Al Stewart with The Empty Pockets Live at The New Hope Winery

Ask Al Stewart to sum up where he is now, musically speaking, and you’re likely to wind up two steps behind where you started; this is by no means an unusual circumstance in conversation with Al, keenly aware as he is that making a leap forward often entails taking a step backward. Sometimes it’s into the library stacks where the late historian Ms. Tuchman dug for material. Sometimes it’s into the record stacks where the late rocker Mr. Cochran made his mark as a teenager singing his “Summertime Blues” so many summertime’s ago.
Al Stewart came to stardom as part of the legendary British folk revival in the sixties and seventies and developed the combination of folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of the great characters and events from history. Stewart has 19 studio albums between “Bedsitter Images” in 1967 and “Sparks of Ancient Light” in 2008, plus the live album “Uncorked” with Dave Nachmanoff in 2009.
Al continues to tour extensively around the U.S. and Europe. He is perhaps best known for his hits ‘Year of the Cat” from the Platinum album of the same name and the Platinum follow up album “Time Passages.” But his career spans four decades as a key figure in British music. He played at the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, worked with Yoko Ono pre-Lennon and shared a London apartment with a young Paul Simon.
“British talent Al Stewart has always been obsessed with romantic literature and history, marking him as the most incongruous of folk-flavored “pop” singers. ‘Year of the Cat’ delivered Al a fluke hit – once. And the man is still going his own merry way on Sparks of Ancient Light (A-), citing the likes of Greek mythology, former president William McKinley, an Elvis sighting and ‘(A Child’s View of) The Eisenhower Years.’ But the guy sings and writes as well as he ever did, and in his quirky, bemused and literate way he’s delivered one of the finest albums of his career.”
– Jonathan Takiff – Philadelphia Daily News