![]() ![]() They included alto saxophonist Phil Kenzie, guitarist Tim Renwick, multi-instrumentalist Peter White, keyboardist Peter Wood, and drummer Stuart Elliott. Many of the key players from Year of the Cat returned for the Time Passages sessions held at Los Angeles' Davlen Studios. I think that's the only time in my life I've ever been offered any career advice by a record company executive.Clive Davis definitely knew what he wanted, and that was something that sounded like Year of the Cat, so we made the Time Passages album." Mark Powell's liner notes quote Stewart: "He told me he definitely wanted a song with a saxophone on it, and in the end I would give him two, both of which would make the American top 30. Janus label following Year of the Cat, Stewart signed with Clive Davis' Arista Records - and the mogul had very concrete ideas about what he wanted to hear. In Al Stewart's case, necessity was the mother of invention. A 3-CD/DVD Super Deluxe edition is available now alongside a 2-CD Deluxe highlights version. Now, Time Passages is receiving the same expanded and remastered treatment from Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings arm as Year of the Cat did earlier this year. And while Year of the Cat, the album, charted higher than Time Passages, the latter's title track was a bigger hit in the U.S. During this purple patch, Stewart earned his first hit singles in the United States, transitioning from folk troubadour at home to bona fide pop star abroad. ![]() The better albums after TP in my opinion are ‘Famous Last Words’, ‘Between the Wars’, and his latest, ‘A Beach Full of Shells’.1978's Time Passages concluded British singer-songwriter Al Stewart's trilogy of albums with producer-engineer Alan Parsons which began with 1975's Modern Times and continued with the following year's Year of the Cat. So his first four albums were not much, his next four are incredible, and after that he’s had many more which I think are all good - which is why I keep buying them - but not up that work he did from ’74 to ’78. There’s a few good moments, but altogether not impressive. I think it’s a bit disappointing, and I can see why All trashes them in the interview. Much later, a two-CD set called ‘To Whom It May concern’ was published, which contains some tunes from the first four albums that had not been available in the US. With ‘Time Passages’, those four albums are probably my AS favorites. I got them both and think they are great. As is my wont, when I like an artist I start looking for previous material.Īt the time, only ‘Past, Present, and Future’ and ‘Modern Times’ were available (his first four albums were not in the US). I first learned of AS with YotC like a lot of people. ![]() What can I say Jungian radio (AKA – the song that pops up in your head for no reason…) has a will of its own.įun fact: Al Stewart is credited for having been the first songwriter to drop the dreaded ‘F’ bomb in a pop song, although he himself doesn’t agree. Our past is part of what makes us what we are, after all.Īt this point in time, everyone must think that I’ve got my head stuck in the late 70s to mid-80s when it comes to this whole ‘songs in my head’ thing. Where it is not helpful to be stuck in the past, neither is it helpful to discard it. Maybe it’s the idea that the events in a life are connected to something greater, that they are as important as events to come because they help to define our points of view, our very personalities. There is something comforting in that idea, although I’m not sure what it might be. The English Romantic poet William Wordsworth who wrote in the 1700-early 1800s thought it to be pretty compelling too. But another big reason is that the song resonates with me – that I believe that when memories of places and people in the past rise up in one’s mind, it can make time itself seem like an illusion. But by the mid-70s, he began to get a lot of radio play around a slick soft rock approach, one of the biggest being the title track off of his 1976 LP Year of the Cat, which was a travelogue tale of romance.īut, ‘Time Passages’ for me has always been a favourite, because it ironically transports me back to my childhood, and the sounds of late 70s- early 80s radio. Stewart started his career in the 60s, and built somewhat of a reputation for period pieces – neo-folk songs which were set during the course of historical events (‘Roads to Moscow’) or centred around figures in history (‘ Nostradamus‘). Taken from his 1978 album of the same name, Al Stewart’s ‘Time Passages’ is all about the power of memory, and the fact that memories sometimes appear out of nowhere and surprise you – either happily, or not. ![]()
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