Year of the Cat – Al Stewart (1976)

Description

Additional information about this Al Stewart vinyl art.

Al Stewart – The Artist

Alastair Ian Stewart (Born 1945) is a British 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. 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 returned in later albums. 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, shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon, and hosted at the Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s. 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.

Year of the Cat – The Song

‘Year of the Cat’  is a song by British singer-songwriter Al Stewart, released as a single in July 1976 in the UK. The song is the title track of his 1976 album Year of the Cat, and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, in January 1976 by engineer Alan Parsons. Although Stewart’s highest charting single on that chart was 1978’s “Time Passages”, “Year of the Cat” has remained Stewart’s signature recording, receiving regular airplay on both classic rock and folk rock stations. The track is noted for its lengthy instrumental sections—over four minutes of the 6:40 album version is instrumental, including a long, melodic series of solos that encompass cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitar, distorted electric guitar, synthesiser and saxophone. Co-written by Peter Wood, “Year of the Cat” is a narrative song written in the second person whose protagonist, a tourist, is visiting an exotic market when a mysterious silk-clad woman appears and takes him away for a gauzy romantic adventure. On waking the next day beside her, the tourist realises, with equanimity, that his tour bus has left without him and he has lost his ticket.

The Walking Cat – The Shape

This record has been cut into the silhoutte of a walking cat with its tail held high.

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