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Year of the Cat by Al Stewart

In its heydays the album reached no.5 on the American Billboard Album charts but even that rank doesn’t make Al Stewart a household name as other albums that reached the same or lower status on the popular albums chart. It may have gathered interest in the 70′s but today this album is almost forgottten. Who wants to remember an album that went to no.5 on the U.S charts in 1977?

Engineered by Alan Parsons and recorded at Abbey Studios, 1976 this was Al Stewart’s finest and most popular work. Though considered a folk artiste I would like to put this album under the “Pop” category as it appeals to more that category or the pop-rock category.

Al Stewart is known fo his mellifluous voice, poetry like lyrics (which can be a pain after a while), using numerous and varied musical talent on his albums. Jimmy Page played on one of his earlier albums. Other greats with whom he had collaborated are Rick Wakeman, Peter White and Richard Thompson.

Al Stewart’s lyrics are often related to historical and cultural events and people.

All said, if there is one album of Al Stewart that you should be listening to, it must this one, “Year of the Cat“.

A review of the songs:

1. Lord Grenville - Beautiful opener for the album. Such soft singing is rare these days. Lovely string arrangements laced with melancholy. Lovely ending with melancholious guitar licks and the strings in the background.

2. On the border - One of Al Stewarts most popular songs. Good keyboards almost replace the strings as background music. Nice acoustic guitar too. Tamil movie music listeners may recall Shankar-Ganesh the popular music duo of yesteryears who had a knack of lifting popular tunes. Their song “Unakkaga engum intha pithanamma” a hit in the early 80′s was based on this song of Al Stewart. And writing about lifting tunes their “Devi Koondhalo Brindavanam…” from Hermans Hermit’s “Happy Together”. Even “Meghame” their evergreen hit for singer Vani Jayaram was tune for tune copy of Jagjit Singh’s popular song “Tum Nahin”.

Here is a video of Al Stewart and his boys playing “On the border”. Check out Peter White’s solo on the classical guitar and his shirt on stage. Really sweet.

3. Midas Shadow - A slower song with soft and lovely singing with a lovely keyboard solo.

4. Sand in Your shoes - Happier songs, starts rhymey but still makes for a lovely listen. An O.K guitar solo but well played accordion in the background.

5. If it doesn’t come naturallly, leave it - Faster paced song than the two previous songs. Good song. Lots of piano work on this one and a decent guitar solo.

6. Flying Sorcery - Good song. I love the harmonica on this one and it has a lovely guitar solo too.

7. Broadway Hotel - Violin on this one with a lovely solo at the end.

8. One Stage Before - Lovely guitar solo on this one and I like the bass on this one.

9. Year of the cat - Longer song, 6 min plus, co-written by the late Peter Wood this song reached No.8 on the US Billboard chart making it Al Stewart’s most successful single. Is also the longest song on the album with piano, acoustic guitar, background strings, lead gtr; keys and saxophone solo’s makes it a befitting final and title song to end the album.

Here’s Al Stewart on the “Old Grey Whistle Test” performing “Year of the Cat” with his talented friends.

The personnel on the album – Al Stewart (vocals, keyboards); Tim Renwick, Peter White (guitar); Graham Smith (harmonica); Phil Kenzie (alto saxophone); Peter Wood, Don Lobster (keyboards); George Ford (bass); Stuart Elliot (drums, percussion); Marion Driscoll (triangle); David Pack, Tony Rivers, John Perry (background vocals).

Al Stewart can get stale over repeated albums but certainly he is no one-hit wonder.

Listen to MP3 clips of the songs here.

Buy the CD, Al Stewart’s Year of the cat from Amazon.com.

Better still download the album for free at UnlimitedDownloadCenter.com.