Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

British folk musician comes to Santa Fe Station

Al Stewart

Courtesy photo

Al Stewart performs at 8 p.m. on Feb. 20 at the Santa Fe Station.

If Al Stewart had to pick the single he would best be known for, it wouldn't have been "Year of the Cat," the 6 1/2 minute love ballad that he plays these days like it's his business card.

At the time, 1976, it's what people wanted to hear, said the 63-year-old British folk rock musician. Apparently it still is. The live performances of that hit song, which starts with the lyric "On a morning from a Bogart movie," are his top YouTube videos.

But the audience at his 8 p.m. Feb. 20 concert at the Santa Fe Station isn't necessarily going to hear "Year of the Cat."

The songs picked by record companies as "hit singles" that somehow do make it onto pop charts aren't often the musician's best song, Stewart said. And perhaps that's a good thing — so the audience can be spellbound at concerts by the rest of the album, like from his favorites "Past, Present and Future" (1973) and "Modern Times" (1975).

He dismisses common perceptions of "good music." In his mind, it's not what's played on the radio. And it's not on pop charts.

He has written and recorded 19 albums in 40 years and not repeated anything twice, he said. Stewart said that's key to being a great musician: "putting words into songs that have never been in songs before."

For example, just the other day Stewart sat down and wrote this line: "He was the traveling seller of javelins and archery goods and supplies, and she was his April surprise."

As far as Stewart knows, no one has ever used a javelin salesman in a song.

This is the unorthodox art environment that Stewart has kept himself in.

He was part of the folk revival in Britain in the 1960s and '70s, which puts him in the same cafes (Bungie's Coffee Bar), clubs (Les Cousins in London) and homes (next door to Simon & Garfunkel) as the best folk musicians of any generation.

Stewart was near all those famous names and places that made anti-establishment baby boomers (and the mod hipsters who have more in common with their grandparents than they'd care to admit) collectively "ooh" with envy.

He was thrown out of a public park by police while singing harmony to "Sound of Silence" with Paul Simon.

"It was wonderful. You never knew who was going to walk through the door," he said. "It was artsy. It was poetic, beatnik-y. It wasn't popular mainstream, and we liked it that way."

Stewart was inspired by superstar Bob Dylan when he came to Britain in the mid-1960s.

"The 'Times They Are a-Changin' really did it for me. I learned every word," Stewart said.

Stewart's songs shine a light onto history, such as the eight-minute "Roads to Moscow" which describes the German invasion during a Russian winter. He calls himself more of a lyricist than a musician. A content writer.

He's a history buff and a wordsmith who listens to talk radio in the car. While at home he'll choose to read rather than listen to music. When he is listening to music, it's to groups such as U.K. indie rock band Elbow and Arcade Fire, a Canadian indie rock band.

Fashion is fleeting. Pop bands enter and exit. Corporations come and go, he says.

"But the people I grew up with, the people who I started out with, are still out there playing."

His family wanted him to go into a safe career, like business, he said. But, here it is a recession and Stewart said he's still making a living playing music.

"That goes to show you, schoolteachers, parents, know nothing."

Ticket prices for the Chrome Room show start at $20. For information call 547-5300.

Becky Bosshart can be reached at 990-7748 or [email protected].

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