McCartney Times

Prior to 1976, Al Stewart was a folk rock artist with an inclination to write songs with historical and geographical references.After the release of the “Year of the Cat” album, Stewart still wrote songs with historical and geographical references, but he suddenly was propelled to international stardom as the album’s title song became a massive hit.ADVERTISINGAnd nobody was more surprised than Stewart himself.“When (the record company) said they were releasing ‘Year of the Cat’ as a single, I thought they were crazy. I put it last on the album because it was the album’s longest song (six and a half minutes), and I thought it was the least commercial,” Stewart said.“But they said no, we think it’s a hit. … It wasn’t on my horizon that I would have a hit single, especially in America. It just seemed impossible. And I wasn’t aiming at that. I wanted to be, I don’t know, Leonard Cohen. I wanted to be a serious writer and didn’t really want to be a pop star at all, but the powers that be decided that people would go out and buy it and they did.”The album’s title song reached No. 8 on the Billboard charts and hit the top 15 in eight different countries.On Thursday night at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, Stewart will revisit the songs from the album, as well as other tunes from his five decades in the music business. The Empty Pockets, a Chicago-based band, will accompany him, along with a saxophonist.The song opens with a characteristically Stewart-esque lyric:On a morning from a Bogart moviein a country where they turn back timeyou go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorrecontemplating a crimeStewart said he still has affection for the song but doesn’t consider it his best. In fact, he says two other songs on the album — “Lord Grenville” and “Flying Sorcery” — are better.“There are stronger songs, lyrically, on the record, but ‘Year of the Cat’ is the one everyone seems to like,” he said in a telephone interview from his home near Santa Monica. “I think it’s because they like the music, frankly. I don’t think it’s such a big lyrical event, it’s just something that people like the sound of it.”Now 72 years old, Stewart grew up in England and as a teenager worked his way into the London folk, rock and arts scene in the mid-1960s, developing an almost Zelig-like quality of meeting and mingling with notable names.He shared a flat with Paul Simon. A kid named Jimmy Page performed on one of Stewart’s early recordings. He played in a band that opened for the Rolling Stones, bought a guitar from Andy Summers (who years later became the guitar player for The Police), and knew John Lennon before he met Yoko Ono and knew Yoko Ono before she met John Lennon.Hanging around an art house, Stewart heard an artist from Japan was looking for people to chip in 100 pounds each to fund an art film she was making.“I said, ‘Tell me about your film.’ And she said, ‘It’s going to called Film No. 4 and it’s going to be 360 naked bottoms, 15 seconds with the camera on each of them. And that’s it.’ So she talked me out of 100 pounds and I duly became one of the co-producers of Film No. 4, which I think only seven people in the world have seen.”The then-financially strapped Stewart did get his money back, shortly after Lennon began seeing Ono.“My girlfriend at the time said, ‘We really need that hundred pounds,’ ” Stewart said, so he wrote Lennon a letter.“Six days later, I got a check in the mail signed by John Lennon. That created another problem which was, what do I do with this thing? I’ve got John Lennon’s signature on a check and perhaps if I keep it it will be worth more in the future. But we actually needed groceries, so I cashed it.”When: 8 p.m. ThursdayWhere: Belly Up, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana BeachTickets: Sold out (must be 21 or older)Phone: (858) 481-8140Online: https://bellyupsolanabeach.frontgatetickets.com

Source: The return of the cat: Al Stewart plays the songs from his 1976 breakout album – The San Diego Union-Tribune