Al Stewart Has History On His Side
Al Stewart was so incensed by the historical errors in television’s “Peter the Great” miniseries that he retaliated by writing a revisionist history of the Civil War.
It was set in Alaska, Dudley Moore played Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army was portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.
Regrettably, we’ll never see Stewart’s satiric screenplay, but to compensate, he will be sharing his music Thursday at The Met.
Stewart is the Scottish-born, history-obsessed singer/songwriter who intrigued FM-radio audiences in the mid-‘70s with such epics as “Nostradamus” and “Roads to Moscow” and later hit it big with “Year of the Cat” and “On the Border.”
Although he has dropped from sight since, he has continued to produce literate, thoughtful and accessible folk-pop songs, most of them with a historical bent. His latest CD, on Mesa Records, is called “Between The Wars” and evokes the bittersweet years between the two world wars.
“It’s not a brand-new concept to run history and music together,” Stewart said in a phone interview last week from his Los Angeles home. “The narrative and ballad tradition goes back to a time way before Homer and probably longer than that.”
Although he doesn’t say it straight out, it’s clear that Stewart considers music a better medium for history than either film or commercial television.
“When you’re growing up, you like to think that film producers have some sort of intelligence, but then you meet them and find most of them are marked by a complete lack of opinion.
“People without a thought in their minds end up producing films.”
Stewart’s music-making evolved in a time and place where original thinking had great currency. Though born in Glasgow, he grew up in Bournemouth, England, where he made music with the likes of Robert Fripp, founder of King Crimson.
Jimmy Page played guitar on his 1969 LP, “Love Chronicles,” which was banned from the BBC and won Folk Album of the Year from Britain’s Melody Maker publication.
Stewart was a big success on the British university circuit, where his gentle melodies and literate lyrics were appreciated.
He made the leap to the States in 1974, with his first U.S. tour and the release of “Past, Present and Future” which contained a song called “Nostradamus” that was a great hit on many FM radio stations. He followed that with a war epic, “Roads to Moscow,” setting the stage for his breakthrough success in 1977 with “Year of the Cat” and “On the Border.” In 1978, “Time Passages,” produced two hits - the title track and “Song on the Radio.”
“Past, Present and Future” each surpassed the million-copy sales mark, heady territory for a folkie singer/songwriter, but Stewart’s career hit its plateau at that point and today he looks forward to selling 5,000 to 10,000 copies of each new record.
“Talking to my peers - Loudon Wainright, Steve Forbert, the Roches, Ralph McTell - that seems to be about average. But we’ve all been extremely lucky; most of us have made a good living for 25 or 30 years and most of us still get to make records now and again.”
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Al Stewart Location and time: The Met, Thursday, 8 p.m. Tickets: $15