Al Stewart

Al Stewart, born Alastair Ian Stewart on September 5, 1945 in Glasgow, Scotland and raised in Wimborne, Dorset, England, is a singer-songwriter renowned for blending folk-based songwriting with rich historical and literary narrative. In the mid-1960s London folk scene he shared flats and stages with figures like Paul Simon, Bert Jansch, Cat Stevens, and Roy Harper, and his 1969 album «Love Chronicles», featuring guitar work by Jimmy Page, was named Folk Album of the Year by Melody Maker. He performed at the very first Glastonbury Festival in 1970.

Stewart's commercial breakthrough came through his collaboration with producer Alan Parsons: 1975's «Modern Times» reached the American Top 40, and 1976's «Year of the Cat» became his defining work, with its title track — built around jazzy, cinematic instrumentation rather than typical folk-rock arrangements — reaching the American and British charts and remaining his best-known song. His songwriting is distinguished by its use of history as subject matter, weaving in figures and events like the Russian Civil War («Roads to Moscow»), Josephine Baker, and Cold War geopolitics («Russians & Americans») into melodic, narrative-driven pop-folk.

Stewart continued performing well into the 2010s, notably reprising «Past, Present and Future» and «Year of the Cat» in full at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2015 with longtime collaborators Tim Renwick, Peter White, and Stuart Elliott. In 2017 he received a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, cementing his status as one of folk-rock's most literate songwriters.