ALBUM: ‘Year of the Cat’
MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$
The sound of the record was what struck me first. Though it may be available remastered now, it wasn’t when I picked it up in high school in Athens, Ga, at WUXTRY. The guitar solos were executed wonderfully and seemed to hang in the air allowing it to sink into your cerebellum.
This is one where teen-age audiophiles would pick to show of their super sonics. That, and of course, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The thread that binds these albums, nay not thread, the ROPE, tying them together was Alan Parsons of the Alan Parsons Project and producer of DSOFTM and Year of the Cat.
One day about 15 years ago, I was working at the Oakland Tribune newspaper and Alabama News Group. when I got a call from my wife that Al Stewart was playing for free at a church in Marin County (Ross to be exact). It was on my way home and I got there to find standing room only. It was him on guitar and, I believe, a piano accompanist.
This is one I’m giving a ‘5’ and I’ll admit it is partially for nostalgic reasons. It also had an appeal to musicians who liked the interplay between guitar, keyboards and strings. If you’ve followed my blog you know I don’t give out ‘5’s very much at all. But this one does it with literacy, musicianship and that it was different then pop/rock that was coming out at the time. Rick Wakeman, of the progressive rock group Yes played on this record. If you can’t tell from many of the song’s names, Stewart writes on historical events and weaving his own story within the historical context.