Folk veteran Stewart brings more than hits to town
Thursday, February 11, 2010 13:59
By JIM TRAGESER - jtrageser@nctimes.com
For his hard-core fans, an appearance by self-proclaimed historical folk music singer Al Stewart is a chance to hear him perform a mix of songs from the 20 albums that he’s recorded since the late ’60s.
For the more casual fan of a certain age, for whom “Year of the Cat” and “Time Passages” will forever be associated with their youth —- well, Stewart (who plays Feb. 12 at Anthology in San Diego) thinks you probably don’t really know his music all that well. Not that he doesn’t welcome new fans of his gentle narrative folk songs that explore different chapters of history —- but he wants people to know that “Time Passages” and “Year of the Cat” aren’t really representative of his career.
“It’s a mixed blessing, really,” Stewart said during a phone interview earlier this week from his L.A.-area home. “The hits are a calling card. If someone says my name, there’s some faint recognition.
“I spent 10 years on the English folk scene, and then Alan Parsons took a song which is not really a commercial song, and plastered it with strings and overdubs. If I played you ‘Year of the Cat’ on an acoustic guitar the way it was written, it would never have been a hit in a million years.
“There was a two-year period where we spent lots of money on production and people bought lots of records. But what I did before and after has nothing to do with that period.
“I’m not a pop singer —- I’m a writer of folk-historicial songs.”
Not that he’s bitter about that success. As the Glasgow-born Stewart points out, those two songs opened a lot of doors for him. Not a few people who found themselves humming along to his hits ended up becoming lifelong fans. And the financial security provided by having two hits played on oldies radio is not easily dismissed, either.
Although he laughingly pointed out, “It took me 20 years to recover from being ostracized from the English folk scene, who thought I sold out!”
A discussion of his most recent recording, 2008’s “Sparks of Ancient Lights,” led to a wide-ranging discussion of the roots of World War I —- a topic Stewart has addressed in song. He’s also written about Warren Harding, the Duke of Marlborough, and recently rewrote Don McLean’s lyrics for the classic “American Pie” and moved the story to 18th century Russia.
“I can’t say that I will write about anything that anyone else will write about it —- if it hasn’t been covered by anyone else, then I’m your man,” he said of his own songwriting. (And how many songwriters cite the late historian Barbara Tuchman as an influence?)
“There’s room for one historical folk music singer in the world to make a living, and I happen to be it.”
Stewart said that the venues he plays in determine how the evening’s show will go. Audience expectations are different at a public arts center, for instance, than at a night club.
“What tends to happen in arts center environments is they’ll have a Hungarian choir, then jugglers the next week —- which means that people tend to buy season tickets. It could be 75 percent of them don’t know me —- they don’t know anything about me! ‘Oh, he plays guitar and sings —- that sounds nice, we’ll go out and see him.’
“A completely different dynamic is at work because they judge the songs based on whether they like them or not, not whether they’ve heard them before.
“When I play a club, the more obscure the better —- they definitely don’t want to hear ‘Year of the Cat’!”
Stewart said this will be his third show at Anthology. “Whenever I’m there, it brings out the jazziness with me. The very next night, I’m playing McCabe’s here in Santa Monica, which brings out the folkie in me.
“You pick up the vibes in a room, and it influences the playing.”
But he added that he also works hard to make sure that he doesn’t play the same show for the same crowd —- and that he goes back through his entire catalog to revisit songs that he hasn’t played in a while.
“We try to never play the same songs twice —- we’ll make a strenuous effort to play things we’ve never played there before.”
Even songs that he does bring back in shows, he reworks.
“‘On the Border’ we have to play every show; people demand it. But we change it all the time. It may not look it from the perspective of the audience, but in the middle of a song I’ll wonder how it would work with completely different chords! Sometimes we play different time signatures. I’ve played ‘Time Passages’ in 6/8 time —- I’ve turned it into an Irish jig. It mystified the audience; I think some of them were mad at me for mauling my own song.”
He said he will also regularly throw in new songs that aren’t on any of his records.
“I wrote a song about a javelin salesman the other day,” he said, laughing. “I set myself small tasks, and that was one of them: Can I write a song about a traveling salesman of javelins?”
While he said he stays busy writing, he also said a follow-up to “Sparks of Ancient Light” is unlikely.
“I don’t have any plans to make a record when there aren’t any record shops —- it’s a self-defeating thing. There’s no money in it. If you can’t sell it, why make it?
“If the music industry sorts itself out and there’s some way to make it pay for itself, then sure. But I’ve got 20 records out already —- how many historical folk songs does the world need?”
Al Stewart
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12
Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., San Diego
Tickets: $29
Info: 619-595-0300
Web: alstewart.com
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Via nctimes.com
