Okay, everyone over 45 years-old knows Al Stewart as the guy who did Year of the Cat during the disco era. This album is great and showed off what a talented and versatile artist Al Stewart was and is. However, I like to think of him as the guy who recorded Nostradamus.

Al is a Scottish singer-songwriter who, much like Chris deBurgh, combines music with history. I spent many hours learning the balaika-like guitar parts at the beginning of Roads to Moscow, a song that rivals Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald and Chris deBurgh’s Spanish Train in its history and intensity. Only he could have written a song documenting the Blitzkreig invasion of Hitler’s force into Russia in 1941, from the planes being destroyed on the ground to the inevitable defeat of the German army in 1945 with the line, “Two broken Tigers (German tanks) on fire in the night . . . . flicker their souls to the wind.”

Alistar Ian Stewart was born on Sept. 5, 1941 In Glasgow, Scotland. He never really cared for top 40 hits and his earlier 1960’s material was very long, up to 18 minutes! Past Present and Future was released in 1972 and that’s when I first heard of him. Ever since he has been a mainstay on my playlist.

Al Stewart

The latest CD I have is Between the Wars which features wonderful guitar work and vocals EQ’d to match 1930’s mid-range tones. With songs like Last Train to Munich (about the 1938 conference where Britain and France gave a chunk of Czechoslovakia to Hitler and, essentially, began the Second World War. And there’s Joe the Georgian (Stalin) where he recounts to the slide into 1939 and World War II with a naive and joyous beat where the underlying theme forshadows the terrifying events going on in the U.S.S.R. at the time.

I just ordered A Beach Full of Shells. Hope it comes in before the weekend.