This is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m wishing you a good version of your own of what has been the best day of the year so far for me with yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A Scottish folk revivalist figure who found prominence in the 60’s and 70’s as a unique songwriter who would combine soft rock songs with stories of different characters or significant events from history, Al Stewart is a talent of delicate weaving who once recorded a very fitting single to ring the New Year in with his 1976 offering, ‘Year Of The Cat’. For a musician who played a live set at the inaugural Glastonbury festival in 1970, reportedly knew Yoko Ono before John Lennon caught wind of her activist work, and shared a flat in London with equally memorable artist Paul Simon when he was frequently collaborating with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers fame in his younger years – Al Stewart scored a #8 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977 with ‘Year Of The Cat’. Famously described by AllMusic as “one of those mysterious woman songs” nearer to the time, Stewart recorded the track as the title single of his seventh studio LP release during a session at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London, before recording sequences from his live tour, including one performance in Seattle, for a live album, ‘The First Year Of The Cat Tour Live In Seattle’, to spring off its success one year later, where the album had become a top five chart hit in the US. Becoming a popular record to be used to demonstrate Hi-Fi demonstration, ‘Year Of The Cat’ was certified Platinum to indicate sales of over one million copies in the US during 1977. Get the kettle on, take a moment to reflect, and hear a tale of a love affair in Casablanca as we enter 2022 as a ‘Year Of The Cat’ below.
When Al Stewart stormed the mainstream with ‘Year Of The Cat’, you may be forgiven for believing him to be an overnight sensation but, in reality, it took him six previous albums worth of material and logging a bundle of hours on the Folk festival circuit before achiveing his stardom. Described by Stewart during his live set at Seattle’s Paramount theater as “a South African love song”, it remains to be the only appearance in the UK Singles charts for Stewart, who reached #31 with ‘Year Of The Cat’, a track which he ironically wrote and recorded during the Vietnamese Year Of The Cat, as it was the Year Of The Rabbit previously in China. Kicking proccedings off with a straightforward Piano line, the guitars flutter along beautifully as Al continues to kick into a higher gear with his combination of soft Rock ‘N’ Roll melodies and Progressive Pop rhythms that eventually morph into a stirring symphony of romantic guitar arrangements and radiant Piano chords as Stewart’s moving vocals concerning a whirlwind relationship in an exotic locale hit their timeless mark. Lyrics like “On a morning from a Bogart movie, In a country where they turn back time” hit their stride as Stewart sets up a vibrant scene of a one-time fling transforming into something much more substantial. Lyrics in the verses like “She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running, Like a watercolour in a rain” ignite more poignant sparks that make the otherwise sensual lyrics feel genuinely meaningful in the story, which is nicely complemented by the elegant String sections and the somewhat downbeat vocals by Stewart that provide a grounded take on the flirtatious dialogue between the two partners. It almost feels like Stewart is singing a duet meant for two vocalists on his own for the most part and he strikes a great balance between poise and sincerity with the delivery. Moving on to the instrumentation, we find Stewart bursting through various styles and motifs throughout the song – including a long instrumental section that leans towards classical Jazz with a colourful Saxophone solo and taking turns between the explosive guitar solo and the abruptly placed Brass instrumentation, but his production feels coherent enough as all of these varied elements complement the warmth of the lyrical mood. Overall, through melding his anecdotal storytelling that seems quite influential for the likes of Jens Lekman later on, and playing with the contemporary Blues song structure of the time, Stewart created a suitable story for New Year’s season with a very stylish and sophisticated range of talents. With that – I wish you a fantastic new year, and I cannot wait to hear the music contained within it.
That brings us to the end of the coverage for the best day of the year so far on One Track At A Time and, as always, I thank you a great deal for your interest and support towards the site every day. After a brief hiatus, ‘Scuzz Sundays’ returns to its normally scheduled placement from tomorrow onwards, where we will be remembering a popular track from a very famous East Bay native punk rock band who found fame in the early 1990’s as we kick off the new year with familiarity. One of their tracks is the centerpiece of a Broadway musical, ‘American Idiot’, that was first performed in 2010.
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