Trending
STATE COLLEGE -- When Al Stewart plays the State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave., this weekend, he brings 50 years' experience on the road and in the studio.
Best known for the radio staples "Year of the Cat" (1976) and "Time Passages" (1978), the veteran rocker will appear with his long-time guitarist Dave Nachmanoff at 8 p.m. Saturday.
But die-hard Al Stewart fans -- of whom there are many -- find much more to like about him than a couple of late-seventies hits.
Indeed, by the time the "Year of the Cat" and "Time Passages" LP's went platinum -- with their eponymous singles shooting up the charts -- Stewart had already released several dandies: 1973's "Past, Present and Future," 1975's "Modern Times" and the earlier "Love Chronicles," which Melody Maker magazine dubbed Folk Album of the Year.
Astute readers may notice Stewart's obsession with the passage of time -- not only in all the titles above but also in such other records as "Sparks of Ancient Light," "Between the Wars," "Indian Summer" and "Last Days of the Century."
That's one reason the singer-songwriter has been called "the king of historical folk-rock" -- a distinction Stewart himself admits is narrow but apt.
A tour of his 16 studio albums -- and of his nearly 200 songs -- turns up wide-ranging references to major historical figures like Eisenhower, Elvis and Stalin, along with many other lesser-knowns: Nazi tank commander Heinz Guderian; black entertainer and French resistance agent Josephine Baker; early British aviator Amy Johnson; Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator; warship hero Richard Grenville; French assassin Charlotte Corday; and 16th-century prophet Nostradamus, subject of a 10-minute cult-fave song from "Past, Present and Future."
The singer's website now sells a poster patterned on the face-filled cover of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" album -- in this case, crammed with 179 people referenced in the Stewart canon. Rolling Stone magazine named him "the Alistair Cooke of rock."
Alastair Ian Stewart was born in Scotland in 1945; his father was killed in World War II before he was born. Shortly afterward, Stewart moved to London with his mother, eventually buying his first guitar from future Police rocker Andy Summers.
He was active in the sixties British folk-rock scene, playing at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970 and working with an impressive array of talent: Jimmy Page (soloist on "Love Chronicles"); Robert Fripp, from whom Stewart took lessons; Yoko Ono; Rick Wakeman; Richard Thompson; Tori Amos; Ian MacDonald (of both Foreigner and King Crimson); and Paul Simon, with whom Stewart once shared an apartment.
Two of his favorite collaborators were jazz guitarist Peter White, who played on several LP's, and legendary producer Alan Parsons. The latter, best known as the engineer behind "Abbey Road" and "Dark Side of the Moon," also produced Stewart's "Modern Times," "Year of the Cat" and "Time Passages."
An exceptionally nimble and literate composer, Stewart is famous for long rambling banter in concert, and for the way his lyrics make deliberate use of words that do not appear in other rock tunes -- for example, "dreadnoughts," "cormorant," "Naughahyde," "ailerons" and (from "Year of the Cat") "patchouli."
Look for plenty of this on Saturday, when he and Nachmanoff play selections from the entirety of Stewart's career.
As of press time, tickets were still available.