Al Stewart began his songwriting career during his school days in Bournemouth. He was writing skiffle songs when he was 13 but also writing poems instead of doing prep.
He played in a number of beat groups (including a spell backing Tony Blackburn before he became a disc jockey) and moved to London in February 1965, where he shared a house with Paul Simon.
Al began playing in folk clubs – starting at Bunjie’s coffee house in Covent Garden – and, in 1967, he released his first album on CBS entitled Bedsitter Images. The following year saw him performing college dates around Britain.
Love Chronicles was released in January 1969 and was voted Folk Album Of The Year by Melody Maker. It was a uniquely autobiographical album that evoked, though intensely personal in its images, a great deal of sympathy in its listener.
Zero She Flies came out in March 1970 but stalled at #40 in the album charts. Later that year, Stewart performed at the very first Glastonbury Festival to a field of 1,000 hippies, who had paid just £1 each to be there. Orange followed in 1972.
Past, Present and Future (1973) was Stewart’s first album to receive a proper release in the United States, where the album reached #133 on the Billboard album chart.
Modern Times (1975) produced Stewart’s first hit single, Carol, and the album reached #30 in the US.
Moving to RCA Records, he released the albums Year Of The Cat (1976) and Time Passages (1978) – his biggest-selling albums. Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with Year of the Cat peaking at #5 and producing the hit single of the same name, which became an instant classic and is still played on radio around the world today.
Al Stewart could not repeat the success of the albums, and subsequent recordings – 24 Carrots (1980) and Live/Indian Summer (1981) sold disappointingly as his popularity declined. Nevertheless, he continued to tour the world, release albums, and maintain a loyal fanbase.
In May 2015, Stewart performed the albums Past, Present and Future and Year of the Cat in their entirety at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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