They're answering a question I didn't ask. What they're saying is "That's the music". What I'm saying is "What is the song?" And the song is either "I've done you wrong", or, "Baby, I love you so", no matter what style it's played in. In other words, there's a huge difference between content and style, and, if you work more towards content, why not make it content that is original.

If it's already been written, why write it again? If it's already been said, why say it again? I mean there are some remarkable quotes that I love. But I didn't say them. And you don't want to pass them off as your own work. Napoleon said that "Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted". And that, actually, has governed my life. You know what I mean? That's a quote you can live by. But it's not my quote. So if I say it I always credit it to Napoleon. There is another way of saying any of the things you want to say, rather than rehashing someone else's words.

I think of songs as cinema, really. It's aural cinema. I want to show you a movie when I'm playing a song. That's essentially what I'm doing. And, of course, the songs are geographical too. One of the ways I get inspired to write a song – and this will always produce a song that sounds like nothing else (I can't recommend this highly enough) – I just open a world atlas, just at random, and whatever page I'm looking at, at least six songs immediately occur to me.

So, if you look at pretty much any of the songs, a lot of them are geographical, historical, and form a movie.

Discography

Studio albums

Year Album Peak chart positions Certifications
US AUS[22] UK
1967 Bedsitter Images
  • Label: CBS
  • Initial Release: October 1967
1969 Love Chronicles
  • Label: CBS, Epic (US)
  • Initial Release: September 1969
1970 Zero She Flies
  • Label: CBS
  • Initial Release: April 1970
40
1972 Orange
  • Label: CBS
  • Initial Release: January 1972
1973 Past, Present and Future
  • Label: CBS, Janus (US)
  • Initial Release: October 1973
133
1975 Modern Times
  • Label: CBS, Janus (US)
  • Initial Release: January 1975
30
1976 Year of the Cat
  • Label: RCA, Janus (US)
  • Initial Release: July 1976
5 10 38
  • US: Platinum
  • UK: Gold
1978 Time Passages
  • Label: RCA, Arista (US)
  • Initial Release: September 1978
10 15 39
  • US: Platinum
  • UK: Silver
1980 24 Carrots (with Shot in the Dark)
  • Label: RCA, Arista (US)
  • Initial Release: August 1980
37 51 55
1984 Russians & Americans
  • Label: RCA, Passport (US)
  • Initial Release: May 1984
83
1988 Last Days of the Century
  • Label: Enigma
  • Initial Release: August 1988
1993 Famous Last Words
  • Label: EMI, Mesa (US)
  • Initial Release: September 1993
1995 Between the Wars (with Laurence Juber)
  • Label: EMI, Mesa (US)
  • Initial Release: May 1995
2000 Down in the Cellar
  • Label: EMI, Miramar (US)
  • Initial Release: October 2000
2005 A Beach Full of Shells
  • Label: EMI, Appleseed (US)
  • Initial Release: June 2005
2008 Sparks of Ancient Light
  • Label: EMI, Appleseed (US)
  • Initial Release: September 2008

Live albums

Year Album Peak chart positions
US AUS[22]
1981 Live/Indian Summer
  • Label: RCA, Arista (US)
  • Initial Release: October 1981
110 50
1992 Rhymes in Rooms (with Peter White)
  • Label: EMI, Mesa (US)
  • Initial Release: March 1992
2009 Uncorked (with Dave Nachmanoff)
  • Label: Wallaby Trails
  • Initial Release: September 2009

Singles

Year Song Peak chart positions Album B/W
AUS[22] Canada RPM 100 Canada AC NZ SA
[23]
US Hot 100 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"
1971 "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" 13 3 8 15 8 8 31 Year of the Cat "Broadway Hotel"
1977 "Sand in Your Shoes" 6 "Lord Grenville"
1977 "On the Border" 47 8 42 23 "Flying Sorcery"
1978 "Time Passages" 36 10 1 7 1 Time Passages "Almost Lucy"
1979 "Song on the Radio" 29 3 29 10 "A Man For All Seasons"
1980 "Midnight Rocks" 85 79 46 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

  • 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)[24]
  • 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)
  • An Introduction To : Al Stewart (2017)

References

  1. ^ "Al Stewart Bio | MTV". VH1. from the original on 4 April 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  2. ^ "Boulder Weekly by Wehaa". npaper-wehaa.com. from the original on 1 August 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  3. ^ Brocken, Michael (2003). The British Folk Revival, 1944–2002. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-7546-3282-5. OCLC 51389150.
  4. ^ a b Brown, Joe (18 February 2009). "Al Stewart: Heady concert to engage history in singer's lyrics". Las Vegas Sun. Las Vegas. from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 19 February 2009. ...Stewart says on the phone from his home in Los Angeles.
  5. ^ a b c Kaya Burgess (12 May 2009). "Al Stewart, the return of the cat". The Times. London. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  6. ^ . Appleseedrec.com. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  7. ^ "Al Stewart: Biography". Billboard. from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
  8. ^ "Alastair MacKichan Stewart". The University of Glasgow Story. from the original on 31 July 2013. Retrieved 24 January 2013.
  9. ^ Gelder, Ken; Thornton, Sarah (1997). The Subcultures Reader. London: Routledge. p. 413. ISBN 978-0-415-12727-1. OCLC 34513133.
  10. ^ Thomas, Stephen. "Modern Times – Al Stewart : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. from the original on 2 February 2013. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  11. ^ "Al Stewart's passing time very well after 'Time Passages'", St. Petersburg Times, 11 January 1979, retrieved from Google News Archive
  12. ^ . www.ciut.fm. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
  13. ^ David Dudley (12 October 1995). "Living in the Past – Page 1 – Music". Miami New Times. from the original on 28 July 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  14. ^ Liner notes Down in the Cellar
  15. ^ "Elvis at the Wheel – Al Stewart (Official Music Video)". 20 December 2013. from the original on 14 October 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2014 – via YouTube.
  16. ^ . www.davenach.com. Archived from the original on 25 March 2009.
  17. ^ "Al Stewart and Ry Cooder receive lifetime achievement gongs at BBC Folk Awards". News & Star. 6 April 2017. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  18. ^ "I'm probably the wrong person to talk about vacations because I really don't like them". April 2022.
  19. ^ a b Nichols, Thomas M. (Spring 2001). "Soldiers and War: A Top Ten List". International Journal. Canadian International Council. 56 (2): 312, 316–317. doi:10.2307/40203558. JSTOR 40203558.
  20. ^ Nichols, Thomas M. (Spring 2001). "Soldiers and War: A Top Ten List". International Journal. Canadian International Council. 56 (2): 312–323, 317 n.1. doi:10.2307/40203558. 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.
  21. ^ "IN-DEPTH RADIO :: Podcast Episodes". NEWSTALK 1010. from the original on 22 March 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  22. ^ a b c Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 294. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  23. ^ "SA Charts 1965 – March 1989". Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  24. ^ . www.alstewart.com. Archived from the original on 6 August 2007.

External links

  • Official website
  • Al Stewart at AllMusic

stewart, other, people, named, disambiguation, alastair, stewart, born, september, 1945, scottish, born, singer, songwriter, folk, rock, musician, rose, prominence, part, british, folk, revival, 1960s, 1970s, developed, unique, style, combining, folk, rock, so. For other people named Al Stewart see Al Stewart disambiguation Alastair Ian Stewart born 5 September 1945 is a Scottish born 1 2 singer songwriter and folk rock musician who rose to prominence 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 3 Al StewartStewart performing at McCabe s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica California on 13 February 2010Background informationBirth nameAlastair Ian StewartBorn 1945 09 05 5 September 1945 age 77 Greenock ScotlandOriginWimborne EnglandGenresRock pop folk rock psychedelic rock soft rockOccupation s Musician songwriterInstrument s Guitar piano vocalsYears active1966 presentLabelsCBS RCA EMIWebsitewww wbr alstewart wbr com Stewart is best known for his 1976 hit single Year of the Cat 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 returned in later albums 4 Stewart is 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 and shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon who was collaborating with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers Stewart hosted at the Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s 5 Stewart has released 16 studio and three live albums since his debut album Bed Sitter Images in 1967 and continues to tour extensively in the US Canada Europe and the UK His most recent release Uncorked was released on Stewart s independent label Wallaby Trails Recordings in 2009 6 Stewart has worked with Peter White Alan Parsons Jimmy Page Richard Thompson Rick Wakeman Francis Monkman Tori Amos and Tim Renwick and more recently has played with Dave Nachmanoff and former Wings lead guitarist Laurence Juber Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2 1 Early albums 1967 1973 2 2 Alan Parsons years 1975 1978 2 3 1980s 2 4 1990s 2 5 21st century 3 Personal life 4 Use of historical and literary sources 4 1 Historical references 4 2 Literary sources 5 Songwriting 6 Discography 6 1 Studio albums 6 2 Live albums 6 3 Singles 6 4 Compilation albums 7 References 8 External linksEarly life EditAlthough born in Glasgow 7 Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne 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 Stewart was born 8 Stewart attended Wycliffe College Gloucestershire as a boarder After that according to 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 fourth 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 serve as master of ceremonies at the Les Cousins folk club on Greek Street where he played alongside Cat Stevens Bert Jansch Van Morrison Roy Harper Ralph McTell and Paul Simon with whom he shared a flat in Dellow Street Stepney London 5 Career EditThis biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately especially if potentially libelous or harmful Find sources Al Stewart news newspapers books scholar JSTOR August 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Stewart s first recording was on Jackson C Frank s debut album 1965 s Jackson C Frank playing guitar on Yellow Walls His 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 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 in 1967 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 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 9 It was voted Folk Album of the Year by the UK music magazine Melody Maker and 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 and fellow musician Ian A Anderson 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 breakup 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 progressive 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 rediscovery 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 US college university radio stations which were flexible about running times Such airplay helped the album to reach No 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 G Harding World War II Ernst Rohm 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 10 Modern Times produced Stewart s first hit single Carol The album reached No 30 in the US and 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 US 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 been his biggest selling recordings 11 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 5 Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he 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 12 Both albums reached the top ten in the US with Year of the Cat peaking at No 5 and Time Passages at No 10 and both albums produced hit singles in the US Year of the Cat No 8 and On the Border 42 Time Passages No 7 and Song on the Radio 29 Meanwhile Year of the Cat became Stewart s first chart single in Britain where it peaked at No 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 13 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 album in 1981 While 24 Carrots did produce a No 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 Stewart and Peter White and Famous Last Words 1993 which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood co writer of Year of the Cat who died the year of its release After parting ways with his longtime collaborator of almost 20 years Peter White who was credited on every studio and live album between Year of the Cat and Famous Last Words and also served as his regular songwriting partner Stewart joined with former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber to record a concept album Between the Wars 1995 covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939 such as the Treaty of Versailles Prohibition the Spanish Civil War and the Great Depression Juber produced the album and went on to produce Stewart s subsequent studio albums In 1995 Stewart was invited to play at the 25th anniversary Glastonbury 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 14 and so turned to fine wines In 2005 he released A Beach Full of Shells which was set in places varying 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 On this album he weaves tales of William McKinley Lord Salisbury and Hanno the Navigator A video for the song Elvis at the Wheel was released in December 2013 15 Stewart and guitarist Dave Nachmanoff released a live album Uncorked on Stewart s label Wallaby Trails Recordings in 2009 16 They 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 In May 2015 Stewart performed the albums Past Present and Future and Year of the Cat in their entirety at the Royal Albert Hall with a band that included Tim Renwick Peter White and Stuart Elliott who had appeared on the original recordings In April 2017 Stewart was given a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards presented by Tony Blackburn with whom he had once played in a band in Dorset 17 In October 2022 he toured in the UK supported by The Empty Pockets who opened with their own set before backing Stewart Personal life EditBorn in Scotland raised in Dorset and gaining fame in London Stewart moved to Los Angeles 4 shortly after the release of Year of the Cat He was married to Kristine from 1993 2005 He subsequently married Jill on 12 September 2020 18 Use of historical and literary sources EditHistorical 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 19 There are references to both Wehrmacht General Heinz Guderian and also to the German Tiger tank 19 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 There s an allusion to Harold Macmillan winds of change speech 1960 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 and in Joe the Georgian from Between the Wars The Battle of Flores 1591 and the efforts of English admiral Sir Richard Grenville are chronicled 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 Year of the Cat Henry VIII of England misidentified by Stewart as Henry Plantagenet Henry II 20 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 Benjamin Franklin is the subject of the song Franklin s Table from his album Down in the Cellar William McKinley is the subject of the song Like William McKinley from his album Sparks of Ancient Light Other US presidents mentioned in Al Stewart s songs are Dwight Eisenhower in A Child s View of the Eisenhower Years Calvin Coolidge in Lindy Comes to Town which is about Charles Lindbergh s transatlantic flight and Woodrow Wilson in A League of Notions about the formation of the League of Nations and the aftermath of World War I Ernst Rohm leader of the Nazi SA is the subject of The Last Day of June 1934 from Past Present and Future Michel de Nostredame the 16th century alchemist polyglot is referenced in the song Nostradamus from Past Present and Future as is Francisco Franco as well as Adolf Hitler and Napoleon I Hister and Napoloron respectively The escape of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the last Shah of Iran during the Iranian Revolution is the subject of Shah of Shahs from Sparks of Ancient Light Hanno the Navigator is the subject of the song Hanno the Navigator from his album Sparks of Ancient Light The song title Katherine of Oregon from the album A Beach Full of Shells is a pun on Catherine of Aragon 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 Stewart also invited Morgan to read the poem at the Beverly gig on the same tour whilst Stewart took a short break and Morgan subsequently read another poem from his works as well Songwriting EditIn a 23 June 2012 telephone interview with Bob Reid and Blair Packham on NewsTalk 1010 AM in Toronto Ontario 21 partially transcribed below Al Stewart provided these insights into his songwriting process I don t like repetition For example there have been nine songs in the Top Ten I think called Hold On Including I think once there were two called Hold On simultaneously in the Top Ten OK if you re really cynical and you ve written a new song you ll probably want to call it Hold On because it gives you an extra edge But at the same time it shows so little interest in originality that I can t actually listen to anything called Hold On at this point in my life I mean it just seems crazy So if I have two little rules and guiding principles they would be a Don t use words that other people use Very few people would put the word oh I don t know pterodactyl into a song So that s fine No Oh s No Baby s No I miss you so s And no you done me wrong No bad s or sad s b And the other thing is write about subjects that no one else writes about Basically 90 of all songs seem to be either Baby I love you so or Baby you ve done me wrong Now when people look at songs when I play anybody on the planet this song and I say What is this they will say Oh that s Reggae or Oh that s Heavy Metal or That s Country amp Western or Oh that s Opera you know what I mean But that s not what I asked They re answering a question I didn t ask What they re saying is That s the music What I m saying is What is the song And the song is either I ve done you wrong or Baby I love you so no matter what style it s played in In other words there s a huge difference between content and style and if you work more towards content why not make it content that is original If it s already been written why write it again If it s already been said why say it again I mean there are some remarkable quotes that I love But I didn t say them And you don t want to pass them off as your own work Napoleon said that Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted And that actually has governed my life You know what I mean That s a quote you can live by But it s not my quote So if I say it I always credit it to Napoleon There is another way of saying any of the things you want to say rather than rehashing someone else s words I think of songs as cinema really It s aural cinema I want to show you a movie when I m playing a song That s essentially what I m doing And of course the songs are geographical too One of the ways I get inspired to write a song and this will always produce a song that sounds like nothing else I can t recommend this highly enough I just open a world atlas just at random and whatever page I m looking at at least six songs immediately occur to me So if you look at pretty much any of the songs a lot of them are geographical historical and form a movie Discography EditStudio albums Edit Year Album Peak chart positions CertificationsUS AUS 22 UK1967 Bedsitter Images Label CBS Initial Release October 1967 1969 Love Chronicles Label CBS Epic US Initial Release September 1969 1970 Zero She Flies Label CBS Initial Release April 1970 401972 Orange Label CBS Initial Release January 1972 1973 Past Present and Future Label CBS Janus US Initial Release October 1973 133 1975 Modern Times Label CBS Janus US Initial Release January 1975 30 1976 Year of the Cat Label RCA Janus US Initial Release July 1976 5 10 38 US Platinum UK Gold1978 Time Passages Label RCA Arista US Initial Release September 1978 10 15 39 US Platinum UK Silver1980 24 Carrots with Shot in the Dark Label RCA Arista US Initial Release August 1980 37 51 551984 Russians amp Americans Label RCA Passport US Initial Release May 1984 831988 Last Days of the Century Label Enigma Initial Release August 1988 1993 Famous Last Words Label EMI Mesa US Initial Release September 1993 1995 Between the Wars with Laurence Juber Label EMI Mesa US Initial Release May 1995 2000 Down in the Cellar Label EMI Miramar US Initial Release October 2000 2005 A Beach Full of Shells Label EMI Appleseed US Initial Release June 2005 2008 Sparks of Ancient Light Label EMI Appleseed US Initial Release September 2008 Live albums Edit Year Album Peak chart positionsUS AUS 22 1981 Live Indian Summer Label RCA Arista US Initial Release October 1981 110 501992 Rhymes in Rooms with Peter White Label EMI Mesa US Initial Release March 1992 2009 Uncorked with Dave Nachmanoff Label Wallaby Trails Initial Release September 2009 Singles Edit Year Song Peak chart positions Album B WAUS 22 Canada RPM 100 Canada AC NZ SA 23 US Hot 100 US AC UK1966 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 1971 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 13 3 8 15 8 8 31 Year of the Cat Broadway Hotel 1977 Sand in Your Shoes 6 Lord Grenville 1977 On the Border 47 8 42 23 Flying Sorcery 1978 Time Passages 36 10 1 7 1 Time Passages Almost Lucy 1979 Song on the Radio 29 3 29 10 A Man For All Seasons 1980 Midnight Rocks 85 79 46 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 24 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 An Introduction To Al Stewart 2017 References Edit Al Stewart Bio MTV VH1 Archived from the original on 4 April 2008 Retrieved 6 April 2013 Boulder Weekly by Wehaa npaper wehaa com Archived from the original on 1 August 2017 Retrieved 4 May 2018 Brocken Michael 2003 The British Folk Revival 1944 2002 Ashgate Publishing Ltd p 110 ISBN 978 0 7546 3282 5 OCLC 51389150 a b Brown Joe 18 February 2009 Al Stewart Heady concert to engage history in singer s lyrics Las Vegas Sun Las Vegas Archived from the original on 21 February 2009 Retrieved 19 February 2009 Stewart says on the phone from his home in Los Angeles a b c Kaya Burgess 12 May 2009 Al Stewart the return of the cat The Times London Retrieved 12 May 2009 Appleseedrec com Appleseedrec com Archived from the original on 28 September 2011 Retrieved 6 April 2013 Al Stewart Biography Billboard Archived from the original on 26 September 2015 Retrieved 12 May 2014 Alastair MacKichan Stewart The University of Glasgow Story Archived from the original on 31 July 2013 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 Archived from the original on 2 February 2013 Retrieved 6 April 2013 Al Stewart s passing time very well after Time Passages St Petersburg Times 11 January 1979 retrieved from Google News Archive Interview With Al Stewart www ciut fm Archived from the original on 27 September 2011 David Dudley 12 October 1995 Living in the Past Page 1 Music Miami New Times Archived from the original on 28 July 2012 Retrieved 6 April 2013 Liner notes Down in the Cellar Elvis at the Wheel Al Stewart Official Music Video 20 December 2013 Archived from the original on 14 October 2014 Retrieved 22 March 2014 via YouTube Dave Nachmanoff News www davenach com Archived from the original on 25 March 2009 Al Stewart and Ry Cooder receive lifetime achievement gongs at BBC Folk Awards News amp Star 6 April 2017 Retrieved 1 June 2018 I m probably the wrong person to talk about vacations because I really don t like them April 2022 a b Nichols Thomas M Spring 2001 Soldiers and War A Top Ten List International Journal Canadian International Council 56 2 312 316 317 doi 10 2307 40203558 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 doi 10 2307 40203558 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 IN DEPTH RADIO Podcast Episodes NEWSTALK 1010 Archived from the original on 22 March 2014 Retrieved 22 March 2014 a b c Kent David 1993 Australian Chart Book 1970 1992 illustrated ed St Ives N S W Australian Chart Book p 294 ISBN 0 646 11917 6 SA Charts 1965 March 1989 Retrieved 9 January 2019 Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time www alstewart com Archived from the original on 6 August 2007 External links EditOfficial website Al Stewart at AllMusic Blogcritics org Al Stewart Collection Interviews Discography more Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Al Stewart amp oldid 1125817054, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.